iChat AV 2.1 Offers Almost Nothing
posted on february 8, 2004, tag: software
As mentioned in my post over at xlab, Apple released iChat AV 2.1 "Public Beta" a few days ago. It's major feature addition is the ability to have a video chat with a Windows user (who is using the newest version of AIM and has a video camera, obviously). While that's great and all, I'll probably never use the feature because none of my PC-using friends have video cameras. What I'm disappointed about, however, is that there are seemingly no other new features in iChat AV 2.1.
By now, you'd think Apple would have added at least one new feature that affects the way you use iChat. After all, since it's incarnation, the only real change has been the ability to audio- and video-chat, but that doesn't really change things for most people, since I doubt most people are using those features on a regular basis. What Apple needs to address are the following:
Why can't I set a cusom away message from the menu bar? I can do it from the buddy list, but I can't do it from the iChat menu. See this image—all of my away messages are there, but I can't add a new one. That means that if I want a custom away message, I have to open the buddy list, click the 'Available' menu, select 'Custom...' and then create my message. And my habit is to then close the buddy list again, meaning that because I can't set a custom message from the iChat menu, I have to do a lot more work.
Groups in iChat are a joke. Almost everyone knows what groups look like in AOL Instant Messenger for windows (and all other platforms, actually). If you don't, see this screenshot. AIM uses a very simple groups system that allows you to visually separate your buddies into groups and either minimize or show each group. How does iChat handle this? It uses an absolutely ridiculous drawer that contains a list of your groups which you can toggle on or off, hiding buddies in an unchecked group completely (see screenshot). This is not groups, this is filters. They are two very different things, and this implementation is completely useless to me (not to mention it taking up far more screen space than it needs to).
Tabbed chat windows. AIM proper doesn't do it, iChat doesn't do it—but nearly all third-party AIM clients do. There's a reason for that, and it's time iChat implement tabbed chat windows. Adium in particular handles this well (even if it has the most annoying sounds ever). Here's a shot of a tabbed window in Adium:
Having one window for multiple conversations saves screen space and adds a bit of order to what is usually an annoyance if you have more than 3 chats going. I don't know why AIM has never had this feature, and I see absolutely no reason iChat shouldn't, especially since it would look a lot like Safari and users would already know how to use the feature.
I've been using iChat as my AIM client since the release of 2.0 (AV). The reason for that was not because I liked iChat better than other clients, but because it was the only one able to use video chat so simply. I still use video chat frequently, and for that reason I'm going to continue using iChat. I just wish Apple would start adding a few features that will affect me on a day-to-day basis and make my experience better.
Comments
There are 9 comments, comments are closed
dustym on 02/08/2004:
Ah, but I love the duck quacks.
Until Adium 2 gets more stable, I am using iChat. But I agree, it could be so much more.
Jon Gales on 02/08/2004:
You're right on with the tabs. I'm an old school Adium user (back before iChat) and loved the one window interface. However, I have become addicted to file-transfer, and had to get something a little more advanced.
Other features I'd like to see:
Have your Rendezvous list in the main ichat window, just have a new color for the icon (blue?).
Decent logs. 1 file per conversation is insane—I got this computer in October 2003 and have nearly 2,000 files in my logs directory. I want to at least search the logs (since ichat saves in some XMLish markup, it's hard to do via a BBedit multi file search).
Ability to turn off the "pop-to-front" feature when new people message. Not only does this suck when you're showing someone else something, it breaks concentration. Even a hot key to turn "put iChat in background" would be great. Just put everything on hold until I'm done showing this movie trailer.
Decent error messages. Ever try to add more than the max number of buddies? You get a feebag error -22 (or similar). What the hell is that? I had to download the real AIM to find out I was over the limit.
Better buddy management. The other day I logged into AIM and saw I had probably 20 duplicates from iChat being ghetto with my buddies. Probably related to my feedbag errors (see above).
That's all I can think of now, but I know there is more.
Ryan Powers on 02/08/2004:
As a basic AIM user I would be generally happy with iChat with the addition of one feature: profiles. Whether useful or not, I enjoy the whole profile deal. Use mostly to advertise my sorta-kinda-journal-weblog, but also to post different tid bits...
I'm a proteus user (but it's really buggy, v. 3.05 at least), because I can set profiles and it's slick tabbed chat windows.
So yeah, iChat also needs profile support.
Phil on 02/09/2004:
Hmm, tabbed conversations are a nice feature. I've not used Adium for a while now. I may have to check out the latest release...
I've also been using Fire recently for it's ability to handle Yahoo and MSN accounts too, although it's not as well featured as iChat (i.e. a/v conversations, address book integration, icons etc.).
Richard on 02/09/2004:
Well i for one like the fact that i can talk to my friends on the dark side. Was so hard before to find a common ground. Tried SquidCam - wow, look at the size of the window; postage stamp and no sound - cool.
They both pointed out how wonderful the latest MSN Messenger client was and kept prompting me to download the latest version for the mac, so that i could vid chat away. I of course pointed out that MS has a development pace that is very glacial when it comes to any dev for the Mac - and of course it only took 2 years to get the ability to transfer files in Messenger - so we are looking at around 2006 for vide chat for the Mac client.
So in conclusion thank god for iChat beta - and i can rub the fact that it took Apple a mere matter of months to add PC compatibility in me friends faces.
Cheers Apple.
Richard
brian w on 02/10/2004:
I'm addicted to file transfers, too. Until a third party chat client can handle them gracefully, I'm sticking with iChat and its clunky windows. As for dealing with iChat's log format, I like Logorrhea.
Brian on 02/13/2004:
Something interesting to note: AOL is developing a "grouped IM" system aka Tabbed Chats. In the new builds of the AOL Tahiti for Windows Betas, there are tabbed IM features.
James Conroy-Finn on 04/12/2004:
I haven't used iChat properly because I have one major problem. All of my friends use Messenger and hence only have stupid MSN Passports, and not AIM accounts.
Therefore, I can't add any of my friends to my iChat buddy list. Because of this iChat is somewhat useless and I'm forced to use Messenger. Although Microsoft care very little for mac users and bring out featureless Messengers for mac I have no choice but to use the horrible thing (mind you, messenger works beautifully on a pc i must say!).
Since using iChat I feel very lonely until I resort to Messenger. Boohoo! If I were to recommend a new feature to add to iChat it would be, you guessed it...
INTEGRATION OF MESSENGER USERS AND ACCOUNTS INTO iCHAT!!!! Is that so difficult?!
Please note, my website is under construction so isn't all that interesting.
well_i_like_macs on 12/11/2004:
Just out of curiosity, how hard is it for you to hit command one, which opens your buddy list and allows you easy access to your once closed buddy list.
I'll agree with you on the profile thing though, i like having a profile, and i think that apple can do something to fix that.
As for your group problems, I like the way it is set up, if you don't like someone, block them. That's all you have to do.
I also like the tabbed windows, however, I like the messageing with multiple windows also. If it bothers you use your expose, and set it so you can view all the windows at once, then your busy screen will have more order to it.