With Tiger , Apple has upgrade iChat AV with the ability to rig up multi - person video and audio chats . But there ’s more to this latest translation of OS X ’s establish - in instant electronic messaging software than the prospect of having three other the great unwashed staring back at you in video chats alternatively of just one . iChat AV 3.0 offers several new features in iChat that will concern those of us who have made instantaneous messaging an important part of our body of work and personal lives .
Multi-User Chat
allow ’s start off with the most wide roll in the hay new feature article in iChat 3 : multi - user chats . you may now produce a television chat with as many as three other masses , as well as an audio chat with as many as nine others . These features really work — we’ve tested them out ourselves . But reality is a little more complicated than Apple ’s silken video - Old World chat demos would suggest .
If you want to set up a four - individual chat with crystallization - clear video , as in those Apple demos , you ’ll need good cameras and light , but you ’ll also require four people with extremely debauched net connections . In a four - somebody chat , there ’s a whole sight of video and audio flying across the Internet to the four participating systems . It ’s a heap of datum , and even some fast Internet connections just ca n’t keep up .
To keep the schmooze exit under less than ideal luck , iChat figures out ways to deoxidise the amount of information flow across the internet . Smartly , iChat prioritise audio and the frame charge per unit of the picture signaling — without these two aspects , a video recording chat would be inept at best and unusable at bad . But since iChat has to cast something aside , photograph lineament is the first thing to go — the effect being that oftentimes a multi - person video New World chat will feature one or more participants whose video tv camera appear to have gone horribly out of focal point . ( That ’s actually iChat smartly blurring the image to polish out the ugly pixelations of the compressed video prototype . ) With three the great unwashed chit-chat , there was comparatively small blurring — but a fourth player almost always seems to bemuse a couple of people into fuzzy - camera estate .
How to get the best quality out of your video Old World chat ? key out the individual in your group with the fastest connection to the cyberspace and have them initiate the chat . iChat ’s video chats work by point one scheme as the “ host ” of the chat — the fastest system on the degraded connexion does the volume of the work . There was a noticeable difference in tone in our trial run chats when they were lead up by the guy who works as the mammoth Silicon Valley tummy instead of the guy with home - authority DSL .
Also , the organization requirements for four - soul telecasting conferencing in iChat 3 are pretty rigid : according to Apple , you must be run at least a dual-1GHz G4 or a G5 , link to the net by at least a 384Kbps connection , in gild to host a multi - person video chat ; to enter , you ’ve still have to have a 1GHz G4 , dual-800MHz G4 , or a G5 , as well as a 100Kbps connecter . So if you ’ve got a acquaintance with a firm Mac , you ’ll need to expect her to initiate the video chat for you .
Higher-Quality Video
Even when you ’re video chatting with just a unmarried Panthera tigris - using friend , the image quality in iChat 3 seems to be quite a bite better than previous versions . That ’s because of the raw H.264 video compression scheme used by iChat , which in our examination provided a crisper , politic picture .
Secure Chat
Previously , iChat supported both the AOL Instant Messenger service and local chatting via Rendezvous . Those two feature remain intact — although Rendezvous has been renamed “ Bonjour . ” But there ’s now a third server selection for iChat : Jabber .
Jabber is an subject - source chat Robert William Service protocol . Apple added it to iChat mostly because lots of businesses — yes , includingMacworld — rely on iChat to get genuine study done . And lots of technologists at those ship’s company were quite concerned that secret corporate information was being sent across the Internet via a server at AOL .
However , any business can set up a Jabber server , which permit corporal IT managers dole out prescribed corporate confab account statement — and untroubled messages sent to and from the host via SSL encryption . ( And it should n’t add up as a surprisal to anyone that the unexampled Tiger version of Mac OS X Server descend with a build - in Jabber waiter . ) Jabber clients and server are useable for every current operating system , so it ’s a ill-tempered - platform option for business - tier chatting .
Parental Controls
Tiger offer a series of user - level controls for parents from the Parental Controls tab of the Accounts system penchant pane , and one of those ascendency is stand for to be used with iChat 3 : when the iChat paternal control is selected , you’re able to circumscribe your kids ’ iChatting to a specific list of bill . So you may enable them to let the cat out of the bag with you ( yeah , like that ’s gon na happen ) , grandmother in Florida , and even a school friend — but not anyone else on the Net .
Buddy Groups Get Better
Although AOL ’s chat system offers the useful concept ofgroupsof natter buddy ’s , iChat ’s never really been up to race with that feature of speech . The first version did n’t support group at all , and iChat AV 2.0 ’s radical support was clumsy at best .
But with iChat 3 , Apple ’s catch AOL buddy groups right . Now when you turn on groups ( via prospect : Show Groups ) , each group of buddies is preceded by a collapsible grey coping . Clicking the header toggles between showing and hiding the members of that mathematical group . ( When the header ’s collapse , iChat expose the number of buddies list in that chemical group to the far right of the prevention . )
Creating and editing is easy , too . Clicking on the plus symbolization at the bottom - left corner of the Buddy List windowpane will now rent you tote up a crony or a buddy group , as well as yield you an Edit Groups option that let you add , rename , or delete radical . And move your buddies from mathematical group to group is a breeze : you’re able to promote a buddy from Acquaintances to friend by dragging their name in the chum list and dropping it atop a different group .
Although I ’ve known about brother groups for some fourth dimension , I never found them worth using in iChat . That ’s all commute now , and in iChat 3 sidekick groups make it much wanton to manage large group of confab buddies .
iTunes Meets iChat
Are you a chat - status exhibitionist ? At least half the people in my pal lean like to use their iChat status content to pass along interesting facts , including their mood and their current like and dislikes . By far the most popular subject for the chat - status exhibitionist is the music they ’re currently listening to — and with Tiger , Apple ’s work up support for it right into iChat . Just quality Current iTunes Track from the tilt of status - line selection , and iChat will automatically update itself to excogitate your currently - playing cut ’s rubric and artist .
What ’s safe for the chat - condition flasher is also good for Apple ’s online music efforts : other users of iChat 3.0 will observe an arrow icon at the end of an iChat position line . tap it and you ’ll instantly be transferred that vocal on the iTunes Music Store .
