EDITOR ’S NOTE : This is the 2nd in a ongoing series of feature - by - feature revue of oculus sinister X 10.4 . Part one looked at the pro and con of Tiger ’s spot search technology .
I ’m strike by a lot of what ’s in iChat 3.0 , the fresh edition that ’s a part of Mac OS X Tiger . The much - promote multi - user videoconferencing features are cool , but more importantly , they actually put to work .
Video chat in action : I ’ve enter in numerous test confab — everybody I lie with keep inviting me to test out iChat once they get Tiger up and running , since the tv camera and microphone icons in iChat ’s Buddy List appear with a “ stack ” background that make it obvious that I ’m running Tiger . And in those chat , I never arrive the sense that we were all horribly out of sync .
I ’ve used previous edition of iChat for numerous one - to - one TV chats . I take my iSight camera with me when I move , so I can video chat with my family unit back home . But often , those chats are bogged down by a obtrusive hold that get caboodle of hiccups in the conversation . This version of iChat look to be much better than previous versions , with even the conversation I had in my multi - user chats feel quite raw .
The newfangled H.264 telecasting codec also makes one - on - one video confab calculate far better than they did before . I ignore the TV flaw in previous versions of iChat , because video chatting was such a novel thing . But the first time I saw a high - caliber video recording chat in Tiger , I realized what a big improvement it was .
barrier to chatting : However , I ’m disappoint by the utmost roadblock to starting a multi - person videoconference : at least a dual-1GHz G4 and a quick DSL connection . I take in that hosting a multi - person video chat is a batch of work ; I just wish Tiger was smart about evaluating the specs ofeveryoneinvited to a chat , and determine if any of them have the business leader to host that confabulation .
As it is , my 1.5 Gc PowerBook G4 ca n’t host video chats — so if I want to chat with a brace of acquaintance , and Iknowthat at least one of whom has a G5 and a gamy - speed line , why I do I have to pray one of them to start the confab for me ? Should n’t iChat broker that mint , and leave the human being out of the process ?
brother groups are great : The centre of iChat is its Buddy List window , and with this new version the windowpane is much better , thanks to much better livelihood for AIM ’s buddy grouping . iChat ’s old group reenforcement involved a bad pappa - up / draftsman user interface , which has been replace with a simple set of coping that seem above all the buddies in a particular group . Clicking on the coping collapses or displays the contents of a group . channelize buddies is a puff - and - drop cloth cognitive process . And finally I can organise my Buddy List , which has been bursting at the seams .
iChat ’s a work puppet , too : It ’s nice that Apple has add support for Jabber , mean that organizations can bleed Jabber - compatible server so that party jiffy - electronic messaging is keep secure and secure . But in my judgment , that ’s only a first step . Users the world over regard instant electronic messaging as a vital line of work tool , twenty-four hour period in and day out . ( I experience that I ’ve come up to rely on it in a massive style here atMacworld . )
And yet , Apple has n’t really done anything to make iChat anything more than a introductory text - schmoose client . Yes , you’re able to now search iChat transcripts using Spotlight — although , sadly , there ’s no special “ New World chat ” category to help you specifically separate chat transcripts from other generic document . I also wish iChat had chat - archive - browsing features build - in , the same form of feature you could get on the side via Spiny Software ’s excellentLogorrhea .
In ratiocination … : iChat 3.0 is not to be ignored . It ’s get numerous feature improvements big and low — I cut through more of them in this article , if you ’re concerned in a number more detail . The multi - user video chat works as advertize , although it ’s exceedingly inauspicious that only heavy hitters can initiate a chat . I would n’t upgrade to Tiger only for iChat … unless I was a laborious drug user of television schmoose , in which grammatical case the improved messaging program would believably be deserving the price of the upgrade all on its own .
