Tiger and iChat
What's new? A lot.
After a little time away from updating this site,
I'm back. And I've brought Tiger with me.
As dedicated Mac fans, you'll no doubt
be aware of Tiger - the update to Mac OS X, also going under the name 10.4. In
fact, already there is an update to 10.4.1 so make sure to run a Software Update
if you haven't already.
Tiger brings a
new version of iChat, and also a new version of QuickTime - the mechanism that
compresses and displays the video. The end result is an improvement in quality.
Tiger also adds the ability for up to four people to video-chat at once, and
dozens to take part in voice-only calls. There are other changes too - Jabber is
now supported as a connection standard (adding to AIM - the default- and Bonjour
- the renamed Rendezvous protocol for local networks). Jabber means you can
text-chat with more buddies and still use iChat, so that's nice. There are a few
little tweaks as well - better buddy list handing, better handing of Away
messages, and the ability let iTunes update the status message with the
currently played song (which can be
embarrassing).
My experiences with
Tiger's new iChat have been good - in that it works much as before. I've not had
any connection issues, and the picture quality seems better (although that could
be my imagination). I've read reports of other people having problems with
connections not working, and bandwidth warnings. Rumour sites point to the next
Mac OS update (10.4.2) having some substantial work to iChat to address
these.
Although I've an iMac G5 and a
Mac Mini sitting side by side, I've not managed to connect them both to a third
party to test the 3 or 4 person at once chat scenario. I'm guessing that the
second Mac notices that all the DSL bandwidth is taken up by the first, and
doesn't even try to connect.
Overall, I
continue to be impressed with iChat, and use it weekly. I'm not sure it alone is
worth the price of the Tiger update, but it certainly adds to it.
Posted: Sun - June 5, 2005 at 09:59 AM