Msn/yahoo im updates?

[j_maddison]

Hi guys n gals,

Does anyone know if there is ever going to be an update in the forseable future for msn or yahoo aim clients? and before anyone says adium, its crap.

Its really annoyiing that VoIP isnt available on yahoo or msn for the mac, but more annoying that webcam isnt available on msn. I've had talked to a few swtichers online recently who've gone back to the pc platform becuase their most used application was an im client, that had limited functionality on the mac in comparison to the pc.

I know ichat does VoIP and video, but unless you know another mac user then your screwed.

If msn had better functionality on the mac i know several pc users who'd switch, but if you primary recreational programme is crap on the mac then I'm afraid many pc users will never make the swtich.

jay

 

[Cfly]

why would microsoft want to update msn messenger for mac, if people arent switching to macs because of the crappy IM service then that is good for microsoft and windows.

 

[beg_ne]

Havent heard about AIM or Yahoo updates. A new version of MSN is supposed to come out in the next couple of months I think. But don't get excited. Looks like the only feature they were able to implement was avatar pictures...wow

Hi guys n gals,

Does anyone know if there is ever going to be an update in the forseable future for msn or yahoo aim clients? and before anyone says adium, its crap.

Its really annoyiing that VoIP isnt available on yahoo or msn for the mac, but more annoying that webcam isnt available on msn. I've had talked to a few swtichers online recently who've gone back to the pc platform becuase their most used application was an im client, that had limited functionality on the mac in comparison to the pc.

I know ichat does VoIP and video, but unless you know another mac user then your screwed.

If msn had better functionality on the mac i know several pc users who'd switch, but if you primary recreational programme is crap on the mac then I'm afraid many pc users will never make the swtich.

jay

 

[Dr. Dastardly]

Havent heard about AIM or Yahoo updates. A new version of MSN is supposed to come out in the next couple of months I think. But don't get excited. Looks like the only feature they were able to implement was avatar pictures...wow

AVATAR PICS! omg sooo cool I'm switching back.

 

[j_maddison]

Thanks guys

Excuse my nescience, but whats holding third party developers back from releasing a programe that has video or voip compatability with msn or yahoo im's? Programes like Proteous and Adium can integrate txt, so why not other features? I guess what I'm asking for is some education as to why it hasnt been done so far, and what are the technical issues that would hinder this development.

Thanks

Jason

 

[mfacey]

I know ichat does VoIP and video, but unless you know another mac user then your screwed.

Doesn't iChat basically do the AIM system? That would me that the person on the other end just needs AIM on their windows machine... Or does that not work for VOIP and Video conferencing?

 

[j_maddison]

It works for video but not for voice, well at least not in the UK anyway. Whats hillarious is that the video from my isight is brilliant and very very fast, while the aim users video is typical webcam speed and quality. The user the other end gets all freaked out by teh difference and cant understand why until i tell them im using ichat and not aim hehe

The problem is that windows users are paranoid about installing programmes, if they use msn they wont install yahoo for instance. They start worrying that the programmes will mess up their systems. At first i thought, hang on this person is pulling my leg. but i have had the excuse off at least 20 windows users that i know personally i.e not someone i met randomly off the net for a chat. its almost impossible to get these guys to download and install anything, their even paranoid about installing skype!

Is windows really that bad for installing programmes?

Jason

 

[bigandy]

i have a shiny, lovely iSight but only use it for stop motion animation with iStopMotion, because MSN won't do webcam stuff.

add isight support to ANY client that supports MSN and i'm there. just tell me where the link is...

 

[Diatribe]

Geeez, I hate these threads. Why can't you people search? Seriously.

First of all you can video conference with PC users using AIM, you can also use Skype to do VoIP AND you can wait a bit and use Mercury to video conference with msn users.
Why you would want to do that is totally past me considering the quality msn video chat offers but here ya go.
There are sooo many possibilities that it's not really worth complaining and if you would've searched you would've found every single one on here.

 

[j_maddison]

Geeez, I hate these threads. Why can't you people search? Seriously.

First of all you can video conference with PC users using AIM, you can also use Skype to do VoIP AND you can wait a bit and use Mercury to video conference with msn users.
Why you would want to do that is totally past me considering the quality msn video chat offers but here ya go.
There are sooo many possibilities that it's not really worth complaining and if you would've searched you would've found every single one on here.

Well your not as clever as you think mr smarty pants
Yes I know about skype and i know about aim, that wasnt my point though. The problem I have is getting PC users to swtich from one application to another, so ive given up. Its just impossible, their so paranoid about software changes messing up their system its untrue. I was speaking toa freind today and she flat refused to install aim in case something wentwrong with her computer.

The point is this, PC users are a strange bunch as it is. I mean why on earth woudl anyone put up with an unstable system that gets riddled with viruses and needs some form of tech support every 6-24 months. So getting these guys to change IM clients is near impossible.

Then again why not convince all of my friends to go Cisco with an mpls backbone, and we'll all have avid call manager express systems, no forget that lets go full blown call manager. We'll use softphones and all experience true VoIP and Video conferencing solutions! in fact lets get even more clever than that. Lets all buy a dual procesor server, remove one of the procesors, install the call manager software and put the processor back in and up the standard config of the ram

So back to the original point video conferencing with msn, which you have sort of answeard with your mercury link. I'm going to look into that, and the link is much appreciated. less caffeine next time though please

Jason
ps. hope you dont mind humour

 

[Diatribe]

Well your not as clever as you think mr smarty pants
Yes I know about skype and i know about aim, that wasnt my point though. The problem I have is getting PC users to swtich from one application to another, so ive given up. Its just impossible, their so paranoid about software changes messing up their system its untrue. I was speaking toa freind today and she flat refused to install aim in case something wentwrong with her computer.

The point is this, PC users are a strange bunch as it is. I mean why on earth woudl anyone put up with an unstable system that gets riddled with viruses and needs some form of tech support every 6-24 months. So getting these guys to change IM clients is near impossible.

Then again why not convince all of my friends to go Cisco with an mpls backbone, and we'll all have avid call manager express systems, no forget that lets go full blown call manager. We'll use softphones and all experience true VoIP and Video conferencing solutions! in fact lets get even more clever than that. Lets all buy a dual procesor server, remove one of the procesors, install the call manager software and put the processor back in and up the standard config of the ram

So back to the original point video conferencing with msn, which you have sort of answeard with your mercury link. I'm going to look into that, and the link is much appreciated. less caffeine next time though please

Jason
ps. hope you dont mind humour

Hehe, don't worry it's all fun.
Your post just did not quite come across that way... since I live in Europe there are a lot of people on msn but I have given up on them. I don't really like having two messengers on and all people I do care about have either aim or both.
If I really need to talk to them there's always msn messenger.

With a little bit of luck we'll be able to msn chat through iChat with Tiger...

Oh, writing what you mean and not something else would be highly appreciated too. That way I don't have to be Mr. Smartypants

 

[beg_ne]

Wow, I didn't know about Mercury at all, I will have to keep a very close eye on that one. Thanks for the link!

 

[j_maddison]

Hehe, don't worry it's all fun.
Your post just did not quite come across that way... since I live in Europe there are a lot of people on msn but I have given up on them. I don't really like having two messengers on and all people I do care about have either aim or both.
If I really need to talk to them there's always msn messenger.

With a little bit of luck we'll be able to msn chat through iChat with Tiger...

Oh, writing what you mean and not something else would be highly appreciated too. That way I don't have to be Mr. Smartypants

Hi mate,

Glad you understand my humour. Sometimes I dont think british humour comes across that well on forums, hence the p.s. bit to explain at the bottom

If i'm honest most of my frustration isnt directed squarly at msn messenger or yahoo messenger, but at windows in general. When people first started telling me they didnt want to download a programe for fear of messing up their system, i though tthey were just making up excuses. But so many people say it, so it cant be a coincidence. surely windows is not that unstable though? or does windows just make people that paranoid?

lets hope this mercury group can make it work. I had a go on it earlier today, and its a bit slow at the moment. I think the problem with ichat is that apple are an american centric company. All of the special offers on .mac for example are more applicable to the US market. So ichat is only likely to stay compatible with AIM for hte foreseable future. I long for the day when Steve Jobs realises theres a big wide world outside of America

jay

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Hi mate,

Glad you understand my humour. Sometimes I dont think british humour comes across that well on forums, hence the p.s. bit to explain at the bottom

If i'm honest most of my frustration isnt directed squarly at msn messenger or yahoo messenger, but at windows in general. When people first started telling me they didnt want to download a programe for fear of messing up their system, i though tthey were just making up excuses. But so many people say it, so it cant be a coincidence. surely windows is not that unstable though? or does windows just make people that paranoid?

lets hope this mercury group can make it work. I had a go on it earlier today, and its a bit slow at the moment. I think the problem with ichat is that apple are an american centric company. All of the special offers on .mac for example are more applicable to the US market. So ichat is only likely to stay compatible with AIM for hte foreseable future. I long for the day when Steve Jobs realises theres a big wide world outside of America

jay

And I thought it was spelt "programme" (see, I know enough British English to be understood).

Anyway...
I believe that your reasoning regarding iChat's AIM-only compatibility is correct; however, it is only one of several contributing factors.

First, the situation with MSN:
1. Microsoft dislikes Apple enough that they'd NEVER let iChat talk to MSN directly.
2. Open-source developers can help on this matter - take Jabber for example, rumored to be supported in iChat for Tiger.

Second, the situation with Yahoo:
1. Yahoo, like AOL, has a neutral opinion of Apple since the two companies target different markets.
2. Therefore, the prospects of Yahoo IM compatibility in a future version of iChat are much better than those for MSN.
3. Steve Jobs might be ignoring Yahoo IM for various reasons - lack of use could be one reason why.

Finally, regarding video and audio chat:
1. Apple generally stays on top of the technology curve when it comes to video codecs and their iSight hardware.
2. PC users cannot be expected to have the same high-quality technology available as Apple provides for video chat purposes.
3. Due to #1 and #2, cross-platform video chats will be of varying quality - often lower than the minimum quality for an iChat-to-iChat video chat, regardless of the instant messaging protocol used.

 

[j_maddison]

And I thought it was spelt "programme" (see, I know enough British English to be understood).

Anyway...
I believe that your reasoning regarding iChat's AIM-only compatibility is correct; however, it is only one of several contributing factors.

First, the situation with MSN:
1. Microsoft dislikes Apple enough that they'd NEVER let iChat talk to MSN directly.
2. Open-source developers can help on this matter - take Jabber for example, rumored to be supported in iChat for Tiger.

Second, the situation with Yahoo:
1. Yahoo, like AOL, has a neutral opinion of Apple since the two companies target different markets.
2. Therefore, the prospects of Yahoo IM compatibility in a future version of iChat are much better than those for MSN.
3. Steve Jobs might be ignoring Yahoo IM for various reasons - lack of use could be one reason why.

Finally, regarding video and audio chat:
1. Apple generally stays on top of the technology curve when it comes to video codecs and their iSight hardware.
2. PC users cannot be expected to have the same high-quality technology available as Apple provides for video chat purposes.
3. Due to #1 and #2, cross-platform video chats will be of varying quality - often lower than the minimum quality for an iChat-to-iChat video chat, regardless of the instant messaging protocol used.

Thanks, that was a pretty useful reply. Much appreciated. Yes you'll notice alot of typos in my writing I'm afraid, and no not dislexic hehe. I learnt how to read and write in welsh before english, so my spelling is usually off if im tired. I basically get lazy and my phonetic brain (the welsh language is more phonetic than english) kicks in and my spelling goes out the window.

Jay

 

[fedora]

Has anyone tried any of the mercury beta releases (1709.01 to 1709.04)?
The video seemed ok to me (although at the moment you can only veiw webcams). At times it did get guite poor but it is still in beta.

It can be downloaded from apples site (downloads, instant messaging) to avoid using the slow bit-torrent on mercurys site (www.mercury.to). It is also quite difficult to get working this way, so use the version from apples site.

 

[nutmac]

For what it's worth, according to AppleInsider, Microsoft is considering webcam support for MSN Messenger 5 5 for Mac.

 

[chameeeleon]

Yeah, I read that this morning too. Only hope it pans out - would convince me to buy an iSight and switch back from Adium if it ends up being true.

 

[matt335]

Virus warnings for MSN Messenger users ?

Hello all,
I received emails from my WatchGuard with a new warning about media player and messenger for Windows. And I was wondering whether it may affect Mac users ? Anyone up to speed on these issues?

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Hello all,
I received emails from my WatchGuard with a new warning about media player and messenger for Windows. And I was wondering whether it may affect Mac users ? Anyone up to speed on these issues?

If there's anything executable in those threats (ie virus programs), they won't run on Macs. Also, the Mac versions of these programs are behind their Windows equivalents, not to mention that they lack features their Windows counterparts have...so the offending line(s) of code might not even be in the Mac version. I haven't read the security bulletin - I'm only pointing out the possibilities.

 

[lordmac]

Just to add to the piont of Apples american centricness

Apple dose seem to be vary american centric( I feel bad for guys outside of the US). But anyways if look at it from apple american centric thinking then aim makes the most sense as AIM is the mostly widely used instant messaging service in america. From just a pure number standpoint I think aim has the most active users along with icq i believe, but that doesn't really mean much when all of your friends use another. I think wrldwzrd89 summed it up pretty nicely plus the fact that apple has some other deals with AOL going to that might have contributed to that decision(ie. you can use an AOL account as your Itunes music store account). Also interesting fact, AOL actually owns the patten to instant messaging ( they got it what they bought ICQ) and if AOl so chose to they could sue yahoo and msn. But they don't because they know msn is not fun to deal with in court and it would cost lots of money to have such a suite. PLus a few other reason you can figure out that i feel to lazy to write out.

 

[j_maddison]

Yeah, I read that this morning too. Only hope it pans out - would convince me to buy an iSight and switch back from Adium if it ends up being true.

Every windows user i know who wont switch to a mac, or have switched back to a pc from a mac has blamed the instant messaging clients. I long for the day when yahoo and msn get their act together. The problem in the uk is that ichat is a pretty usless client, not because its bad software but because theres no one to use it with.

jay

 

[chameeeleon]

Same here, the first person I switched actually was very hesitant to buy a Mac because of the poor MSN support, and I kept telling her Microsoft wouldn't leave it like that forever, webcam support was just around the corner, etc.
It's been a year now, lol and 4.0.... looks nicer than the version that was out when she switched did. Other than that - not much. Obviously by this point OSX, iApps etc. have won her over, but I know she'd be thrilled for a new MSN client.
As would the others I've been pushing Macs on.
And I totally agree Apple needs a wake-up call that there are other countries outside of the US that use their computers. Hopefully the Dashboard widgets they've made accept this as well.

 

[j_maddison]

Same here, the first person I switched actually was very hesitant to buy a Mac because of the poor MSN support, and I kept telling her Microsoft wouldn't leave it like that forever, webcam support was just around the corner, etc.
It's been a year now, lol and 4.0.... looks nicer than the version that was out when she switched did. Other than that - not much. Obviously by this point OSX, iApps etc. have won her over, but I know she'd be thrilled for a new MSN client.
As would the others I've been pushing Macs on.
And I totally agree Apple needs a wake-up call that there are other countries outside of the US that use their computers. Hopefully the Dashboard widgets they've made accept this as well.

The problems ive come across have also been that the switcheers have macs with 256mb of ram on them, and that just isnt enough. they buy a mac and dont really want to do anything to it, so the moment i start explaininga bout buying ram their eyes just glare over.

I think the key is that your average consumer is ignorant to the fact that there are no viruses on osx, and juts put up with them on pcs. so when they swtich and see that their favorite apps are not the same then they run straight back to their pc;s.

just a side note, the two users i know who switched, actually three now i come to think of it, and who dont use instant messaging clients are still happily using macs. one of them used to be a solicitor, recently retired, and was actually advised by his pc support technician to buy a mac! how mad is that. The guy who gave him the advice has never even used a mac himself. he was having problems with viruses attaching confidential information to e mails, and despite trying all sorts of fixes still had problems from time to time. so he had enough and asked is there anyway to stop this happening, and andrew (the pc technican) said yeah sure buy a mac. so he went out and got one that day. i think andrew helped him by advising to get apowerbook over an ibook. i think hes (Ralph) has been using his mac now for a about two years. we were chatting theo ther day and he has only recently discovered that imovie can edit his home movies. i had to endure about twenty minutes of family home movies as he whipped his laptop out and ws showing me all the transitiions he could do etc. its safe to say he cant understan why anyone would use a pc after swtiching.

jay

 

[phoomp]

Doesn't iChat basically do the AIM system? That would me that the person on the other end just needs AIM on their windows machine... Or does that not work for VOIP and Video conferencing?

AIM's video window is pathetic to the point of being unusable. It's smaller than an iChat thumbnail and not resizable.

The only solution I've seen to the issue is on the Windows side. Trillian ( www.trillian.cc ) is a video chat client that supports AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo Messenger, IRC, and Rendezvous. The window is fully scalable and works nicely with iChat. The downsides? $25 and getting your Windows friends to fork over the cash in order to look at your face. But it is quite easy to use.

I just can't believe that no one has done this for the Mac and that Macs are so far behind Windows as far as video conferencing is concerned. Sure, iChat is superior to anything on Windows, but it's a somewhat moot point when you can only video conference with less than 5% of computer users. (I understand that Apple is trying to use iChat as a tool to sell Macs)