Series: App improvement discussion - App: iChat

[Diatribe]

Last ones were:
iTunes
iPhoto
Mail


This time it is iChat.

- ichat to be able to use nicknames instead of full names out of the adress book
- re-login after lost connection or option to be logged in always
- iChat to store conversations in an easy to view log window that is searchable with spotlight
- msn support via Jabber (some people already say that this works... we will see)

My other wishes like profiles and tabs will be implemented in Tiger.

And as always: Send Apple feedback

 

[PlaceofDis]

-nicknames
-multi-client support
-tabbed chatting
-auto resizing of buddy list
-audio only chats with aim users


thats all i can think of for now.....

 

[dobbin]

Recording a video chat (or a section of one) would be pretty cool - so if I was chatting to my brother, he could say a message which I record and email to my parents (they don't have ichat or isight or anything).

I'm not sure if this is possible or if the files would get too big. I guess both people would need to know it was being recorded to make it fair.

 

[PlaceofDis]

Recording a video chat (or a section of one) would be pretty cool - so if I was chatting to my brother, he could say a message which I record and email to my parents (they don't have ichat or isight or anything).

I'm not sure if this is possible or if the files would get too big. I guess both people would need to know it was being recorded to make it fair.

well i know this isnt exactly what you were thinking, but i think you can use iMovie to record yourself with an iSight, and a quick short compressed movie should be able to fit as an attachment to send to your parents. Just something to try so you can cheer up those parents. (obviously your brother could do the same from his computer)

 

[aricher]

There are plenty of 3rd party companies that have iSight products - Boinx has a program called iStopMotion that does cool time-lapse video - they also have another video product that turns the iSight into a camcorder but does more than iMovie - it can do voice and motion sensing.

As far as an upgrade to iChat AV goes they really need to work on more intesgration with companies other tha AOL - there are friends of mine all over the world that use PC only VOIP and video SW that isn't compatable.

 

[DavidLeblond]

- AIM profiles, of course
- There seems to be a "bug" that when I close iChat and put my iBook to sleep, iChat opens again when I wake my iBook up. This is annoying.
- Occasionally when people direct connect to me and send me an image it comes over as a blank sheet of paper icon. I'd like them to fix this too.

 

[johnnyjibbs]

I like iChat a lot. But there are some improvements that could be made.

MSN support please!! (I guess this is sorted via Jabber in Tiger?)

More reliable video/audio connecting!

And for the love of god, please allow audio-only chats between iChat and AIM 5.5 for Windows. It's a right pain having to load up Skype as well (although that works nicely).

I'm looking forward to the enhancements that Tiger will bring. I think most things that I want will be available in that release.

 

[ryme4reson]

I would like the ability to call landline or cell phones from within iChat. That would be a cheap alternative to home phones for some people, especially students.

 

[chameeeleon]

I doubt it will ever happen but... MSN SUPPORT! With full video conferencing functionality. Just offer to take it off of the Mac Business Unit's hands - I'm sure they'll be happy to comply.
As far as the rest of the program - get rid of the stupid "you've sent too many messages to this user. Please wait a while" or w/e message I get if I'm a little type-happy and have a lot to say. It continually annoys me.
Tabbed chats (rumoured) and for god sakes, make people's display pictures bigger. The same ants that are actually able to watch my Quicktime movies in the dock are about the only people who can make out complicated pics when they're this small.
Also, as others have said, saving a video conference would indeed be cool.

 

[cpjakes]

- There seems to be a "bug" that when I close iChat and put my iBook to sleep, iChat opens again when I wake my iBook up. This is annoying.

Do you have a camera hooked up? There is a preference that launches iChat when you plug in a camera. You can disable it in the preferences video pane. That'd be my guess...

cpjakes

 

[BWhaler]

Tabbed chatting in one window.

And it should remember the window location when closed. iChat opening windows all over the place is a pain in the rear.

 

[Mechcozmo]

Two way voice chatting (iChat, AIM for Windoze)
All different kinds of Instant Messaging support-- Yahoo, MSN...
Better Direct Connect workings... how many times have I had trouble sending or receiving files from people? Too many.
Moving buddy icons

 

[DavidLeblond]

Do you have a camera hooked up? There is a preference that launches iChat when you plug in a camera. You can disable it in the preferences video pane. That'd be my guess...

cpjakes

No camera. I notice when I close iChat, iChatAgent stays open... thats the thing doing it I think.

 

[cpjakes]

No camera. I notice when I close iChat, iChatAgent stays open... thats the thing doing it I think.

Even when you quit iChat, you can still be connected. I know that if I sleep, it comes back up if I was connected before I sleep. It doesn't usually launch iChat though...

 

[thequicksilver]

iChat's interface is appalling. Looking at Adium, which I love, iChat's interface for text chats is either cute but totally inefficient (how much white space is there?) or dull and poorly developed (looks like a Windows beta app with the speech bubbles switched off).

I think Apple have forgotten that the vast majority of iChat usage involves text chats instead of voice or video, and the actual mainstay of the app is unchanged since iChat 1.0 with Jaguar in August 2002. That's not good enough, especially when it's clearly flawed.

Coming on to a forthcoming change, the three way video chats in Tiger are really nifty looking, but how much window space is wasted with the black space above and below the windows, and with the reflections below? It's very un-Apple in my eyes, who so often manage great form and great function. This is form over function in my eyes.

Suffice to say, I don't use iChat, and don't plan to unless there's radical change…

 

[wrldwzrd89]

iChat's interface is appalling. Looking at Adium, which I love, iChat's interface for text chats is either cute but totally inefficient (how much white space is there?) or dull and poorly developed (looks like a Windows beta app with the speech bubbles switched off).

I think Apple have forgotten that the vast majority of iChat usage involves text chats instead of voice or video, and the actual mainstay of the app is unchanged since iChat 1.0 with Jaguar in August 2002. That's not good enough, especially when it's clearly flawed.

Coming on to a forthcoming change, the three way video chats in Tiger are really nifty looking, but how much window space is wasted with the black space above and below the windows, and with the reflections below? It's very un-Apple in my eyes, who so often manage great form and great function. This is form over function in my eyes.

Suffice to say, I don't use iChat, and don't plan to unless there's radical change…

I'm an AdiumX user also (just look at my signature), but I only need it for MSN access. When I want to do AIM chats, I use iChat, since I do equal amounts of video and text chats (and hardly any audio chats). To be honest, I'm surprised that the white space bothers you so much. I find iChat's interface to be much more intuitive than AdiumX's - I'm constantly losing my chats in AdiumX because I'm closing the wrong window. I also can't stand the default AdiumX sounds - I use the iChat sounds instead.

 

[brap]

Make it like a stable Adium.

...but that'll never happen, too much GUI flexibility/freedom, Aqua look and feel just won't let them.

 

[thequicksilver]

I'm an AdiumX user also (just look at my signature), but I only need it for MSN access. When I want to do AIM chats, I use iChat, since I do equal amounts of video and text chats (and hardly any audio chats). To be honest, I'm surprised that the white space bothers you so much. I find iChat's interface to be much more intuitive than AdiumX's - I'm constantly losing my chats in AdiumX because I'm closing the wrong window. I also can't stand the default AdiumX sounds - I use the iChat sounds instead.

That's fair enough - if I was a video chatter, I'd use iChat too as it's undoubtedly the best of breed.

My gripe with the white spaces has only come since I became a Mac user to be honest. My first computer experience was with the Amiga, then had the best part of a decade on Windows, now a Mac. What astonished me on the Mac was the way apps didn't take up the full screen unless they really had to. I still marvel at the way Mail.app accomplishes absolutely everything I want from a Mail app in a window that I keep at 608x503 pixels. It's so stunningly efficient compared to OE, Netscape Mail, Thunderbird etc that I'd been used to that it converted me to a Mac OS X devotee almost overnight.

So that's my gripe with iChat. It's so sad that Apple haven't learnt their own lesson from Mail and realised that small windows can be feature packed yet easy to use and without any dead space. While iChat certainly isn't guilty of GUI bloat like MSN Messenger on Windows or Word 2003 for Windows (I can't believe how awful that interface is) it's still guilty of using up more space than it should. For me, this kind of attention to detail is one of the greatest things about the Mac, and it's sad that a showpiece app of theirs is so sadly lacking on this front.

(Incidentally, I use the iChat sounds on Adium too, but I only criticised the interface, right? )

 

[johnnyjibbs]

iChat's interface is appalling. Looking at Adium, which I love, iChat's interface for text chats is either cute but totally inefficient (how much white space is there?) or dull and poorly developed (looks like a Windows beta app with the speech bubbles switched off).

I think Apple have forgotten that the vast majority of iChat usage involves text chats instead of voice or video, and the actual mainstay of the app is unchanged since iChat 1.0 with Jaguar in August 2002. That's not good enough, especially when it's clearly flawed.

Coming on to a forthcoming change, the three way video chats in Tiger are really nifty looking, but how much window space is wasted with the black space above and below the windows, and with the reflections below? It's very un-Apple in my eyes, who so often manage great form and great function. This is form over function in my eyes.

Suffice to say, I don't use iChat, and don't plan to unless there's radical change…

I use iChat almost exclusively for text chat and I love the interface. I think the speech bubbles are great. But if you don't like them, you do know that you can change it to a more conventional style in the preferences or the view menu, right?

Ok, re-read your first paragraph. I don't think the conventional text style looks that bad - there's not exactly much they can do with it. But I hardly see how the speech bubbles look bad or take up too much space either. And it doesn't take much to scroll (it auto scrolls anyway). With the most polished interface out there, I'd hardly call it "clearly flawed".

 

[thequicksilver]

I use iChat almost exclusively for text chat and I love the interface. I think the speech bubbles are great. But if you don't like them, you do know that you can change it to a more conventional style in the preferences or the view menu, right?

Ok, re-read your first paragraph. I don't think the conventional text style looks that bad - there's not exactly much they can do with it. But I hardly see how the speech bubbles look bad or take up too much space either. And it doesn't take much to scroll (it auto scrolls anyway). With the most polished interface out there, I'd hardly call it "clearly flawed".

While I respect your opinion, I have to say that I can't even begin to understand how you come to that conclusion.

To emphasise this, take a look at this screenshot. It's of myself talking to myself from iChat to Adium. It's displaying the exact same conversation in windows of the exact same size. Now tell me, which is more efficient? And in a 1024x768 environment - of which Apple still sells three models of notebook don't forget - which is unquestionably better? Look particularly at the way Adium groups a series of messages from the same person.

The continual scrolling up to read previous messages thing with iChat is just another issue I have with it, and Adium with its efficient use of space means I don't have to. As I said above, it's this efficiency of design which has drawn me to the Mac - Mail being the prime example - and I'm just sorry that iChat is lacking in this department.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

While I respect your opinion, I have to say that I can't even begin to understand how you come to that conclusion.

To emphasise this, take a look at this screenshot. It's of myself talking to myself from iChat to Adium. It's displaying the exact same conversation in windows of the exact same size. Now tell me, which is more efficient? And in a 1024x768 environment - of which Apple still sells three models of notebook don't forget - which is unquestionably better? Look particularly at the way Adium groups a series of messages from the same person.

The continual scrolling up to read previous messages thing with iChat is just another issue I have with it, and Adium with its efficient use of space means I don't have to. As I said above, it's this efficiency of design which has drawn me to the Mac - Mail being the prime example - and I'm just sorry that iChat is lacking in this department.

Now I see with the screenshot what you're referring to. Message grouping would help iChat quite a bit. I also think iChat would benefit from some more interfaces besides just turning the speech bubbles on or off.

 

[johnnyjibbs]

I see now. I have never used Adium, but it looks nice from that screen shot. Provide feedback to Apple on the issue if you want more formatting types.

However, I tend to use as big a window as possible since I can't multitask very well and cannot really do anything else when I'm chatting to someone!

 

[wwooden]

also

Apple needs to allow iChat to auto-accept incoming text chats, at the very least, from people in your buddy list. I hate have to hit accept everytime someone IM's me. And the fact that they all pop up in the same area of the screen really bugs me too.

 

[Hungarianguy]

I like iChat a lot. But there are some improvements that could be made.

MSN support please!! (I guess this is sorted via Jabber in Tiger?)

More reliable video/audio connecting!

And for the love of god, please allow audio-only chats between iChat and AIM 5.5 for Windows. It's a right pain having to load up Skype as well (although that works nicely).

I'm looking forward to the enhancements that Tiger will bring. I think most things that I want will be available in that release.

could someone please tell me what Jabber is. I got a new imac g5 and was dissapointed to learn that msn messenger and ichat does not do video conferencing. I do not want to get 10 of my relatives who use msn messenger install aim i would rather go ichat to msn messenger

 

[jesuscandle]

I would be happy if I could paste text into ichat from Word.

Whenever I try to do this, it ends up as some weird PDF document transfer and doesn't work correctly.