iChat was created as part of the 10.2 system upgrade;
since then the initial cheers for yet another cool Apple program have
changed
dramatically.
The Good:
iChat takes advantage of many of the goodies built into the Mac OS. Its
brushed metal single window interface is simple and attractive like so many
other iApps. It takes advantage of 10.2's built-in address book to make
keeping
track of all your buddies simple. In fact, iChat is so well integrated with
the address book that it will replace your friends' esoteric screen names
with
(drum role please) real names! This is a great feature, especially if you're
prone to forgetting who Kittn0RockRgurl1 is. It also keeps your friends
in a nice Ad-Free window with their icons right next to their names, just in
case you forget names too. Like any Apple product, it does its job with
grace.
When a new chat arrives it pops up in a semi-transparent window with
the name of the sender. For privacy's sake it hides the initial message in
case you don't want to share your conversation with the whole room. As your
friends move from active to idle to offline their names slide around in the
little iChat window and a green, yellow or red dot appears next to
their name. This all gives the program a great user interface that's
simple and fun to watch.
The Bad:
The spiffy buddy list may look cool, but it's hiding the fact that iChat is
lacking some major features. Most importantly you can't have a profile when
you
use iChat. Now, this didn't seem to be such a big problem until I realized
how important a profile is to communicating over AIM. This seemingly little
problem is enough to drive away even the most Mac-loving of IMers, and I
honestly can't blame them. The program has a few other little quirks such as
when
you look at
your friends' profiles they often don't display well and it's hard to find a
buddy's info in the first place.
The Ugly:
That same swanky Apple interface design that makes the buddy list so cool to
watch seems to have gone amok in the chat window. While I personally enjoy
the
nonstandard way chats look, many of my Apple owning contemporaries think
it's
a
little too funky. Instead of the standard left-aligned text filling your
screen,
iChat has your buddy icon on the left and a word bubble filled with your IM
text; and on the right is your friend's icon with another text bubble
protruding
out of it. You really have to see this to appreciate the Sunday comics
feeling
of it all.
So there you have it; a great looking, mostly simple to use application with
one huge
drawback. The question is, can you live without your precious profile? If
so,
iChat is fun and easy to use, but if not you better go back to the ugly
Windowsesque world of AOL's own Mac chat program.
___
Brice Thomas Wolfgang Hutchings likes brushed metal way too much to start using a profile.
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