IChat

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Template:Lowercase Template:Infobox Software

iChat is an AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), ICQ and Jabber client for Mac OS X. Using a Jabber-like protocol and Bonjour for user discovery, it also allows for LAN communication. iChat's AIM support is fully endorsed by AOL, and uses their official implementation of the AIM OSCAR protocol. Using a Jabber transport, iChat users may also integrate their MSN and Yahoo contacts into the Jabber pane, so only one instant messenger program is needed on a Mac.

It bears a brushed metal interface and uses speech bubbles and pictures that some advocates claim personify the online chatting experience. With iChat, green (available), yellow (idle), and red (away) dots can be seen next to the name of each connected user on the buddy list.

In June 2003, Apple Computer announced iChat AV Public Beta, a new version of iChat that added voice and video chat capabilities. It also introduced the iSight camera, designed specifically for use with iChat AV. These capabilities are based on the industry-standard, but not yet widely adopted, Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) for video chat and audio chat. The final version of the software was shipped with Mac OS X v10.3 and became available separately on the same day for users of Mac OS X v10.2 for 29.95USD. Apple eventually discontinued sale of iChat AV separately; it can now only be acquired through OS X or with a new Mac.

In February 2004, America Online introduced AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) version 5.5 for Windows-PC users. This version allowed video (but not voice) chats over the AIM protocol and was compatible with Apple's iChat AV. On the same day, Apple released iChat AV 2.1 Public Beta to allow Mac OS X users to video conference with AIM 5.5 users.

In June 2004, Steve Jobs revealed that the next version of iChat AV (commonly called iChat 3) would be included with Mac OS X v10.4 (Tiger). iChat 3 supports up to four people in a video conference and ten people in an audio conference. Additionally, video conferencing uses H.264/AVC, which offers better quality than the current H.263. This release also supports the Jabber protocol (which can be directly used to connect to Google Talk and indirectly be used to connect to users of services including Yahoo Messenger and MSN Messenger as well). However, support is limited as it does not support several common Jabber/XMPP features like account creation, service discovery and full Multi-User Chat support. Despite initial rumors that the client would support tabbed browsing for multiple chat windows (a popular feature available on almost all third-party clients), the released version did not, puzzling many users.

In October 2005, iChat received support for encrypted communications, but only for paid subscribers to Apple's .mac service. These features are part of iChat 3.1, released as part of the Mac OS X 10.4.3 update on October 31, 2005.

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