Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
The Internet Media

Video Chat Software Reviewed 305

Posted by michael from the cu-see-me dept.
Ryan writes "The PowerPage by way of The New York Times has a comparison of Apple's new iChatAV and Microsoft's MSN Messenger 6. My favorite quote, 'Microsoft, true to tradition, has focused on expanding its list of features, while Apple has worked toward elegance and simplicity.'"
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Video Chat Software Reviewed More

Video Chat Software Reviewed

Comments Filter:

  • Right... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Dashmon ( 669814 )
    Like iChat AV doesn't have all kinds of new functions. Like.. AV chat. Elegance, simplicity AND advanced features, thank you.

    • Re:Right... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Pxtl ( 151020 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @07:28PM (#6315811) Homepage
      Personally, all I care is when someone will make a voice-chat system that stands a rats-chance in hell of making it passed a basic router, much less a firewall. I'm sorry, but when I can play UT against people in and out of the University but I can't voice chat with them, there's something wrong there. At the very least keep it on one or two ports so its possible to plan around it and forward it, instead of running up and down half of the upper ports like some do.

      • Re:Right... (Score:2, Informative)

        by krel ( 588588 )
        I'm not entirely sure how Apple does this, but apparently someone with Ethereal discovered the voice data travels through an AOL server.

      • Re:Right... (Score:5, Informative)

        by jtdubs ( 61885 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @09:17PM (#6316535)
        A friend and I have iChat AV. We are in separate states, each behind our own OpenBSD based firewalls. Only a few specific ports like 22 (ssh) and 80 (web) are tunneled through.

        I fired up iChat AV, and so did he. I saw the little phone button next to his name, so I pressed it. It connected and we started talking. Working great. No port forwarding.

        IIRC, the audio stream is sent right inside the instant messager packets so as long as you can instant message, you can use voice.

        I'll break out tcpdump and check it out sometime. No hurry though, cause it works great...

        Justin Dubs

      • Re:Right... (Score:3, Informative)

        by Jotham ( 89116 )
        iChat communicates through port 5298.

        How do I know this? Well it told me, and took me to my firewall pref pane so I could click Add and let it through. That's simplicity.

  • sounds like more bloat. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by tenshioboe ( 682163 ) <broshfhNO@SPAM1mardivdm.usmc.mil> on Friday June 27, 2003 @07:12PM (#6315707)
    Adding features does not necessarily increase functionality -- it just makes the manuals thicker.

    • Manuals? (Score:5, Funny)

      by RatBastard ( 949 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @07:27PM (#6315803) Homepage
      Manuals? Have you actually purchased a Microsoft product in the last ten years? You don't get any manuals. You get a "quick start" booklet and a cyanide capsule and that's it.

      • Re:Manuals? (Score:3, Funny)

        by EverDense ( 575518 )
        ...and the cyanide capsule comes with a CD entitled "Getting Started with Microsoft Suicide 2003".
      • Your statement is completely true. Microsoft tends to bloat their products with plenty of buggy and useless features that usually compromise security, and don't give any hard copy documentation on how to use it. Instead, they have moved towards online documentation.

        The reason why I like to buy SuSE Linux is because they KNOW that nothing, not even the best electronic documentation, can beat a well written book. Microsoft just can't figure this out. I found my first expierence with Windows XP even more pai

    • Re:sounds like more bloat. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by DaemonGem ( 557674 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @07:30PM (#6315823) Homepage Journal
      I can't agree more. 99% of the people I talk to on chat don't even know how to change their passwords. In numerous cases I've had to explain to them how. Simplicity is definitely valued more by the normal layperson than are features. I have seen people turn down Trillian because "it is too complicated". I think most people would love to have such a simple chat client.

      Now, if we could only tell all those people that Apple exists.

      -Dae

      • Re:sounds like more bloat. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by vought ( 160908 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @08:36PM (#6316215)
        Simplicity is definitely valued more by the normal layperson than are features. I have seen people turn down Trillian because "it is too complicated". I think most people would love to have such a simple chat client.

        I would rewrite this passage this way:

        Simplicity is judged a valuable attribute by the normal layperson, but people buy features.

        Put another way, simplicity is seen as a sophistication in and of itself, and is therefore desirable, but the average Joe pounding down CA Highway 41 in a Ford F250 doesn't buy simplicity - he or she buys 'features' that will 'make computing easier'. And they buy all this at a place where they can get the "Best Buy". S

        Here's a laugh: Microsoft bills Windows XP as a fully color managed operating system, and insists XP works as well as a Mac for, say, fine art photographic interpretation.

        You ever see fine art photographs on the wall in a BRIGHT SCREAMING RED AND BLUE frame - with the wall behind the print painted in still more primary colors? Me niether - and there's a reason why. Apple chooses to 'frame' documents in more subtle and understated silvery-neutral tones. Unlike Windows, where you have to create your own middle-grey desktop (uh, sorry, Wallpaper) pattern, Apple eincludes one by default. You can even turn off the traffic signal-colored windows controls with a single click. That's thoughful simplicity.

        Windows XP is a terrible environment (by default, mind you) for using Photoshop or any other piece of software where you'd be expected to make careful color and tonality judgements on screen.

        Does the Average User(TM) know that, or care? No and no. So the features (NEW, COLORFUL THREE-DEE WINDOWS THAT LOOK RENDERED BUT AREN'T!) sell more copies of XP while subtly increasing the number of elements that make color and tonal adjustments more difficult.

        If Apple gave up on simplicity and built what everyone on Slashdot wanted (A $500.00 Mac OS X on x86 box with six expansion slots, ten drive bays, an Athlon64, a 400W power supply and an M+M dispenser on the front) the people who DO buy Macs faithfully every 30 months would leave in droves. The thing about simplicity is that it is incredibly tough to do properly. Simplicity done Microsoft's way = sparse.

        Based on the PC market, you might say that about 3-5% of the people with computers value and purchase simplicity.



        • Evolution isn't a progression to ever greater and greater differentiation
          but...is first an ascent to a higher point, and after having reached this
          point is then a descent to more and more simple forms. (Rudolf Steiner)

          Perfection (in design) is achieved not when
          there is nothing more to add, but rather when there
          is nothing more to take away. (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)

          Everything should be made as simple as possible,
          but no simpler. (Albert Einstein)

          cheers! [earthlink.net]

  • gnomemeeting? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by lethalwp ( 583503 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @07:13PM (#6315714)
    too bad they did not compared it to gnomemeeting

    an open source h323 soft compatible with netmeeting for all *nix, but dunno if it is still with msn6, would be nice to check this :)

    • Re:gnomemeeting? (warning - kinda long) (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Mikey-San ( 582838 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @07:42PM (#6315901) Homepage Journal
      Right:

      "Installation of Gnomemeeting is easy once you have the right version for your specific distribution of Linux! Here at PowerPage, we followed the simple directions:

      4. Software installation
      4.1. Which libraries do I need to run it?

      You will need :

      * the standard Gnome libraries (they are now optional in recent GnomeMeeting versions, but we recommend using them to have the full-featured GnomeMeeting).
      * the OpenH323 and the PWlib libraries (See download section of this website).
      * the OpenLDAP library (Included in your distribution)
      * the SDL library (Included in your distribution). Having SDL is optional, but if you compile GnomeMeeting without SDL, the fullscreen feature will be unavailable.
      * the Quicknet telephony development files (Provided with your kernel). Having those files is optional, but if you compile GnomeMeeting without Quicknet support, it will be impossible to use Quicknet hardware during calls.

      4.2. How can I compile GnomeMeeting?

      Simply use the binaries from your distribution, the ones in the downloads section, or compile that way:

      As root, follow the steps :
      4.2.1. Compile PWlib

      You have to compile PWlib that way:

      $ ./configure --prefix=/usr
      $ make optshared
      $ make install

      If you want to compile Firewire support into PWlib, you have to pass either the --enable-firewiredc or --enable-firewireavc to the configure script. Notice that executing the configure script will generate a ptbuildopts.h file that will be placed in the include/ subdirectory of the pwlib sources. If you want to benefit from the callto URLs, P_LDAP must be defined and set to 1 in that file. Similarly, P_HAS_IPV6 must be defined and set to 1 if you want to be able to use IPv6 with GnomeMeeting.
      4.2.2. Compile OpenH323

      You have to compile OpenH323 that way:

      $ ./configure --prefix=/usr
      $ make optshared
      $ make install

      If you have any problem, please have a look at openh323 FAQ. You can also mail the GnomeMeeting mailing list.
      4.2.3. Compile Gnomemeeting

      Download it in the download section of the GnomeMeeting websit.

      run the ./configure script, it supports several parameters:

      --prefix=/usr to install it in /usr

      --with-ptlib-includes= specifies the location of PTlib headers (for example,/opt/pwlib/include/ptlib if you extracted PWlib in /opt, default is /usr/include/ptlib)

      --with-openh323-includes= specifies the location of OpenH323 headers

      If OpenH323 and PWlib are correctly installed (both the libraries and the headers), we suggest you to compile GnomeMeeting that way:

      $ ./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc
      $ make
      $ make install

      We at the PowerPage were disappointed to see the installation instructions for iChat and MSN Messenger 6:

      1. Download iChat if you're using OS X; download MSN Messenger 6 if you're using Windows.

      2. Double-click the file you downloaded and click the 'install' button to begin the installation.

      3. Double-click the program's icon to run it and sign on."

      Give me a break. If they would have compared Gnomemeeting, it would have been trounced. Why? Because this wasn't an article geared toward people who like--or even know /how/--to compile programs and configure things from the command-line.

      There goes another Slashdotter who just doesn't understand which software is geared toward which people. We don't /all/ like ./make and ./configure, dude. Sometimes, people just want shit to work.

      • Give me a break. If they would have compared Gnomemeeting, it would have been trounced. Why? Because this wasn't an article geared toward people who like--or even know /how/--to compile programs and configure things from the command-line.

        Shut up troll. Obviously you can't read:
        How can I compile GnomeMeeting?

        Simply use the binaries from your distribution
      • "Simply use the binaries from your distribution, the ones in the downloads section"

        I wouldn't go farther than that - that will "just work" for the supported distributions. With Debian, Mandrake, Redhat, Slackware, and SuSE binaries available, what major distributions are left out?

  • duh (Score:5, Funny)

    by edrugtrader ( 442064 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @07:13PM (#6315715) Homepage
    of course MSN product is better... they are already on version 6! iChatAV doesn't even HAVE a version number! silly mac freaks.

  • Quote of the year (Score:5, Funny)

    by GrenDel Fuego ( 2558 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @07:14PM (#6315720)
    You can download them free at messenger.msn.com or apple.com/ichat, respectively, as part of a public beta test - a software company's way of saying, "Sure they're buggy, but what do you want for free?"

    I believe I hear the sounds of a pissed off Gnu.

    • Re:Quote of the year (Score:2, Insightful)

      by gotr00t ( 563828 )
      Not really, I'm suprised how usable a beta version of Safari is. In the 3 or 4 hours that I've tried it on a borrowed PowerBook, it didn't have any problems at all.

      Really, I don't think you should set that standard for all beta software. Near-perfectionists like Apple probably would have a different standard of what "beta" means compared to "if it compiles, it ships" Microsoft.

  • Smileys (Score:5, Funny)

    by dk.r*nger ( 460754 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @07:18PM (#6315747)
    Messenger 6.0 has a puking emoticon.

    'nuff said.

  • Functionality (Score:3, Interesting)

    by MC68040 ( 462186 ) <henric&digital-bless,com> on Friday June 27, 2003 @07:20PM (#6315771) Homepage
    Well, one of the great things about apple's product is that it doesn't have the build in crashandburn(); function that the msn software got. At least that's my experience with my usb webcam I got for free hehe.

    Plus, exactly how many features can u need on a peice of software that is made for point to point communication?.
    • Who is to say everyone wants ONLY point to point communication?

      I'd rather have the most full featured piece of software, as long as:

      1. It lets me customize it
      2. It doesn't load up anything I don't want

      I can't believe geeks would put down too much functionality. You should all be kicked out of the club. Simplicity you say? Simplicity is for those people who can't program their own VCR. Duh!

      • Re:Functionality (Score:5, Insightful)

        by jeffehobbs ( 419930 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @08:46PM (#6316303) Homepage
        Simplicity is for those people who can't program their own VCR. Duh!

        You know, that's a great metaphor for linux UI in general -- as most humans agree that programming a VCR is stupidly and unnecessarily hard. Even with VCR+ or VCR Gold or on-screen programming or *whatever*, I've never seen a VCR timer that didn't inherently make life hard for the user.

        Compare this to tivo -- on tivo, you press one button, you can browse listings, you can search listings, you hit the record button and that's it. Much better human interface design and product engineering -- and as a result, they can charge for it!

        I'd love to see linux become viable for more users, but until the "Simplicity is stoopid, and you are so stoopid" mentality is violently overthrown, linux will remain a decent server platform and a desktop also-ran.

        ~jeff

  • Comments on the Article (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rjstanford ( 69735 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @07:22PM (#6315774) Homepage Journal

    The new features of Messenger 6 include custom window backgrounds and interactive games like checkers; iChat AV is dedicated solely to communication.
    This point, like the one the editor made, is what defines it to me. Do you want to play? Get MSN. Do you want to communicate? Get iChat. There are times and places for both of these activities.
    It's a little disconcerting, too, that video-chat partners seem to avoid eye contact. No matter how close you put the camera to the screen, it's impossible to look at both simultaneously. Everybody comes across as weirdly inattentive.
    As those of you who saw Jobs' keynote Monday will already have guessed, this was a prime requirement for the iSight camera that Apple released -- designed to attach to the various displays Apple has released. Looking at the pictures on the NYT site (yeah, registration, ooh, scary), there's a massive difference in the way that the people using the two apps look -- one that you wouldn't necessarily click to from just reading the text.
    And because Apple has the luxury of manufacturing "the whole widget," as Steve Jobs often says - the hardware and software, the computer and camera - there's no configuration. The instant you plug in the camera, it's ready to work, without any wizards or setup.
    This is true, as it stands, but misleading. As they point out elsewhere in the text, iChat works as well on any FireWire camera, such as pretty much all modern camcorders, etc. This has more to do with using an established graphics communication protocol over a generic bus like USB than who manufactures the hardware.

    • Do you want to play? Get MSN. Do you want to communicate? Get iChat. There are times and places for both of these activities.

      You have to remember that MSN is fighting AIM which has included a lot of this customisation (which the kids really like) in it's past versions. MSN is just playing catch-up to AIM, showing it up with the video, and catching up to iChat, showing it up with the customisation.

    • this was a prime requirement for the iSight camera that Apple released -- designed to attach to the various displays Apple has released.

      Since you couldn't just, you know, SIT YOUR CAMERA ON TOP OF YOUR FRIGGING MONITOR!!!! The little Apple camera hoobajoob is cool, but Jobs made it sound like it was physically impossible to put a camera on top of a monitor until the glorious miracle of iSight.

      --riney

      • Re:Comments on the Article (Score:5, Insightful)

        by rjstanford ( 69735 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @07:52PM (#6315955) Homepage Journal
        Since you couldn't just, you know, SIT YOUR CAMERA ON TOP OF YOUR FRIGGING MONITOR!!!! The little Apple camera hoobajoob is cool, but Jobs made it sound like it was physically impossible to put a camera on top of a monitor until the glorious miracle of iSight.
        Well, if you have a flatscreen (like most of Apple's monitors for the last few years), or a laptop ... er ... then yes, it is prety difficult to just, as you say, "SIT YOUR CAMERA ON TOP OF YOUR FRIGGING[sic] MONITOR". So this was not a meaningless feature for most Apple users, who were in fact the targetted audience for this product.

        That, and its a damned nice little camera, too.

    • This is true, as it stands, but misleading. As they point out elsewhere in the text, iChat works as well on any FireWire camera, such as pretty much all modern camcorders, etc. This has more to do with using an established graphics communication protocol over a generic bus like USB than who manufactures the hardware.

      Now THIS is something it would be nice if Windows would do. You have to use trackercam to get 1394 camera functionality on windows with webcams, though there may be another driver which do

  • Of what use? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Agent R ( 684654 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @07:23PM (#6315784)
    Has anyone actually used these types of programs for other than just flashing your "little general" (hint: not Ross Perot) at strangers?

    • Re:Of what use? (Score:2, Informative)

      by spruce ( 454842 )
      My whole company (50+ employees) uses Messenger - it's much less intrusive than walking into someone's office and saying "Hey, got a minute?" We use it for communication that isn't important enough that you need to have a record of it (email), and isn't important enough for face to face contact.

      Also, we have a couple of development locations, so it's great for when you need to have a conversation with someone not near you.

  • NYT reg... (Score:2, Informative)

    by H0NGK0NGPH00EY ( 210370 )
    Seriously, how hard is it do this [google.com], and find this [nytimes.com]?

  • Needed feature (Score:5, Funny)

    by thelandp ( 632129 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @07:28PM (#6315812)
    But which one comes with the best auto-airbrushing feature? Many slashdot readers will no doubt need this.

  • anyone know of something similar for Linux/Unix? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by danalien ( 545655 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @07:29PM (#6315813) Homepage
    do you? and don't say gnomemeeting :P

    maybe something that will work with apples iChat AV?

  • Remember Cornell Cuseeme anyone? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mikeophile ( 647318 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @07:34PM (#6315853)
    It's only been out for a scant 10 years.

    It's good to see Apple and Microsoft are now providing it with some timely competetion.

    • Remember Cornell Cuseeme anyone?

      It's only been out for a scant 10 years.

      It's good to see Apple and Microsoft are now providing it with some timely competetion [sic].

      Yes.

      Probably better then you.

      I also remember it was based on the early QT codecs with lots of support from Apple. Indeed Cornell used to be quite publicly appreciative of the support they had gotten from Apple on CUSeeMe. In return Apple loved to show off CUSeeMe to it's academic customers as an example of the kind of cutting edge tec

  • requirements (Score:4, Informative)

    by prockcore ( 543967 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @07:36PM (#6315866)
    Another thing that should be noted is iChatAV requires at least a 600mhz machine in order to send video. While GnomeMeeting and others run on much less powerful hardware.

    • Re:requirements (Score:5, Informative)

      by Mikey-San ( 582838 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @07:49PM (#6315949) Homepage Journal
      You've conveniently left out the fact that the 640x480 video stream you get from iChat, doubled with the nice audio quality, is better than GnomeMeeting's.
      • bwaahahhahahahahasnadghjkawfg827evgwbdfv

        I point out iChat's video and audio superiority, and two people mod me down as a troll. /Awesome./

        It's easy to have lower system requirements when your stuff doesn't look or sound as nice. ;-D

        (I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Don't take it personally. :-))

    • Re:requirements (Score:4, Informative)

      by green pizza ( 159161 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @07:59PM (#6315987) Homepage
      Another thing that should be noted is iChatAV requires at least a 600mhz machine in order to send video.

      This is partially due to the very high quality codec being used. However, it will work on slower processors if the bandwidth limit is turned on. Without bandwidth limitations, the app brought my G4/400 to a crawl. With the limit turned on to 400kbps, it runs just fine and the quality is still very nice.
    • But for the most part the people that may use iChat AV probably have a 600MHz G3 at least. I'm using one on my ibook right now and I bought this in early 2001. It works great for iChat AV when I'm talking to my dad over out DSL lines.

      Since 600MHz is a decent floor perhaps Apple may use it as a selling point to try to convince users to upgrade hardware, or just to go up to OS X (finally! who hasn't by now except companies that needed specific software!) The restriction to 600MHZ may also be an indication of

  • Once again... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by dave1g ( 680091 )
    Apple goes out of its way to make sure most people can't use thier stuff without spending lots of money.

    "Apple, on the other hand, would sooner die than release anything that could be described as "stuttering" or "microscopic." In iChat AV, video is as crisp, clear, bright and smooth as television (640 by 480 pixels), in a window as small as a Triscuit or as big as your screen. Unless you begin to type, the typed-chat window isn't even visible during a video or audio call. Beware, however: Apple offers t

    • Re:Once again... (Score:3, Informative)

      by johnpaul191 ( 240105 )
      it works with most any firewire digital cameras... be them "webcams" or a digital camcorder with firewire output..... this is not like some webcam that updates every 60 seconds, it's streaming... and if you watch the demo of Job talking to somebody in France..... it looks darn good. USB cameras lack the quality.

      that being said, most computers have microphones and using the full duplex audio chat has been repeatedly compared to cell phone quality. you can also do one sided video chats... so make friends
      • USB cameras lack the quality.

        That's not true at all, I don't think I've seen a usb camera that *couldn't* do 640x480.

        I don't understand why iChat *forces* you to stream at 640x480.. why couldn't I chat with 4 people at once and have each one at 320x200? it'd take the same amount of bandwidth... and be much more useful.

        Having 640x480 available is nice, but requiring it is stupid.

    • Re:Once again... (Score:2, Informative)

      by gotr00t ( 563828 )
      You DO know that any FireWire based camera or DV camcorder will work? Apple's is merely a suggestion for what you should use.

      It's just like iPod. Apple recommends that you should use it with a Mac, however, other MP3 players WILL work with Mac as well.

  • Well good (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Call Me Black Cloud ( 616282 )
    'Microsoft, true to tradition, has focused on expanding its list of features, while Apple has worked toward elegance and simplicity.

    Elegantly simple? Or elegant for simpletons? I'll take "expanded list of features" for $1000, Alex.

    One of the features of Microsoft's offering is "works with almost any old Webcam". Apple's "requires a video camera with FireWire"

    I like things that work. From the article it appears they both work equally well so the deciding factor will have to be...features.

    • were we reading the same article? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Schlemphfer ( 556732 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @08:37PM (#6316224) Homepage
      From the parent post:

      From the article it appears they both work equally well so the deciding factor will have to be...features.

      No, the deciding factor will have to be...video quality.

      Here's what Pogue's article says about the Microsoft product:

      If both conversation partners have high-speed Internet connections or are on the same office network, Messenger's video looks very good. You have only three size choices for the video - small, smaller or microscopic - but it's bona fide video. [Also, Pogue goes onto say that the MS product gets bogged down if you're connecting through a router]

      And here's what Pogue's article says about Apple's product:

      Apple, on the other hand, would sooner die than release anything that could be described as "stuttering" or "microscopic." In iChat AV, video is as crisp, clear, bright and smooth as television (640 by 480 pixels), in a window as small as a Triscuit or as big as your screen.

      As you can see, video quality for the Apple product is incomparably better. The whole point of this video chat stuff is great quality video, and it appears that Apple is the only one offering high quality video at the moment. Unless you're content to look at triscuits ;)
    • Uhhh -

      hmm, wonder what kind of bandwidth one needs to do the whole 640x480 thing at a decent frame-rate? I also noted the "firewire" requirment - but then again since the cam Apple is selling is fire-wire, and $149 vrs. $49 for an el-cheapo USB cam... One could expect it would look better.

      But - as I said - bandwidth; at anything less than cable-modem speeds, it's probably likely to be just as craptacular as any other web-cam.

      Oh yeah, and Yahoo IM has had a full-res mode for a while now called supercam
      • wonder what kind of bandwidth one needs to do the whole 640x480 thing at a decent frame-rate?

        With iChatAV I was using about 50KBps in both directions. The video is pretty good, but the audio sometimes cut out.

        FYI, I had some trouble getting it to work at first. After opening my firewall to AIM and restarting iChat everything worked flawlessly -- don't know which was the fix.

    • Re:Well good (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Brett Johnson ( 649584 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @09:08PM (#6316477)
      I worked on a word processor for Lotus in the late '80s. It started out an elegant outline-based editor. After 2 years, we called it the "Feature Creature". It was one huge-ass monolithic application that required a custom-built dynamic linking loader and overlay manager to fit in 640K. It shipped on more than 30 diskettes - compressed. It had features up the wazzoo. So did all the other monstrosities in the Lotus Office suite. 99% of the users didn't use more than 20% of all the crap in the applications and just had to wade through enourmous manuals and deep menus to get at anything.

      Toward the end of that project, I read some essay on the philosophy of Unix programming. It stressed the concept of very many small special purpose programs, that when chained together, produce useful work. I saw the light. A crap-load of features is not neccessarily the right thing.

      I've found that I much prefer an application that does one or two things very well over and application that does 100 things poorly.

  • Got my iSight yesterday.. (Score:5, Informative)

    by droopus ( 33472 ) * on Friday June 27, 2003 @07:52PM (#6315961)
    I was amazed..I expected to wait months.

    The camera is absolutely amazing. About the size of a long C cell, the quality blows away any USB cam I've ever seen, and looks better than my camcorder as well. The whole iChat/iSight experience is, as Apple promised, beyond simple. Download iChat AV (had it already) plug in the camera, and off you go...well at least to the other two people I know who have iChat AV installed.

    Well there had to be a caveat, eh? Forget about it if you have a slow Mac. I first hooked it to a dual 500mhz G4, and with bandwidth limits off, the thing bogged down my machine like nothing I had ever seen. I had to do a pushbutton restart twice.

    Then I tried it on my daughter's 1ghz 17" iMac. Perfect. Flawless. I was having chats with people at 600kbps and it was like television on the other side, or so I was told.

    Back to the dual 500, but with bandwidth limited to 200kbps. Now it works fine, but the moral here is that Apple is not telling all about processor requirements. To be honest, anything less than an 800mhz G4 is going to choke without the bandwidth limiter.

    Yeah other cams are cheaper and there aren't many people to communicate with yet. But the difference between this type of chat and generic AIM is, forgive the cliche, paradigm changing.

    I ordered two more iSight's today.
    • I know the iSight comes with brackets for Apple products, like the laptops, the iMac, and the LCD displays. Are any of those brackets adjustable or do they look like they would work on third-party stuff? I've got a ViewSonic LCD that I'd like to put the camera on.

      ~Philly
      • While the Powerbook stand probably is only gonna work on a Powerbook the other two stands are pretty generic. One is angled, for use on an eMac or (optimistically) an old-style iMac. The last is designed for the Cinema Display (the one I'm using) and uses basically snazzy double stick tape to secure it to the back of the Display so it just sticks over the top. This last stand will probably work fine on any flat backed LCD.

        There's a swivel/pan mechanism in the iSight as well.

    • Worked just fine on my dual 533 G4 with a puny GeForce2 FX, windowed or full screen. I wasn't sure what the bandwidth limit did so I left it set to the default, None. The other end was my dad's 800 MHz iMac. He is on DSL and I am on cable. The only problem we noticed was sketchy sound quality at times. The video window resized smoothly and easily without stopping the video. I didn't notice any huge processor hit and I probably would have noticed because I keep CPU meter running in the dock all the ti

  • Useful? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by sahonen ( 680948 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @08:07PM (#6316023) Homepage Journal
    Number of years I've owned a camera I could use for videoconferencing: three years

    Number of times I've actually used it for videoconferencing: 0. Nada. Zilch.

    Could someone please explain to me why I would want to videoconference when I could just use GAIM and not rape my internet connection?

  • picture of ichat av (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ptorrone ( 638660 ) * <pt@nOspAM.adafruit.com> on Friday June 27, 2003 @08:14PM (#6316066)
    here is a picture of an ichat av session, this was before i got the isight (today) it worked fine with my cannon dv cam:

    http://www.flashenabled.com/nimages/ichatbg.jpg [flashenabled.com]

    it works great, full screen and super-simple. msn 6 and ichat both do im, but msn is on version 6 with lots of features that many people need, or want while apple is starting out for the most part and many people don't need app sharing, white board, etc...it's pretty exciting. i use a mac and a pc so i've got the best of both.

    cheers,
    pt
    • Mm, nice picture. Looks like that here too.

      But upon closer inspection, is that really a PAIR of Segways behind the iMac?

      !
      • yep, my wife and i use segways as opposed to cars get around for most of our trips. i use mine each day to get to and from work (1,000 miles total now) she uses her on the campus where she works and for errands when she's home. we still have one car, that is...until the bus folks let hts on for her commute and then maybe we'll go totally carless (so we can use that money to get a g5) :-]

  • Privacy (Score:2, Interesting)

    by deadgodim ( 658075 )
    Do either of them have an option for SSL, or any encryption at all (other than that that trys to make the protocole obscure as posiable)

  • I was talked into getting iSight, but it's nice... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by berniecase ( 20853 ) * on Friday June 27, 2003 @08:35PM (#6316210) Homepage Journal
    My girlfriend went on and on about how she wanted an iSight. Last night I broke down and went with her to pick one up. It's a pretty sweet device. On our LAN here, we have no problems doing 2mbps video. Chatting with a couple friends, we've been able to do up to 160kbps. Still, not bad.

    Earlier, I took my older Pismo PowerBook into the back yard and had an audio chat with her, while getting video from the iSight attached to her PowerMac. 700-800kbps there. Not bad at all. My audio stream going to here was 30kbps.

    All in all, it's a sweet device. I need to make more Mac friends. It's only a matter of time before there's an iChat AV videochat directory*.

    *All original ideas are the property of me. Boo yeah, grandma. I thought of it first, and so on... ;-)

  • iChat AV is so simply easy to use! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Hackie_Chan ( 678203 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @09:00PM (#6316434)
    I used to fool around with iChat during the release of Jaguar. Didn't use it that much because most of my friends didn't have AIM-accounts. But it's changing now... AOL/ICQ have recently merged their networks, so now i can use iChat to chat with my ICQ friends (only of they use the latest ICQ-lite though).

    And I think Steve Jobs described Video-conferencing pretty accurately. It's one of those features that you go "I will never use this. It's cool. But I will never use this." and then after some use you will go "Why did I say that? THIS IS GREAT!".

    You know what? Steve Jobs was completely right! iChat is now my favorite chatting application because of it's sleek interface, ease of use and audio/video capabilities. I just plugged in my webcamera and iChat AV booted up automatically and configured itself! How is that for plug and play, Microsoft? No drivers, no nothing. It simply worked. Set up in less than ten seconds. I am stumped!

    "Way to go Apple!" is what I say! This will completely change how I communicate with my father that reside in the US. We've emailed and called back and forth for six years now, but now it looks like we're taking a step further to the future!

    But what really need to happen is interconnect-ability between all apps though :(
    • But what really need to happen is interconnect-ability between all apps though :(

      This has been my biggest beef with iChat since its first release. For all of Apple's proselytizing of the technology, iChat is essentially devoid of any support for AppleScript and AppleEvents.

      It would be awesome to be able to tie iChat to other scriptable Mac apps via AppleScript. The possibilities are endless. Unfortunately Apple thinks the potential for hackers to abuse the IM system via AppleScript outweigh the benefits

  • My favorite quote... (Score:4, Informative)

    by geekee ( 591277 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @09:08PM (#6316476)
    "Messenger 6, in its ultimate form, will be free; iChat AV will cost $30 (but will be free with Apple's next operating-system release, Mac OS X 10.3, code-named Panther, due by year's end).".

  • Comparing Apples to Microsofts (Score:3, Interesting)

    by theolein ( 316044 ) on Friday June 27, 2003 @10:30PM (#6316924) Journal
    I prefer the idea of iChat AV over MSN Messenger 6, but I like Apple's simplicity in UI design in general, which is why I have a Mac. But the MS chat will no doubt be good enough for most of the people out there (most of whom have no idea that MacOSX even exists, much less that there is something like iCHat AV etc) and will obviously work with more , and cheaper, hardware. I think the majority of PC users will be happy enough with the quality provided by MS Chat, and it will server to bind PC users even more into the MSN/Microsoft fold.

    I personally think that Apple made a mistake by limiting iChat users to AIM/ICQ/.Mac but I presume that Yahoo had some legal barriers that made it unwise to enter. I think that OSX hackers will probably hack this thing eventually that it will accept other hardware Cams, such as USB types, as they seem to be quite a resourceful bunch, but the lack of AIM/MS IM/Yahoo compatibility is something that will continue to hinder decent Audio/Video Chatting over the internet.

  • Had it for years (Score:3, Insightful)

    by randomErr ( 172078 ) <ervin,kosch&gmail,com> on Friday June 27, 2003 @11:22PM (#6317159) Journal
    Yahoo Chat has had video feature for years. CuSeeMe been out longer then that. This is new?

Slashdot Top Deals

With your bare hands?!?

Close