Now that the writer’s strike is over, Conan should be swimming in a-list material, but it appears that his love affair with OSX features is too hard to resist. In this installment, we find him engaging in an electrifying 3-way iChat conversation with Max and LaBamba. I don’t think they got the “magic back”, but at least the demo went smoothly. [NBC via Macenstein]
The enthusiastic high-fives of future iPhone instant messaging users yesterday might be quite a bit less enthusiastic today when they find out that Apple is not going to allow user-made SDK applications to run in the background. This means every application, from IM to VoIP to GPS mapping, will have to terminate entirely when the user switches out to take a call or change a song. How does this affect you? It means you won’t be a be able to receive IMs unless you’re currently inside the IM app, forcing you to disconnect when you take a call. There’s an upside and a downside to this decision.
Finally, after so many months, IMing is coming to the iPhone with AOL iChat native for iPhone. No more forced texting! It’ll support invisible mode, you’ll be able to make your own buddy icons using your stored photos, and you’ll swipe to switch between conversations. [live.gizmodo.com]
The R2D2 iChat Video fx is not making it to final build. Whyyyyyyyyyyyyy? I’m upset, but my girlfriend thanks you for saving her from hours of Princess Leia impressions over iChat. Drop your petition signatures / curses / cries / conspiracy theories in the comments.
You know that AIM mobile device forwarding that forwards your AIM messages to your phone via SMS? The one that just about all IM clients already have now? Apple’s building a link to that feature in Leopard’s iChat, under the accounts screen in preferences.
What does this do? Well, with this, you can forward your messages to your iPhone, which with the iChat-like SMS screen, gives you a kind of iChat-esque option for chat.
It’s pretty ghetto, and it’s pretty much the least Apple could do to get iChat onto the iPhone. How about we see a real iChat app, or better yet, a multi-client chat client like Adium?
In the new version of iChat coming with Leopard, you can make yourself look like a hologram, as from Star Wars. Yes, nerds, Apple and Star Wars are combined in a way that let’s you be in the action. Except your messages won’t be about your home planet being in danger, but more of the “hey mom, bring home some ice cream for dinner, I plan on playing World of Warcraft all night and need sugar for energy” variety. May the force be with you, indeed.
galleryPost('ichathologram', 4, 'iChat Hologram'); –Adam Frucci
