iChat AV
Developed by	Apple Inc.
Stable release	4.0 (601)  (October 26, 2007) [+/−]
OS	Mac OS X
Genre	Instant messaging client
License	Proprietary
Website	Apple: iChat

iChat AV is an AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), .Mac, ICQ and XMPP client by Apple Inc. for their Mac OS X operating system. 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, Yahoo! and Google Talk contacts into the Jabber pane. ichat Inc (sometimes written iChat Inc) was a company that created instant messenger and technology for embedding chat rooms in web pages. ... This is the thumbnail icon used with Apples iChat AV 3. ... For other uses, see Software developer (disambiguation). ... Apple Inc. ... A software release refers to the creation and availability of a new version of a computer software product. ... is the 299th day of the year (300th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... An operating system (OS) is a software that manages computer resources and provides programmers with an interface used to access those resources. ... Mac OS X (pronounced ) is a line of graphical operating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. ... // Instant messaging (IM) is a form of real-time communication between two or more people based on typed text. ... In computing, a client is a system that accesses a (remote) service on another computer by some kind of network. ... A software license is a legal agreement which may take the form of a proprietary or gratuitous license as well as a memorandum of contract between a producer and a user of computer software. ... Proprietary software is software with restrictions on copying and modifying as enforced by the proprietor. ... A website (alternatively, Web site or web site) is a collection of Web pages, images, videos or other digital assets that is hosted on one or several Web server(s), usually accessible via the Internet, cell phone or a LAN. A Web page is a document, typically written in HTML... AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) is a free, advertisement-supported proprietary instant messaging and presence computer program which uses the OSCAR instant messaging protocol and the TOC protocol. ... .Mac (pronounced Dot Mac) refers to a group of online services offered by Apple Inc. ... ICQ is an instant messaging computer program, which was first developed by the Israeli company Mirabilis, now owned by Time Warners AOL subsidiary. ... Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol, or XMPP, is an open, XML-based protocol for near real-time extensible messaging and presence events. ... In computing, a client is a system that accesses a (remote) service on another computer by some kind of network. ... Apple Inc. ... Mac OS X (pronounced ) is a line of graphical operating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. ... An operating system (OS) is a software that manages computer resources and provides programmers with an interface used to access those resources. ... Bonjour, formerly Rendezvous, is Apples trade name for its implementation of the IETF Zeroconf protocol, a computer network technology used in Apples Mac OS X from version 10. ... Lan can stand for several things: A local area network Lan (airline) formerly LanChile Lan Peru Län, a kind of administrative division used in Sweden Lan Mandragoran, a fictional character in the Wheel of Time fantasy series by Robert Jordan. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article may require cleanup. ... OSCAR is AOLs instant messaging and presence information protocol standing for Open System for CommunicAtion in Realtime. ...

As of Mac OS 10.5, iChat bears the latest version of Apple's Aqua interface and uses speech bubbles and pictures that are meant to 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. To cater for color-blind users, this can be altered to show different shapes to illustrate status rather than color. The Aqua GUI in its original version in the Public Beta of Apples Mac OS X operating system. ... Four different shapes of speech or thought balloons Speech balloons (also speech bubbles or word balloons) are a graphic convention used in comic books, strips, and cartoons to allow words (and much less often, pictures) to be understood as representing the speech or thoughts of a given character in the...

History

In June 2003, Apple Inc. 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. Year 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... iSight was a webcam developed and marketed by Apple Inc. ... The Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is an application-layer control (signaling) protocol for creating, modifying, and terminating sessions with one or more participants. ... A typical webcam Webcams are small cameras, (usually, though not always, video cameras) whose images can be accessed using the World Wide Web, instant messaging, or a PC video conferencing application. ... IP Telephony, also called Internet telephony, is the technology that makes it possible to have a telephone conversation over the Internet or a dedicated Internet Protocol (IP) network instead of dedicated voice transmission lines. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

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. Year 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

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 H.263 codec used in previous versions. 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. Year 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Steve Jobs (born Steven Paul Jobs February 24, 1955) is the CEO, chairman and co-founder of Apple Inc. ... Mac OS X version 10. ... H.264 is a standard for video compression. ... H.263 is a video codec designed by the ITU-T as a low-bitrate encoding solution for videoconferencing. ... Official logo of the Jabber Software Foundation Jabber is a collection of open, real-time communication technologies built on the Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP). ... Google Talk is a Windows application for Voice over IP and instant messaging, offered by Google. ... “Y!M” redirects here. ... MSN Messenger is a freeware instant messaging client that was developed and distributed by Microsoft in 1999 to 2005 and in 2007 for computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system (except Windows Vista), and aimed towards home users. ... Official logo of the Jabber Software Foundation Jabber is a collection of open, real-time communication technologies built on the Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP). ...

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. This version also added support for Jabber multi-user chat. .Mac (pronounced Dot Mac) refers to a group of online services offered by Apple Inc. ... is the 304th day of the year (305th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

In March 2007, Apple released the Max OS X 10.4.9 update which allowed USB video device class (UVC) cameras to be used with iChat, rather than just FireWire-compliant cameras. This allows a much wider range of cameras to be used with iChat AV. The USB video device class (also USB video class or UVC) is a USB device class that describes devices capable of streaming video like webcams, digital camcorders, analog video converters, television tuners, and still-image cameras. ...

With the release of Mac OS X Leopard, iChat received new features including: iChat Theater, Backdrops, and Screen Sharing. iChat Theater allows users to share any file that is supported by Quick Look, including photos, Keynote presentations, and movies over a video chat session. "Backdrops" allow users to insert movies or photos as a backdrop in video chats. Screen Sharing allows two users of Mac OS X Leopard to have control of the same desktop and work collaboratively. Minor features in the new release include multiple logins, animated icons, use of Photo Booth effects in live video chat, and tabbed chats. Mac OS X v10. ... Screen Sharing is a VNC client by Apple Inc. ... Quick Look is a new preview feature in Mac OS X v10. ... Photo Booth is a small software application for taking photos with an iSight camera by Apple Inc. ...

Third party add-ons

Several third-party add-ons exist that extend the functionality of iChat.

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Image File history File links Broom_icon. ...

ChatFX

ChatFX adds special video effects created by the Quartz Composer application included in Apple's free Developer Tools. ChatFX changes the video in a video conference through use of Quartz Composer compositions. Special video effects like bluescreen, distort, display of desktop, sobel, comicbook, ghost, etc. come with ChatFX but an unlimited number of effects are possible by creating new compositions in Quartz Composer. Apple Inc has implemented the functionalities of ChatFX right inside iChat within MacOS X10.5 Leopard. Aside from their main developer tools Xcode and Interface Builder, Apple Computer also provide a number of other tools that aid software developers in creating applications for the Apple Macintosh platform. ... The Apple Developer Connection is Apple Computers developer network. ... The bluescreen setup. ... In computer vision, the Sobel operator is a simple edge detection algorithm using the 1st derivative of the intensity information. ... Apple Inc. ...

Chax

Chax 1.4.2 in use showing a tabbed window

Chax adds autoreconnect, tabbed windows, and auto-accept of messages and file transfers. Chax also prevents iChat from pausing audio-video (AV) chat when also transferring files. The ability to animate buddy icons, which was absent in versions of iChat before Mac OS X Leopard, can also be added through Chax. It also can remove the html tags that are normally visible to the ICQ correspondents of iChat. It was developed by Kent Sutherland and is similar in functionality to AIM+ and DeadAIM, which added similar features to the Windows version of AOL's AIM client. Image File history File links Chax. ... Image File history File links Chax. ... Mac OS X v10. ... AIM+ is a free third-party add-on for AOL Instant Messenger created by Big-O Software. ... DeadAIM is a program created by JDennis to add new features to and disable the advertising in AOL Instant Messenger (AIM). ...

iUSBCam

Although a FireWire video camera, such as Apple's iSight, is among Apple's requirements for iChat AV video conferencing, iUSBCam works around the iChat's limitations before Mac OS X 10.4.9 by enabling the use of USB cameras. It also provides basic picture adjustment and the ability to broadcast and automatically save the contents of the screen. Note: USB may also mean upper sideband in radio. ...

iGlasses

iGlasses gives the user control over the brightness, contrast, and color of the streamed video image. It is especially useful for sub-optimal lighting situations where the iChat user appears too dark, for example. It also provides mirroring and image rotation — useful when an iSight camera is mounted upside down. The "night vision" mode reveals the iSight's high sensitivity, allowing viewing of a darkened room, and making rudimentary security monitoring easier.

ShowMacster

ShowMacster lets the user stream photos, video, and sound files in their video chat as well as a live view of their screen. ShowMacster also allows "writing" of simple markup onto streamed images -- adding circles, lines, and the like in a set of primary colors and widths. Using a live view of a section of the screen together with this markup capability, a user can do limited whiteboarding, albeit in one direction only. If two (or more) iChat users each use ShowMacster they can communicate their ideas back and forth, but this is not true whiteboarding; the markup is streamed in video only, so there is no shared document which the users both (all) modify, nor is there a way to save the markup. Whiteboarding is a term used to describe the placement of shared files on an on-screen shared notebook or whiteboard. Videoconferencing and data conferencing software often includes tools that let the user mark up the electronic whiteboard much as one would with a traditional wall-mounted board. ...

See also

• List of Jabber client software
• Comparison of instant messaging clients
• Comparison of instant messaging protocols
• List of USB video class devices - A list of USB cameras that will work with Mac OS X 10.4.9 or later
• Jens Alfke - the initial developer of iChat
• Video conferencing
• macam - Open source USB webcam driver for Mac.

The following is a list of articles about instant messaging clients which utilize the Jabber / XMPP protocol. ... The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of instant messaging clients. ... The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of instant messaging protocols. ... Categories: Wikipedia cleanup | Groupware | Telecommunications stubs ... macam is a USB webcam driver for Mac OS X. It is Free Software, licensed under the GPL and supports a wide variety of webcams. ...

External links

• Apple's product page on iChat
• AOL
• Jabber Software Foundation
• iChat to MSN through Jabber
• iChatUSBCam
• Chax homepage
• ChatFX homepage
• Using iChat AV with a firewall or NAT router
• Portable iChat - Allows you to open iChat as portable application from external drive]
• Log into ICQ using iChat