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TGDaily: Apple Prepping iChat for iPhone

Wednesday, April 9th, 2008 at 4:10 PM - by

The state of the art in VOIP and videoconferencing on the Mac as well as the iPhone suggests that Apple will jump all over these technologies themselves in iPhone 2.0 due in June, according to Christian Zibreg at TGDaily on Wednesday. iChat for the iPhone and iPod touch could be the result.

In an opinion piece, Mr. Zibreg sized up the current possibilities for VOIP on the iPhone. While eBay/Skype has so far been silent on Skype for the iPhone, there are two other current alternatives: SHAPE commercial solution called IM+ for Skype. Another option is Jajah, which offers a Web-based callback solution.

In addition, there are some other solutions that run within Safari on the iPhone but offer limited capabilities. Hence the time may be right for Apple to once again bring long awaited coherence to the VOIP experience on the iPhone, according to Mr. Zibreg. The reason is, of course, Apple has already invested in the technology: iChat.

"With iChat running on an iPhone you would be able to place voice or video calls through Wi-Fi network to other iPhone users or iChat users on a Mac, effectively bridging desktop and mobile worlds," Mr. Zibreg wrote. "If Apple brings iChat to Windows, which will happen sooner than later anyway, VoIP/video calls could extend to potentially millions and millions iChat users on PCs. Oh, and let's not forget that iChat on OS X is AIM-compatible right out of the box."

The author admits that it's all speculation, but if true, it won't be the first time Apple surprised the community by quietly putting the pieces into place until the whole springs forth as more than sum of the parts. iChat on an iPhone would be a killer app.

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vasic said:

member since 09 Aug 2005 with 279 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Wed Apr 09, 2008 4:57 pm

He lost me with "If Apple brings iChat to Windows...". This tells me this guy did very little research. There is this software alled AIM (AOL instant Messenger), which has been "iChat for Windows" since the appearance of iChat (for Mac). IChat operates on AIM networks, which have existed before Mac OS X and iChat concept, as has AIM. To anyone who has every tried AIM (and I had to, in order to communicate back to my home Mac via iChat), AIM is a high-ranking contender for the worst monstrosity ever written for Windows, and version after version, it gets worse.

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smokeonit said:

member since 02 Feb 2005 with 25 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Wed Apr 09, 2008 5:19 pm

if apple doesn't release a windows version simultaneously ichatAV on the iphone will be a major failure!

so unless there's evidence for a windows version it will look pretty grim for ichatAV;.... even if it makes it onto the iphone...

aol im doesn't do video well!!! and no audio, only video with text chat.... whoever @ aol came up with that ought to be fired ASAP....!!!!

what apple should do is partner with google and have them do an windows client for their gtalk software that does h264 video/audio well, then ichatAV on the iphone WILL do well!!!!

aol is slow and not really interested in this! if they were they would have gotten their aol im software right years ago!!!!

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vasic said:

member since 09 Aug 2005 with 279 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Wed Apr 09, 2008 5:36 pm

As much as I hate AIM for Windows, I have used it for audio/video chat (with iChat on the other end) for at least four years, i.e. ever since iChat (the original one) came out. As soon as iChat became iChat AV, AOL released AIM with support for audio and video (at the time Panther came out). I believe 'smokeonit' must be confusing it with Yahoo Messenger, which doesn't do it well. AIM has smooth video, uninterrupted audio and more-or-less similar transmission quality as iChat on a Mac. The only difference is, AIM doesn't support multi-conference, while iChat allows four-way video-conference.

I do agree, though that the person who developed AIM should have been fired years ago when they thought it up; the team that keeps shoving out horrible versions thereafter should have been fired several times (at each version) as well.

Either way, there is a piece of software for Windows that does exactly what iChat does on Mac. It is owned by AOL (as are the networks it works on), so I doubt Apple will ever attempt to jump on AOL with their own (probably just as free of charge as AIM) iChat Win offering. That would be just like if they went ahead and wrote Yahoo Messenger for Mac, even though Yahoo already has one (or Skype for Mac).

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A guest said: (hide)

Wed Apr 09, 2008 5:43 pm

Video iChat from your iPhone would be killer...Star Trek future stuff we've always wanted. The videophone of the future that never came to pass. Think about it. Put the iPhone in a cradle, and dial another person with an iphone, and just have it work. Do video iChat with another Mac user. Don't have a Mac? Aw, too bad. Apple just came out with another reason to buy one.

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Wings said:

member since 30 Mar 2004 with 89 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Wed Apr 09, 2008 6:19 pm

Is everyone forgetting that the camera and screen are on opposite sides of the iPhone? How does one videochat with THAT?

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vasic said:

member since 09 Aug 2005 with 279 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Wed Apr 09, 2008 6:22 pm

Obviously, the guy is talking about the second revision of iPhone hardware; not the new software update. It's the one that will have two cameras - one 3 megapixel (or more) on the back, one VGA on the front (a micro-iSight, if you will). By now, very many analysts have chimed in with their expectations of iPhone 2.0 (or iPhone 3G) by June. I thought this much was clear from the article.

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A guest said: (hide)

Wed Apr 09, 2008 7:13 pm

Apple learned a long time ago that there is money to be made in the PC world. The iPod started off with a 3rd party app for PC users and sales went through the roof when they moved iTunes to the PC.

If Apple does put an iChat camera on the front of the iPhone (a very wise move IMHO) then there needs to be a PC version of iChat in order to bring that boost in sales that iTunes for the PC brought the iPod.

Personally I've been wanting iChat for the PC for a long time as my brother-in-law is stuck with a PC and we have to use Skype for my wife to video conference him - which she does almost every day!

When the iPhone comes with 32 gigs of memory and iChat camera it will have hit my "buy" point. Add iChat for PC and my wife gets one also - but she won't need 32 gigs.

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vasic said:

member since 09 Aug 2005 with 279 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Wed Apr 09, 2008 7:42 pm

It seems that the guest hasn't read my two posts here. Tell your brother-in-law to go to www.aim.com, download and install AIM for Windows. He can also sign up there for an account. In fact, this account doesn't have to be a @mac.com user name; on AIM, you just select a name (like steve, or bob; those are likely taken, though...). If he has a web-cam and a headset, AIM will work like a charm on Windows, and you won't need Skype anymore.

As I had already said above, the likelihood is extremely slim that Apple will bother to develop iChat for Windows. Unlike iPod, where the device was Apple's property and they wanted to have it work properly with their own software, iChat networks are AOL's property and it is doubtful AOL would be very happy if someone else developed a Windows client that does exactly what their own software does.

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A guest said: (hide)

Wed Apr 09, 2008 8:18 pm

You, apparently, haven't seen the next version of the iPhone yet!

Wings wrote:
Is everyone forgetting that the camera and screen are on opposite sides of the iPhone? How does one videochat with THAT?

You, apparently, haven't seen the next version of the iPhone yet!

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gslusher said:

member since 13 Nov 2002 with 2088 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Wed Apr 09, 2008 10:51 pm

Guest wrote:

You, apparently, haven't seen the next version of the iPhone yet!

Neither have you, unless you work for Apple or a supplier and, in that case, you're probably going to be fired for violating your NDA.

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A guest said: (hide)

Thu Apr 10, 2008 4:06 am

Does anyone know how Open AIM might allow or otherwise affect the creation of an iChat for Windows? (More on it here: http://dev.aol.com/aim )

I don't know much about it and am not a developer, so making head or tails of it all is a bit beyond me at the moment.

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vasic said:

member since 09 Aug 2005 with 279 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Thu Apr 10, 2008 11:00 am

OpenAIM seems like an interesting route. Judging by the site, Apple should be legally fine using whatever OpenAIM APIs offer in order to build iChat for Windows. It is still a question, though, if AOL will like that, since OpenAIM project was designed to allow third-party apps to integrate AIM chat into their main functionality, and not for someone to build another stand-alone IM client that would upstage AOL's own software. We'll have to wait and see. I for one would be ecstatic to see iChat for Windows replace the dreaded AIM I was forced to occasionally use so far.

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A guest said: (hide)

Thu Apr 10, 2008 3:25 pm

Wings wrote:
Is everyone forgetting that the camera and screen are on opposite sides of the iPhone? How does one videochat with THAT?

Like so: http://www.engadget.com/2007/08/13/mirror-based-video-conferencing-developed-for-iphone/

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