I have been a Mac user for 5 years now and I also use AIM as my main instant messenger. Since I have gotten a Mac I have never used the AIM client because AOL just has not released an updated version. The current version of AIM for Mac is version 4.7 which has no support for video or audio chat, and looks like it’s from the late 80’s. Thankfully Apple has the infamous iChat that offers a sleek simple Apple design that works great and has become my favorite IM client. Now AOL has finally recognize that Macs are become more popular everyday and have released a new AIM beta for Mac. I have downloaded this beta of AIM for Mac and it is a significant upgrade from their previous version for the Mac. I am very satisfied with the design and love the animation of the info pop out it gives you when you mouse-over a buddy. Now this is a beta and there are not that many bugs that I have noticed yet. But there are features that I feel this AIM client needs before it’s released. The Features that this clients need are:
- Video chat support.*
- Audio chat support.*
- An auto-adjust feature that would change length of buddy list window to number of online buddies.
- The ability to customize IM sounds/alerts with any sound file on your computer.
- Ability to put your own custom background with any image on your computer.
*Even Video/Audio support between Mac’s and PC’s.
Hey Mark,
I’m the product manager for AIM for Mac (and the other Mac and iPhone products). We’ve got a great roadmap for our AOL Mac and iPhone products and we’re going to release the top features our AIM customers use and look very closely to other features that may add to the users’ experience.
We have data on A/V chat but would like to find out from your users to let us know (here or on the Mac@AOL blog) how many times per month are you using A/V chat (iChat, Skype, etc).
thanks!
Lee Givens
AOL Mac/iPhone Product Lead
By: on October 31, 2008
at 12:18 AM
Lee Givens,
I want to start off by thanking you for reading my post and leaving a comment. It was very great to hear from someone so important haha. My post (incase you do not remember): http://hamexpress.net/2008/10/03/aim-enhanced-for-mac-finally/
Anyways about AIM for Mac having A/V chat, more and more computers are coming out with built-in webcams. There is still an increasing interest in Youtube, video blogging, and video podcasting. The internet is getting more popular everyday and with all these things like, youtube and video chat sites, more and more people have gained an interest in video. It is becoming more popular to not just type to your friends but video chat with them in real time. If you have seen websites like Stickam.com video chatting is very popular and gaining everyday.
Now when it comes to instant messaging on the PC almost every major instant messenger client (Skype, Windows Live, AIM, Yahoo Messenger) has A/V chat support. On the Mac it is a whole different story, the only instant messengers with A/V chat support are iChat, Skype, and Yahoo Messenger. Mac users that I know primarily use iChat as their main instant messenger and Skype for audio chatting. A funny thing is that not every PC has a webcam, but every Mac on sale (other than the mac mini and mac pro) have a built-in camera, yet most of the instant messengers on the Mac do not have A/V chat. AIM is the most popular instant messenger client on the PC. On the Mac it is the least most popular because of no version upgrades (until now with the new AIM for Mac beta). If AIM for Mac could include many features that iChat has I would and most mac users would switch to the new AIM for Mac, especially A/V chat support.
AIM for Mac needs improvements here (ordered by importance, 1 being most important):
1 Audio and Video Chat support
2 Auto sizing buddy list window. This is not a feature on iChat but with Chax this ability is available on iChat.
You can find more info on Chax here:
3 Ability to customize AIM sounds with there own files (My friends and I feel that the AIM received and sent sounds are annoying, most of my friends on their PCs have changed their sent and received sounds to the iChat sounds)
By: Mark on November 4, 2008
at 1:34 PM