About iChat
iChat 5
iChat 5 comes with Snow Leopard (OS 10.6.x). At the time of writing that is 10.6 through 10.6.3 iChat was updated to verion 5.0.1 in 10.6.2 and to version 5.0.3 in 10.6.3
These pages have sat here since 2008 with no update. In that time the AIM servers have been closed down (2017) and iChat has been superseded by Message and FaceTime. That effectively makes this a sort of Historical Document of how it worked.
As with other versions here are the links to:
iChat
These pages are about iChat®.
They consist of older info about iChat 1, 2 (AV), 3 and 4 as well as info about the last incarnation, iChat 5.
After this Apple changed to Messages 6. This had the same features as iChat 5 (AIM support, Bonjour, Jabber/XMPP with Video and Audio chats to AIM on PCs and to other Macs using iChat video capable versions). Messages has since lost Audio and Video chats (Moved to FaceTime although there was some overlap.) and the ability to use different text colours, Fonts and bubbles for different Buddies. Currently (mid Sept '24 at time of writing) the Mac OS is at Sequoia and Messages 10
The info in these pages is being somewhat reorganised. I hope to make sure that things are grouped in a more logical order to explain somewhat how iChat has got from iChat (ver 1) through to the current iChat 5. Currently the pages are at an in-between phase
In brief the iChat 1st version was a text chat App compatible with AIM on the PC as well as doing Bonjour Chats on your local network. iChat 2 in Jaguar added Video Chat (And Audio ones). iChat 3 added Jabber/XMPP abilities. Google ran a Jabber server for a while. iChat 4 and 5 were effectively refinements. Check the links for more details on the exact abilities of each version.
The Menu at the side will provide links to sections. It will change from page to page to help with Indexing the pages for the Search item
Areas Covered
The basic info from the previous layout remains and has been updated.
The new sections are:-
- iChat Versions, with each containing links to Functions, How-tos and Pics for that version.
- How-tos. A common set of How-To for each of the main functions of iChat such as adding Buddies and Starting Chats.
- Problem solving and related info expanded in to iChat 3 and 4, particularly after the Error Log was introduced at OS 10.4.7
© Ralph Johns October 2009 Updated November 2009. Revised September 2024.
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Information Block
These pages have sat here since 2008 with no update. In that time the AIM servers have been closed down (2017) and iChat has been superceded by Messages. That effectively make this a sort of Historical Document of how it worked.
This 2024 Edit/Update does make some tense changes to the Contents but mostly it stands as written. The general purpose of the update was to move, as much as possible to HTML 5 compliance where I could.
This site is about iChat from Version 1 through to iChat 5.x.x
It has a mixture of basic info and problem solving help.
This Information Block will change for Specifics about info on the page on view
© Ralph Johns and others where credited.
Revised September 2024
Made on a Mac®
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