Welcome to Part 7 of Deep Thought’s review of Mac OS X Leopard, the latest kitty to pounce on the world. It has been taking a while, but the Leopard review series should be completed this week. Woot!

In this particular sections, I get to discuss one of the more fun new features in Leopard: iChat 4.0. This is no minor improvement, mind you. So pull up a chair, relax, and get ready learn a little bit about iChat in Leopard.

Of course, no review segment would be complete without the following note on the score. That score you see way down at the bottom of the page only reflects whatever is discussed in this article. When all is said and done, we will assign Leopard a final score. Without further ado, let’s get into the heart of the matter.

(And pardon me for any typos--it’s 1:30 AM as I post this on the site and I’m really tired.)

Chat it up!

iChat made its debut way back in August 2002 as part of Jaguar (Mac OS X 10.2). At the time it was a pretty bare-bones IM client. Despite its lacking feature set, however, iChat always had one thing going for it: its user interface. Accentuated by text bubbles in chats, a soundset that didn’t suck, and subtle animations, iChat made instant messaging fun. In time, audio and video chat support was added, along with support for Jabber and a number of other smaller features. This brings us to today with iChat 4.0 in Leopard.

iChat, uChat, we all Chat

iChat contains some large new features, as well as a number of smaller enhancements. Let’s start with the biggies.

iChat in Leopard goes beyond communication, with a large focus on collaboration. iChat contains two new features designed with collaboration in mind: iChat Theater and Screen Sharing.

An example of iChat Theater in use.

iChat Theater allows you to share documents your iChat buddies without having to actually send them the file. In essence, it is nothing more than a video chat, except that instead of using video from your camera, iChat uses the contents of whatever document you want to share. ichat Theater can display any file that can be handled by Quick Look, so many major file formats will work with iChat Theater out of the box. And of course, it works with both AIM and Bonjour. To share something over iChat Theater, select the person you want to share an item with in your buddy list, then choose either “Share a File With iChat Theater” or “Share iPhoto With iChat Theater” from the File menu. Once you select what you want to share, iChat will instruct you to start a video chat with a buddy. Alternately, you can drag the file over any video chat window to share (it seems that only those with a camera can use the drag-over trick, though; I tried with my camera-less iBook, and it wouldn’t let me start iChat Theater with this method).

When you share something with iChat Theater, a Quick Look window opens, so in a sense, all iChat Theater does is show your buddy a Quick Look preview of a file. You know what that means, right?

iChat attempts to display a Quick Look preview for Mail in iChat Theater. It doesn’t work so well.

Pretty silly, eh?

Sharing photos from your iPhoto Library works in much the same way, except iChat will ask you to pick an album to share. Not surprisingly, iChat Theater will show a standard iPhoto slideshow, complete with music (Minuet in G) and the Ken Burns effect. However, iChat Theater will not see any actual slideshows or other projects you create in iPhoto. If you create an iPhoto slideshow with different transitions and effects, you can’t share it with iChat Theater unless you export it to a QuickTime video then share it as a file. Lame. Also, it appears that you can’t simply select one photo to show from the iPhoto chooser window in iChat. You can drag a photo from iPhoto over the iChat video chat window, however.

In terms of quality, iChat Theater’s quality is about what you would expect from any other iChat video. I’m testing it my WiFi (802.11b) network at home; the quality is a little fuzzy, but again, it’s about what you would expect from iChat.

For the most part, iChat Theater is nicely done. It does what you expect it to, and there aren’t any major issues that I have encountered.

Like the Finder, iChat now includes Screen Sharing. iChat’s Screen Sharing is handled a bit differently than in the Finder. For example, in the Finder, you can share a screen with any Mac as long as you have a username and password on it. On iChat, you can share screens with anyone on AIM of Bonjour, provided they accept screen sharing. additionally, you can allow others to see your screen as well.

To start Screen Sharing, select your buddy from the buddy list, then click the Screen Sharing button at the bottom of the buddy list window (two interlocking rectangles). On the other end, your buddy will see an invitation to view your screen or a request to view their screen, depending on what you choose. If someone requests to share your screen and they are not a “known buddy,” iChat will add an extra security notice to the Screen Sharing request.

Screen Sharing in iChat takes up the entire screen, and includes a small “My Computer” window in the lower left-hand corner of the screen showing your Mac’s desktop (screenshot). Clicking inside this window takes you back to your desktop, while closing this window will end the Screen Sharing session.

Here’s one cool little feature I discovered while using Screen Sharing: it is possible to grab a file on the shared Mac and drag it over to the Mac you’re using right now. Simply drag the file over the “My Computer” window and drop it there to send the file to yourself (it will download to your Downloads folder by default). Additionally, this window is spring-loaded; if you hold the file’s icon over the “My Computer” window for a coupe seconds, your local machine will come to the foreground and you can drag the file to any location on your hard drive. So cool!

Screen Sharing’s quality is very good. There is a little bit of lag here and there, but the image quality is pretty good, and it does do a decent job at keeping up with what happens on the remote computer. Bottom line: anyone who collaborates with others through AIM will love Screen Sharing.

One last note: just to show how nerdy you can be with screen sharing, a couple weeks ago Arden and myself were carrying on an IM conversation. In TextEdit. On my iBook. Shared through my MacBook. Using iChat’s Screen Sharing. That’s right, it went iBook -> MacBook -> Arden 100 miles away. Talk about nerdy.

I can see right through you!

As you may remember from the WWDC demo, iChat includes a number of backgrounds for video chats. This isn’t exactly what I would call a huge productivity boost, but a little fun never hurt anybody. These chat background effects work much like a green screen works in Hollywood: iChat takes a sample of what’s behind you (it asks you to step out of the frame for a few moments) and replaces it with the background effect of your choice. These can be any of the built-in photo and video effects, or one of your own.

To use these effects, start a video chat like you normally would. You’ll notice that there is now an “Effects” button in the video chat window. Click this button to bring up a panel full of effects. The first two pages are dedicated with Core Image effects like “Pop Art” and Sepia, as well as distortion effects like Mirror and Fish Eye.

The third page contains the background effects, the fourth page is blank so you can add your own. In use, these effects are picky. You need to have good lighting and a solid-color backdrop for best results. If lighting is poor or the backdrop isn’t a solid color, you could very well end up having a hole in the middle of your face. Chat backgrounds are a fun idea, and I think it’s pretty cool that what once required a blue screen or green screen to do can now be handled by a personal computer, but as I said before, it isn’t perfect yet.

The small red dot indicates that I am recording. In this case, I am holding an audio chat with myself.

This last feature is one that podcasters will like: built-in recording. For Cast of Geeks we currently use Skype for the conference call and either Audio Hijack Pro or Audacity to record. To record a chat, start an audio or video conference—iChat can record both—then Select “Record Chat” from the Video menu (note: if your Mac doesn’t have video capabilities, the “Video” menu will be labeled as the “Audio” menu instead). iChat will then ask your buddy if it is okay to record them. Recording is denoted by a pulsating red dot in the A/V chat window. When you are done recording, iChat will add the audio or video recording to your iChat library in a playlist aptly named “iChat Chats.” I didn’t have a chance to test the audio quality over the Internet, but when I do, I will let you know the results! All I can say is that this feature is long overdue.

Welcome additions

Aside from the big new features, iChat includes a number of smaller enhancements:

• iChat now supports tabs. All chats can be shown in a single window, with a list of chats running along the left-hand side. Click a name to show the chat with that person. Also, as you mouse over the names in the list a close button,a close button will appear, allowing you to close any of the chats without closing the window. If you receive a message in a chat in the background, iChat will notify you with a little text bubble. It’s a great little touch. One thing I found lacking, however, is the fact that the chats in the list cannot be dragged. You can’t reorder them and you can’t drag one chat out into another window. Pity.



• iChat will now indicate the number of unread IMs in the Dock icon. This is a welcome addition, but I prefer how ChaX handles this--it shows the person’s name instead.
• If you use groups in iChat, you can now reorder them. The first thing I do, of course, is turn groups off.
• iChat includes some new chat views. You now have four views to choose from.

  There’s the old standby, Bubbles:
  

  
  

  Boxes:
  

  

  Compact:
  

  

  And for those of you out there who prefer a no-frills approach, basic Text view is still around:
  

  
  
  
• iChat now allows you to be logged in as invisible. Yay!
• iChat now supports multiple simultaneous AIM account logins. The downside? All accounts end up with the same status message, so you can’t set one as Available, one as Away, and one as Invisible.
• SMS accounts are indicated by a small icon, so you won’t accidentally IM someone on their phone.

Let’s give them something to talk about

What can I say? The new iChat is great. If you use iChat to collaborate, you’re going to be a lot happier, thanks to iChat Theater and Screen Sharing. If you use iChat for fun, you might just have more fun with the video effects. And then there are the little additions, which are sometimes worth the price of admission by themselves. I have some minor quibbles with iChat 4.0, but it is a must-have upgrade for anyone who loves iChat. Thus, it is the first perfect score of the Leopard review. Way to go, iChat development team!

Articles in this series

• Part 1: The Leopard UI
• Leopard screenshots
• Part 2: Spotlight and the Finder
• Part 3: Stacks
• Part 4: Spaces
• Part 5: iCal
• Part 6: Time Machine