iChat was once the pantheon of instant messaging clients with its delicious aqua interface, no obnoxious ads (like AIM) and a simple ease-of-use that’s undeniable. But since the release of iChat AV (a.k.a. version 3) the application has added features at the expense of reliability.
First came the addition of audio chat, which was novel, then came the addition of video chat which had the potential to turn every Mac into a video phone. Everyone I know rushed out to buy Apple’s US$149 FireWire iSight camera (myself included) just for iChat AV, but it wasn’t long before the number of video icons in my buddy list started to dwindle.
Read the rest of the story on my ZDNet Blog: The Apple Core.

iChat was once the pantheon of instant messaging clients with its delicious aqua interface, no obnoxious ads (like AIM) and a simple ease-of-use that’s undeniable. But since the release of iChat AV (a.k.a. version 3) the application has added features at the expense of reliability.
First came the addition of audio chat, which was novel, then came the addition of video chat which had the potential to turn every Mac into a video phone. Everyone I know rushed out to buy Apple’s US$149 FireWire iSight camera (myself included) just for iChat AV, but it wasn’t long before the number of video icons in my buddy list started to dwindle.
Read the rest of the story on my ZDNet Blog: The Apple Core.