iChat or AIM?

Not a dumb question at all, but certainly one that's likely to spark a lot of debate, as everybody has their preferred messenger system.
I'm quite fond of the iChat interface and design, and it does offer certain advantages over AIM, in that it can connect on a local network, such as an Airport wireless link, without needing to access the Internet.
However, for my instant messenging I use an app called "Fire" which offers support for AOL, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ and IRC. Others on the site here highly recommend Adium, and I know there are about 10 or so other messenger apps that are well liked here. So, it's really a matter of your own needs and tastes.
 
Im a serious newbie, so much of one that my mac hasnt even arrived at my house yet (ordered it today). Does ichat allow you to chat with AIM users or is it strickly its own thing like MSN?
 
iChat works out AIM and ICQ accounts, as well as .mac accounts. It does not support MSN or Yahoo! IM accounts, though.

You will soon realize that iChat, by its complete integration with the system and its elegant interface, gets over AIM in all possible views of the product.
 
iChat works only with AIM Oscar (prefedined). And AIM normal with both TOC and Oscar. Then, Fire and Gaim can work as well with both of them, but e.g. Adium seems to work only with TOC.

Maybe you can choose the method in iChat, but in practise that TOC / Oscar thing can be noticed with mac.com accounts and other messangers. If i'm in iChat with my mac.com handle, I can't see people who are using AIM in TOC mode - so e.g. with Adium (or any AIM or clone as TOC. mac.coms need Oscar). And they can't see me. With Fire (has AIM, ICQ, YIM, IRC, MSN, Jabber) and with Gaim you'll see both.

Interface preferences are an otehr thing. :)


If you open iChat's package, you'll see what it has. Theorically a future release could support ICQ and a lot of other things. E.g. voice and webcam .. >>>>> CLASSIC But it doesn't work yet. In a future release.. ;)
 
The only reason I don't use iChat instead of AIM is that it will display some of my friends as away and then it'll display the rest of them as being idle even though they're really away. I was kind of hoping that this would've been fixed a while ago, but I guess not.
 
Sorry Wiz. I didn't mean to :(

iChat does not show you the users that are in TOC - way using of AIM, e.g. in Adium I'd be in TOC, so I can't see my friends with mac.com - handles (those work only in Oscar). And in iChat I'd be invisible because of the same thing when logged in Adium. If I want to use a mac.com handle I'd need iChat (or Fire, or maybe Gaim), and if I want to see BOTH Oscar and TOC contacts, I'd choose Fire (from versiontracker) or Gaim. If you want any other means on the same messanger then (ICQ, YIM, MSN, IRC, Jabber etc) try Fire, Proteus or JSuperChat - not iChat. JSuperChat showed, if I remember right, also the mac.com handles.

For the GUI, I'm undecided switching between Adium (customised, without smiles) and iChat. :)
 
I go for iChat because i just hop on, talk to a few people and hop off. I don't need any extra stuff or fancy stuff. Just plain chat and smilies for me. :D
 
For me, it's Fire for my day-to-day needs, as it lets me keep all my buddies accounts from different systems in one place (AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, MSN).
But iChat is a very useful one in its own right and stays in the dock as a result.
 
iChat. Because...
It's faster.
No ads.
The speech bubbles. :p
Anti-aliased text.
Interface is not cluttered.

Oh yeah, it's so much more stable too! :D
 
iChat works only in 10.2. So even if you'd had it emailed to you or if you downloaded it but you were in 10.1, you couldn't use it.
 
For me it depends on if I'm running under Jaguar itself or under X11. I use iChat under my normal aqua interface because I enjoy how it's incorperated with the rest of the system, and because of AOL's old affiliations with M$. Since I got Jag, I am M$ free!

When I'm working under X (trying to familiarize myself with it because I'm saving for a PowerMAc g4 which will run mostly linux (gentoo) then I will use Gaim, it's what my Linux friends recomended to me, and to tell you the truth I love it, it's nice to have both my aim sns and my yahoo! name on all at the same time, and the one window helps.
 
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