iChatAV -- Cool, but useless

Exactly, USB just doesn't cut it, Apple isn't known for releasing half-assed solutions and that is why it is firewire only.

Everybody is (complaining) about iChat and it's only been out a few hours. (edited)! There are other apps that do this, but do any of them do it as well as Apple will? Time will tell but I doubt it. iSight is expensive because it is good and it is probably geared as much to the consumer market as it is to the business market. Video conferencing has really taken off these last couple of years and has a tremendous appeal to the business world. Travel is expensive and not very safe, a good and cool and easy program and camera like this could save a business mega bucks. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is useless. Lighten up and revel in the fact that Apple is doing something incredible.

They probably had to push this out the door just to add something to WWDC because everyone was hyping it so much, ok, so it's not perfect but it's here!

(watch the language and insults please :) - Jason)
 
Apple is always slightly ahead of their time. I'm sure in a few years, things like iChat AV and iSight won't be such an oddity. It will go from being a "Oh, cool, you have one of those!"-thing to a "What, you don't have one of those?"-thing pretty quickly.
 
I understand the slow USB 1.0 argument. And I definitely understand that it will not drive sales of their new camera... But here is my side.

1)Promote the software. Make it easy for EVERYONE to use. Then on the next update, if its a proven software that is actually catching on, make us upgrade to the better camera (they have done this with every major OS X upgrade, and its been working).

2)Sure, Apple may be about not "releasing half-assed solutions and that is why it is firewire only." I understand that firewire video is better. But at the moment they need to focus on releasing software that attempts to increase their market share up from their current 2%. Release something consumers can afford (which is difficult since Mac products are for the most part more expensive than PC products - sorry, I am not as wealthy as the rest of you), let us judge if its useful, and let us get addicted to your product (as I am).

3)The speed of the camera will almost always be faster than your network connection. Sure the image might not look as good as with a firewire image, but compress that image for a productive network videoconference, and it doesn't make that much of a difference. If I need broadcast quality video, I'll watch a live satellite transmission.
(I admit, I could be wrong on this one....the Al Gore video looked great, but how far away was he from San Francisco? ).

Anyways, enough of my banter. My real point is "how hard could it be." Its not that hard at all, especially for a piece of software that will cost me (at the low end) $30.

just a thought...or 3
sukram
 
the most common use of webcam that i know - talking about pc users - is online sex. i think mac users could find some other uses for a cam as well, but i find online sex quite boring. when i "talk" to someone i don't want to see them either. and i'm so used to "talking" = typing that i hate the telephone.. i can "talk" = type 5 hours with someone and hate talking on phone (or using voice) for calls lasting more than 2 minutes.

i don't want to be bugged to have online sex or to see anything obsolete in ichat. thus i think i'll stay in version 1 or non AV.
 
Originally posted by Giaguara
the most common use of webcam that i know - talking about pc users - is online sex. i think mac users could find some other uses for a cam as well, but i find online sex quite boring. when i "talk" to someone i don't want to see them either. and i'm so used to "talking" = typing that i hate the telephone.. i can "talk" = type 5 hours with someone and hate talking on phone (or using voice) for calls lasting more than 2 minutes.

i don't want to be bugged to have online sex or to see anything obsolete in ichat. thus i think i'll stay in version 1 or non AV.
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I would recommend going to iChatAV. There are other features/fixes that are very nice, like expanding textbox, spell check, and recent pictures pane.

When I started this thread I should have explained myself better. Video and voice chat are EXTREMELY useful features. They are however pretty much useless when only 3% of the pc market have Apples, probably 1/2 of them are still on os9, and who knows how few people have firewire cameras. If I can only use these features with <0.05% of the population then they are pretty much useless.
 
Originally posted by hulkaros
Although, I have a TiBook with a Mic included and turned on the phone button doesn't seem to work with any other friends that I tried to "Audio Chat" with them (up to 5 people and they were all using iChat AV too)...

Also, noticed lots of redrawing problems while chatting with them either one on one or many at once and most specifically while typing messages... However, when I pressed the enter key the redrawing problems were dissapearing...

Beta! I know! :p :D ;)

:)
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It worked just fine on my powerbook. Did you set your internal-micro as audio-in device? :rolleyes: :D
 
Originally posted by mightyjlr
When I started this thread I should have explained myself better. Video and voice chat are EXTREMELY useful features. They are however pretty much useless when only 3% of the pc market have Apples, probably 1/2 of them are still on os9, and who knows how few people have firewire cameras. If I can only use these features with <0.05% of the population then they are pretty much useless.
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If you look at it that way then yes, it is useless.

However, if you look at the fact that Apple has sold over 5 million iMacs, you start to see a very big installed base of users, all of which can run OS X and most of which can run this camera. That does not include all of the Lombard and above PowerBooks and G3 and G4 Macs. It is a very big base of users that could use this technology. It might only be 3% of the total market, but that is not the main focus of the company.

I have used CUSeeMe years ago and I got tired of looking at the body parts of other users fairly quickly. It's neat technology, but it needs to do more. I think it needs to do more. With IChatAV, it gives the potential for more.

For instance, if I have a friend in Germany that has DSL, I can now speak to them and show them images through my computer. We can even use the camera features. This scenario breaks down only because my friend does not have a DSL connection and a Mac. But now if properly motivated, the friend could get a Mac and we could do this.

The technology may only be useful or appealing to a very limited number of Mac users, but honestly, so is having Apache on the Mac, the ability to make movies, the ability to play music, the ability to have a calendar on a Web site somewhere. Most people might use one or two features. I in fact use all of them.

It is also a logical extension of what Apple has been doing for a while. Look at the Apple AV Monitor from the early 90's. It had a built-in microphone. Most PowerBooks from the 520 up to Pismo had a built-in microphone as well. It was a mostly useless feature, but now suddenly it seems to have a real pourpose. Of course, none of those mics will most likely work with iSight, but at least Apple has been thinking along these lines for a while.
 
Originally posted by sukram
This has got to be one of the most frustrating things I have had with Apple since I made the great switch to OS X. I have been waiting for this program for 2 years and suddenly they say that the only way for it to work is with a FIREWIRE CAMERA?!?!?!
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Has anyone tried a USB camera? With auto-detect, I would assume it would work. Of course, I have not seen any specs yet.
 
We have already implemented iChat AV office wide here at work. We were using iChat on a regular basis to communicate. iChat AV makes this even easier. We have'nt gone to video yet but the audio messaging is much better than typing messages back and forth and much more convienient than our phones intercom system (I no longer have to look up a fellow employee's extension, I simply select their name in my buddy list).

At home I use it to save on long distance bills by communicating with family members through iChat. And when the iSight cameras I have ordered arrive, i will enter the age of Video phone.

Calling iChat AV useless is an ignorant statement. How can you expect to review something you don't use? You just need more friends who use Apple.
 
I think it's useful. Video conferencing is something I used to do several years ago. From the demo at the WWDC, it seems to have come a long way.

It is a nice option, and I'm happy Apple implemented it in the new version of iChat.

I have a few friends over seas right now, and as soon as the download iChat AV we'll be talking. Without such technology I would be stuck text chatting them.

I do like the inter-office solution, however the company I work for has PC and macs and the AV solution would have to be cross platform for it to really work.
 
i'm more used to "talking" text and not seeing the persons. so i won't be warmed by visual phones or even talking. i hate phones because i am supposed to talk and not type in them ...
 
Originally posted by bigbadbill
We have already implemented iChat AV office wide here at work. We were using iChat on a regular basis to communicate. iChat AV makes this even easier. We have'nt gone to video yet but the audio messaging is much better than typing messages back and forth and much more convienient than our phones intercom system (I no longer have to look up a fellow employee's extension, I simply select their name in my buddy list).

At home I use it to save on long distance bills by communicating with family members through iChat. And when the iSight cameras I have ordered arrive, i will enter the age of Video phone.

Calling iChat AV useless is an ignorant statement. How can you expect to review something you don't use? You just need more friends who use Apple.
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Maybe you didn't see my second post, where I explained myself better. Obviously video and voice chat are very useful features. The way iChat implements them is also very good. I didn't mean useless in general, but it is useless for a large number of people in the sense that it will only work with an extremely small percentage of all computers. And although it is a very cool feature, I don't see very many, if any people switching to Apple just to use iChatAV. I switched 2 years ago because of MacOSX, but that is because I am an informed computer user, who knew about the benefits of the OS. I wouldn't have switched because of the cool "iChatAV" if it were still OS9. Anyway, thats a whole different story. Oh yea, and "bigbadbill" don't call my statement ignorant. I wasn't reviewing the features or implementation of iChatAV. I was simply stating the fact that the extremely large majority of computer users will not be able to use iChatAV for video-conferencing or voice chat the way it was meant to be used. Maybe you are ignorant for not realizing that.
 
I agree with mightyjlr in that it is a limited audience of people. Only a handful of mac users use AIM and and even smaller portion of those people have cameras and an even smaller portion of people would hook them up to do video conferencing.

mightyjlr has asked a very practical question.

I think Apple's though is if we put out a camera, mac users might be more into the AV idea. Which is true. How many posts on this form alone were there of people running out to buy iSight? Possibly having never suggested any interest in video conferencing prior to the release.

IMHO Apple customers are quite creative and they will find ways to use the new system to their benefit.

I'm a little peeved that my G3 didn't make the cut, I was going to use iChat to spy on my house cat from work. :)
 
I agree with the above posts.
iChatAV is a nice app, but it's too limited in user base.

I am one of the 2% of people who use a Mac, I use 10.2, downloaded iChatAV, even have a webcam (what is it now... 0.7% of the population?) and still doesn't work for me!

USB cams not supproted. That's just nonsense. I use my Logitech Pro 4000 with other apps and get beautiful images at 30fps.

Ok, I try to get my camcorder. Plug in the firewire cable... still doesn't work! My CPU is too slow: 600MHz is the minimum.
I think we end up with 0.1% of the population, roughly speaking.

I agree that Apple should push quality. But the ability to make iChatAV work for a wider audience woulnd't harm its usefulness and popularity at all.
Limit functionality to smaller windows, lower frame rates and people will want an iSight! (which, incitentally, can not work with other apps!!!)

Hope Apple listens and changes their mind before the final version is released.

P.S. on a side note, before buying the Logitech I actually shopped around for a FW cam. Couldn't find any!
 
mightyjlr, I didn't mean to offend you by calling your statement ignorant. What I meant was that you were making a very strong statement by starting a thread to announce that you find the iSight "useless" when you don't even own one. You seemed to lack knowledge and experience where the product is concerned and that, by definition is ignorance. I admit I missed the post where you recanted your statement, but I think if you tried the iSight in the environment in which it was intended, you too would find it "way cool dude".

I'm sure that in the very near future we will be able to communicate via video with pc users using the iSight camera. The integration between the two platforms grows by leaps and bounds these days. You can't expect Apple to develop something super new and groovy if they fall in line behind every other web-cam manufacturer or chat client developer. They have to forge ahead and hope the masses follow. We as devoted Apple users need to be patient.

I'm reminded of an old proverb where a young bull and his father are grazing on a hill. The young bull turns to the older one and says "Hey Pop, let's run down there an screw one of those cows." To which the older bull replies " No Son, let's walk down and screw 'em all."

I'm proud to be in that 0.1%
 
Bill,
I never said I find the iSight useless, nor did I claim to use one. All of my statements were made regarding iChatAV. I do not own the iSight. I have never used the iSight. I have never seen the iSight in person, or touched it with my own hands. That doesn't make me ignorant of the iSight though. I do not lack knowledge of the product. Is there some secret information or features that only people who buy the iSight get to know about, that isn't listed on the Apple website? I have no experience with the iSight, but that still does not make me ignorant of it. I have a very large amount of experience with other firewire web-cams and video-cameras. Besides these cameras not mounting to the top of my computer screen, does their use with iChatAV differ in anyway? No. I know you weren't trying to attack me Bill, and I hope I don't come off too strong in my statements and arguments, but it gets to me when someone calls me or my ideas ignorant, when that is obviously so far from the truth.
 
mightyjlr — point taken ... let's move on, shall we.

Got my iSight camera yesterday and I have to say it ROCKS! The video quality is excellent and the the sound quality is even better. I worked from home yesterday, keeping in touch with my office via iChat AV, and it went very smooth. I set up another system using my Digital Video Cam (Cannon ZR65mc) and it works really well, but the sound quality is much better using the iSight.

One gripe though. I set my sound prefs to use the iSight for sound input, but it switches back everytime I switch off the iSight camera. Which makes complete sense, but is still a pain. Maybe I can write an AppleScript to switch the sound when I turn it on.

Also for anyone who has an iSight check out EvoCam, works with iSight and has some really USEFUL features. It has motion sensors and streams to web. This would be perfect for evildan to check on his cat!
 
so I read on xlr8yourmac.com about someone being able to use their USB webcam (ioxpert driver) with iChat after using iChat with their DV camera (firewire). I tried it and it works perfectly!!!!!

Basically, I plugged in my A/D DV converter (Director's Cut) into my firewire port. iChat assumed it was a camera. I then plugged in my camera, and exitied iChat. When I opened iChat, it found both the DV converter and my Kritter USB (ioxpert driver as well) and now I am getting amazing images with it! The image on iChat with my USB Kritter webcam blows away iVisit, etc. The funny thing is that once I remove my firewire hookup, iChat no longer sees the Kritter and my video disappears.

Is it still useless??? Well, not to me anymore (as long as i keep my DV converter on)... Although Apple's insistence on purposely blocking my webcam to force me to buy a stupid iSight camera makes them more like Microsoft than ever...

Apple, please just let us use it!!!!

Sukram
 
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