iChat, one man's meat ...
in [UK Mac]
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From: zoara on 7 Dec 2009 17:26 Woody <usenet(a)alienrat.co.uk> wrote: > Peter Ceresole <peter(a)cara.demon.co.uk> wrote: > > > T i m <news(a)spaced.me.uk> wrote: > > > > > Q, If that concept was so good, why isn't it implemented on more > > > (any > > > other?) IM clients? > > > > Because the guys that did iChat are *better* at interfaces than the > > other guys? > > > > Which I think is true. > > In this case, compared to adium, I think they are way off the mark. I'd argue that iChat is a better user interface *for their target market* than Adium. And this is from someone who hates iChat and loves Adium. The chat bubbles - and their alignment / colouring - seem particularly suited to the "just want to chat" crowd, as they clearly distinguish "me" from "you". They make it a lot quicker to cast the eye upwards and see what it was they just said a couple of moments ago that they're now saying "haha lololol" to. It's interesting to note that a lot of IM apps (and text messaging apps) are catching onto the chat colouring/alignment idea (and many the twee bubbles as well). See the Palm Pre, IM+, Beejive and eBuddy (multi-platform mobile IM clients), a few clients on Android, and of course Adium and Trillian as you say. It always takes a while, but eventually a lot of people end up copying what Apple makes mainstream. It seems like only the crappy clients built by lumbering behemoths haven't yet caught up; Yahoo, AOL and MSN's clients are the only ones I can find that don't implement this sort of thing. This old link may be of interest - unfortunately the image is broken (it was quite an interesting "thrashing out" of what became the iChat UI) but the text is still in place, which gives some history of the design: http://jens.mooseyard.com/2008/03/the-origin-of-the-ichat-ui/ Ah, here's a cached pic - http://is.gd/5f5Eb - ugly, ain't it? But you can see where the ideas were evolving... Curiously, the iChat page on Wikipedia is a bit of a mess... Might have a play with that at some point. > Adium is much better as an interface than iChat by default. but it > also > has the advantage of different networks, plus the ability to change > your > interface to one you prefer. The former is not a UI difference but a functional one. The latter is not a sign of a good interface (though I did spend an enjoyable few minutes customising Adium to be the way I want). > And it has a duck icon, that even Rowland could recognise in a busy > dock, rather than iChat which if I remember correctly is yet another > blue round thing Heh. And it waves its wings about when you get a message. That makes it worth every penny I paid for it... > > Same way that for me the Mac UI is *better* than the Windows one, > > because Apple are better and more creative than Microsoft. It > > happens; > > some people and groups are simply better than others. > > Next you will be saying that safari is better than firefox for the > same > reason! Oh, but it is. For Apple's target market... Again, I prefer Firefox, but that doesn't mean it isn't a (more) flawed UI... -zoara- -- email: nettid1 at fastmail dot fm
From: Jochem Huhmann on 7 Dec 2009 17:51 zoara <me18(a)privacy.net> writes: >> Next you will be saying that safari is better than firefox for the >> same >> reason! > > Oh, but it is. For Apple's target market... Again, I prefer Firefox, but > that doesn't mean it isn't a (more) flawed UI... And I think it's a very reasonable decision to include some software for the clueless beginners (or at least the less demanding users) and have the more demanding users download some third-party app. Much better than having the more clueless ones download and install simpler software... I think Adium is a nightmare as far as the user interface goes. And Skype too. iChat suffers from the very limited choice of protocols but otherwise it's quite a fine app. Jochem -- "A designer knows he has arrived at perfection not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
From: zoara on 7 Dec 2009 18:06 T i m <news(a)spaced.me.uk> wrote: > Look at all the issues I had signing into iChat in the first place (in > comparison with nearly every other IM client I've tried). Data point; I just started iChat for the first time and it walked me through setting up an account. So the problem is with you r machine, not with iChat. -zoara- -- email: nettid1 at fastmail dot fm
From: T i m on 7 Dec 2009 19:50 On Mon, 07 Dec 2009 17:02:25 +0000, T i m <news(a)spaced.me.uk> wrote: >I now suspect you have V3.X, they are now offering V4.x. I've found a >copy of 3 and it looks like it will just start up as you say. It does. Did you say Trillian supports the speech bubble thing though? And it's another client that puts the doohickey *under* where *you* type so not where their text will come in. Also, do any of the multi IM clients also support Skype (for text chat at least)? Cheers, T i m
From: Woody on 8 Dec 2009 02:59
T i m <news(a)spaced.me.uk> wrote: > On Mon, 07 Dec 2009 17:02:25 +0000, T i m <news(a)spaced.me.uk> wrote: > > > >I now suspect you have V3.X, they are now offering V4.x. I've found a > >copy of 3 and it looks like it will just start up as you say. > > It does. > > Did you say Trillian supports the speech bubble thing though? I am sure it did, yes. > And it's another client that puts the doohickey *under* where *you* > type so not where their text will come in. I didn't read that whole doohickey business, so I have no idea what you mean by it! Whatever it does, I didn't find it hard to use. > Also, do any of the multi IM clients also support Skype (for text chat > at least)? I have never seen them doing so. I guess there is something about skype that you are not allowed to connect to without the client, which is why I can't use skype. The skype client is just too horrible to use. When I said the MSN client on the PC was worse, I meant it was the worse one I was prepared to use, skype is just too bad (on any platform). I have been asked to chat on it and declined - if someone needs to chat to me they can use something else. -- Woody www.alienrat.com |