NY Times: MSN Messenger 6 Vs. iChat AV

by , 8:00 AM EDT, June 27th, 2003

In a recent article in the New York Times, author David Pogue looks at the two major new instant messaging clients to be released in the last week: Microsoft's MSN Messenger 6, and Apple's iChat AV. Both pieces of beta software allow users to not only chat in text, but to see and hear those they are communicating with as well. In the article, Mr. Pogue takes a look at both clients, comparing and contrasting the new features and requirements. From The New York Times:

Microsoft, true to tradition, has focused on expanding its list of features, while Apple has worked toward elegance and simplicity. Messenger is a cacophony of brightly colored buttons, panels, blinking advertisements and, in the new version, animated (and even homemade) smileys; iChat AV maintains the clean lines and brushed-metal "surfaces" of its text-only predecessors. The new features of Messenger 6 include custom window backgrounds and interactive games like checkers; iChat AV is dedicated solely to communication. Messenger 6, in its ultimate form, will be free; iChat AV will cost $30 (but will be free with Apple's next operating-system release, Mac OS X 10.3, code-named Panther, due by year's end).

Mr. Pogue goes on to offer some specific thoughts on the quality of the two products. Though he never actually says that iChat AV is the superior product, he does infer it. From the article:

MSN Messenger works with almost any old Webcam, like one of those $60 golf-ball cameras that you perch on your monitor and plug into your PC with a U.S.B. cable. (You also need a free MSN.com or Hotmail account; iChat AV requires a free .Mac or AOL Instant Messenger account. The MSN-Hotmail and .Mac-AIM networks are still, alas, mutually incompatible.)

If both conversation partners have high-speed Internet connections or are on the same office network, Messenger's video looks very good. You have only three size choices for the video - small, smaller or microscopic - but it's bona fide video.

[...]

Apple, on the other hand, would sooner die than release anything that could be described as "stuttering" or "microscopic." In iChat AV, video is as crisp, clear, bright and smooth as television (640 by 480 pixels), in a window as small as a Triscuit or as big as your screen. Unless you begin to type, the typed-chat window isn't even visible during a video or audio call.

You can read the full article (registration required. Registration-free Google News link here) at The New York Times' Web site.

The Mac Observer Spin:

This article offers terrific exposure to iChat AV, and contrasts it very nicely to a very mainstream audience against Microsoft's attempt to do the same thing. We agree with Steve Jobs, who said during the WWDC keynote that video and audio conversations through the Internet can change the way we communicate. More specifically, we think there is a lot of demand for this kind of technology. True to form, Apple is the first company to do it right, even if they weren't the first to do it.

The New York Times