iChat (previously iChat AV) is a discontinued

instant messaging Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of online chat allowing real-time text transmission over the Internet or another computer network. Messages are typically transmitted between two or more parties, when each user inputs text and trigge ...

software application Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

developed by

Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company ...

for use on its

Mac OS X macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. Within the market of ...

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...

. It supported instant text messaging over

XMPP Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP, originally named Jabber) is an open communication protocol designed for instant messaging (IM), presence information, and contact list maintenance. Based on XML (Extensible Markup Language), it ...

Jingle A jingle is a short song or tune used in advertising and for other commercial uses. Jingles are a form of sound branding. A jingle contains one or more hooks and meaning that explicitly promote the product or service being advertised, usually t ...

OSCAR Oscar, OSCAR, or The Oscar may refer to: People * Oscar (given name), an Irish- and English-language name also used in other languages; the article includes the names Oskar, Oskari, Oszkár, Óscar, and other forms. * Oscar (Irish mythology) ...

( AIM) protocol, audio and video calling, and screen-sharing capabilities. It also allowed for local network discussion with users discovered through

Bonjour Bonjour is a French word meaning (literally translated) "good day", and is commonly used as a greeting. Bonjour may also refer to: People * Laurence BonJour (born 1943), epistemologist and professor of philosophy at the University of Washington ...

protocols. In OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, iChat was replaced by Messages for chat and

FaceTime FaceTime is a Proprietary software, proprietary videotelephony product developed by Apple Inc. FaceTime is available on supported iOS mobile devices running iOS 4 and later and Mac computers that run and later. FaceTime supports any iOS devic ...

for video calling.

History

iChat was first released in August 2002 as part of

Mac OS X 10.2 Mac OS X Jaguar (version 10.2) is the third major release of macOS, Apple's desktop and server operating system. It superseded Mac OS X 10.1 and preceded Mac OS X Panther. The operating system was released on August 23, 2002 either for sin ...

. It featured integration with the Address Book and Mail applications and was the first officially supported AIM client that was native to Mac OS X (the first-party AIM application at the time was still running in Classic emulation). One episode of the first season of the

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...

dramedy series

Entourage An entourage () is an informal group or band of people who are closely associated with a (usually) famous, notorious, or otherwise notable individual. The word can also refer to: Arts and entertainment * L'entourage, French hip hop / rap collecti ...

had Eric Murphy having an iChat conversation with Ari Gold, marking the first time that this application was used on a television series.

Interface

iChat incorporated Apple's

Aqua Aqua is the Latin word for water. It is used in many words which relate to water, such as aquatic life. In English, it may also refer to: Arts * Aqua (color), a greenish-blue color Business * Aqua (skyscraper), an 82-story residential skysc ...

interface and used

speech bubble Speech balloons (also speech bubbles, dialogue balloons, or word balloons) are a graphic convention used most commonly in comic books, comics, and cartoons to allow words (and much less often, pictures) to be understood as representing a charac ...

s and pictures to personify the online chatting experience. With iChat, green (available), yellow (idle), and red (away) icons could be displayed next to the name of each connected user on the buddy list. For color-blind users, this could be altered to show different shapes, circle (available), triangle (idle), and squares (away), to illustrate status with shape rather than color.

iChat AV

In June 2003, Apple announced iChat AV, the second major version of iChat. It added

video Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) syste ...

and

audio Audio most commonly refers to sound, as it is transmitted in signal form. It may also refer to: Sound *Audio signal, an electrical representation of sound *Audio frequency, a frequency in the audio spectrum *Digital audio, representation of sound ...

conferencing capabilities based on the industry-standard

Session Initiation Protocol The Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is a signaling protocol used for initiating, maintaining, and terminating communication sessions that include voice, video and messaging applications. SIP is used in Internet telephony, in private IP telepho ...

(SIP). The final version of the software was shipped with Mac OS X 10.3 and became available separately on the same day for

iChat AV 2

In February 2004,

AOL AOL (stylized as Aol., formerly a company known as AOL Inc. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City. It is a brand marketed by the current incarnation of Yahoo (2017� ...

introduced

AOL Instant Messenger AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) was an instant messaging and presence computer program created by AOL, which used the proprietary OSCAR instant messaging protocol and the TOC protocol to allow registered users to communicate in real time. AIM w ...

(AIM) version 5.5 for Windows users, which enabled video, but not audio, chats over the AIM protocol and was compatible with Apple's iChat AV. On the same day, Apple released a public beta of iChat AV 2.1 to allow Mac OS X users to video conferencing with AIM 5.5 users.

iChat AV 3

In June 2004,

Steve Jobs Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American entrepreneur, industrial designer, media proprietor, and investor. He was the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple; the chairman and majority shareholder of Pixar; a ...

announced that the next version of iChat AV would be included with

Mac OS X 10.4 Mac OS X Tiger (version 10.4) is the 5th major release of macOS, Apple's desktop and server operating system for Mac computers. Tiger was released to the public on April 29, 2005 for US$129.95 as the successor to Mac OS X 10.3 Panther. Som ...

. iChat AV 3 provided additional support to allow up to four people in a single video conference and ten people in an audio conference. Additionally, the new version of iChat used the H.264/AVC codec, which offered superior quality video compared to the older H.263 codec used in previous versions. This release supported the XMPP protocol, which could be directly used to connect to

Google Talk Google Talk was an Instant messaging, instant messaging service that provided both text and voice communication. The instant messaging service was variously referred to colloquially as Gchat, Gtalk, or Gmessage among its users. Google Talk was ...

and indirectly be used to connect to users of services including

Facebook Chat Messenger is a proprietary instant messaging app and platform developed by Meta Platforms. Originally developed as Facebook Chat in 2008, the company revamped its messaging service in 2010, released standalone iOS and Android apps in 2011, and ...

, and

Yahoo! Messenger Yahoo! Messenger (sometimes abbreviated Y!M) was an advertisement-supported instant messaging client (computing), client and associated protocol provided by Yahoo!. Yahoo! Messenger was provided free of charge and could be downloaded and used wit ...

. However, support was limited as it did not support several common XMPP features such as account creation,

service discovery Service discovery is the process of automatically detecting devices and services on a computer network. This reduces the need for manual configuration by users and administrators. A service discovery protocol (SDP) is a network protocol that hel ...

and full multi-user chat support. iChat 3 included the

protocol (previously called Rendezvous) which allowed iChat to automatically find other users with iChat Bonjour messaging enabled on the local network. In October 2005, iChat received support for encrypted communications, but only for paid subscribers of

.Mac MobileMe (branded iTools between 2000 and 2002; .Mac until 2008) is a discontinued subscription-based collection of online services and software offered by Apple Inc. All services were gradually transitioned to and eventually replaced by the ...

(now

iCloud iCloud is a Personal cloud, cloud service from Apple Inc. launched on October 12, 2011 as a successor to MobileMe. , the service had an estimated 850 million users, up from 782 million users in 2016. iCloud enables users to sync their data to t ...

) service. These features were part of iChat 3.1, released as part of the Mac OS X v10.4.3 update. This version also added support for XMPP multi-user chat. In March 2007, Apple released the Mac OS X v10.4.9 update, which allowed

USB video device class The USB video device class (also USB video class or UVC) is a USB device class that describes devices capable of streaming video like webcams, digital camcorders, transcoders, analog video converters and still-image cameras. The latest revisio ...

(UVC) cameras to be used with iChat, rather than FireWire cameras only. This allowed a wider range of cameras to be used with iChat AV.

iChat 4

iChat 4 was introduced as a part of Mac OS X 10.5 and received new features including: iChat Theater (inspired by ChatFX a product from Plum Amazing), Backdrops, and Screen Sharing. iChat Theater allowed users to share any file supported by

Quick Look Quick Look is a quick preview feature developed by Apple Inc. which was introduced in its operating system Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. The feature was announced at the Worldwide Developers Conference on Jun. 11, 2007. While macOS's Finder has alway ...

, including photos, Keynote presentations, and movies, over a video chat session. Backdrops allowed users to insert movies or photos as a backdrop in video chats. Screen Sharing allowed two users of Mac OS X Leopard to have control of the same desktop and work collaboratively. Minor features in the new release included multiple logins, animated icons, use of

Photo Booth A photo booth is a vending machine or modern kiosk that contains an automated, usually coin-operated, camera and film processor. Today, the vast majority of photo booths are digital. History The patent for the first automated photography ma ...

effects in live video chat, and tabbed chats.

iChat 5

iChat 5.0, released with

Mac OS X 10.6 Mac OS X Snow Leopard (version 10.6) is the seventh major release of macOS, Apple's desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers. Snow Leopard was publicly unveiled on June 8, 2009 at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference. ...

, reduced the bandwidth required for 640×480 video chats and upgraded iChat Theater to the same resolution.

iChat 6

iChat 6.0, released with

Mac OS X 10.7 OS X Lion, also known as Mac OS X Lion, (version 10.7) is the eighth major release of macOS, Apple's desktop and server operating system for Mac computers. A preview of OS X 10.7 Lion was publicly shown at the "Back to the Mac" Apple Speci ...

, added support for Yahoo Messenger account and allowed iChat users to have text, voice and video chats using their Yahoo Mail accounts. It also supported third-party plugins, eventually allowing other protocols to be compatible with the software. iChat 6 was the last iChat version; in

OS X Mountain Lion OS X Mountain Lion (version 10.8) is the ninth major release of macOS, Apple Inc.'s desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers. OS X Mountain Lion was released on July 25, 2012, for purchase and download through Apple's Mac Ap ...

, it was replaced by Messages. The final release, iChat 6.0.1, was published on February 1, 2012.

Messages

As part of the OS X Mountain Lion preview, Apple announced on February 16, 2012, that its

OS X macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...

messaging client would be Messages, and that it would support the

iMessage iMessage is an instant messaging service developed by Apple Inc. and launched in 2011. iMessage functions exclusively on Apple platforms: macOS, iOS, iPadOS, and watchOS. Core features of iMessage, available on all supported platforms, includ ...

protocol, making it compatible with the iOS client. Messages also incorporates

support. Apple made Messages immediately available as a downloadable beta version for use on Mac OS X 10.7.

Supported protocols

iChat's AIM support was fully endorsed by

, and used their official implementation of the AIM OSCAR protocol. Using a XMPP transport, iChat could serve as a

client Client(s) or The Client may refer to: * Client (business) * Client (computing), hardware or software that accesses a remote service on another computer * Customer or client, a recipient of goods or services in return for monetary or other valuabl ...

for

, MobileMe, ICQ and

. iChat could also integrate

contacts into the XMPP pane.

References

External links

Official website
(archived)
XMPP Standards Foundation
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ichat Apple Inc. software MacOS instant messaging clients Videotelephony AIM (software) clients XMPP clients MacOS MacOS-only software made by Apple Inc. 2002 software Computer-related introductions in 2002 Defunct instant messaging clients