BusinessWeek Online says that Apple's iChat maybe the first product in whole new ways, finally making high-quality videoconferencing over the Internet available."
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I find it very impressive the strides apple has made here with isight and iChat but logically speaking, how can these technologies be a threat to the phone companies when they are only for Apple computers. With only ~3% market share one would assume Apple would need to offer the same capabilities at the same quality level on the PC side before the phone companies were threatened.
It's amazing, but I'm still waiting to see how many people use it. Being that's it's Mac only, I have a hard time finding other iChat users...
wait wait wait.... I'm all for Apple but would someone explain this article? MSN Messenger has been AV capable for about 2 years and Yahoo! Messenger maybe the same time. I've made telephone calls back home from MSN Messenger (Windows) from my desk at work in 2001.
How will iChat AV "revolutionize" telecom? I'm not getting it.
[no flames please]
its easy to set up
its easy to use
its has a high qaulity picture
it will not give you a blue screen of death after talking for 20 minutes.
Obviously you haven't used iChat.
MSN, the quality of video and audio is not as good as
iChat/iSight.
It's the quality and the default image size in iChat/iSight and it's full screen ability is better than anything (quote me on it) out there.
I've compared it here at work even with hig end dells and what they see as best cameras, it doesn't compare to iSight.
It's been around but Apple got it right (kinda what they always do, or completely invent).
Suck it up
I am so sick of these incompetant morons who write for newspapers who know not of what they speak!
Except for the video capability, everything that iChat does has been in AOL's AIM for some six years.
Revolutionary? NO WAY. Evolutionary, possibly.
Cell phones are a bigger threat to land line telecom than iChitChat. I don't plan to buy iSight or use iChitChat for phone calls because no one else I know will have the same set up. Perhaps an all Mac company with employees spread around the globe might decide to standardize on iChitChat but how many of these companies are there? Not my company nor any that I have heard of. Alas, it will be another technology for teens and p*** sites.
I think the reason it's seen as more revolutionary is because it's coming from Apple.
I tend to think about it in the same way as the iTunes Music Store. Sure, there were pay for download services before IMS on the windows side, but they never really caught on. Then Apple comes out with IMS, makes it easy to use and markets the h*** out of it, and now windows users can't wait for it.
The same could be said for A/V and messenger services. On the windows side (I have a Mac, don't worry) I use AOL IM. IM can some audio, I think, or maybe it can do some video too... who knows. MSN and Yahoo are the same - my point is that these other messenager services have never really marketed the A/V aspect of their product. I guess is that this is because most of the users on IM, Yahoo, or MSN Messenger are on dial-up connections and the image and sound quality are awful. Sure the capability may be there, but your overall customer base doesn't have the ability to utilize the service.
I think Apple is slightly different because they're coming right out and saying that this will only work on a high speed connection. I think overall percentage of Mac users using high speed connections is significantly higher than that of PC users - meaning that Apple has more of a chance to utilize this service and make it successful.
I don't believe it is a direct threat to telecomm companies. However, someone once said 'TV will never replace radio, the picture is too fuzzy!' Eventually TV's became better and the rest is history... I think the capabilities iChat AV present can be a future threat to them. (10 years down the road :-))
its video conferencing FOR THE REST OF US... meaning its easy and high quality enough for the regular people out there to use. not just geeks...
Being revolutionary isn't always about being the first with an idea. Its about delivering power to the people!
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Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Jul 2001
Yes, yes, yes
We know we've revolutionized computing. Again.
The real question is if they'll use the buggy, slow, poorly designed M$ system once it comes out.