Video Chat Software Reviewed

Ryan writes "The PowerPage by way of The New York Times has a comparison of Apple's new iChatAV and Microsoft's MSN Messenger 6. My favorite quote, 'Microsoft, true to tradition, has focused on expanding its list of features, while Apple has worked toward elegance and simplicity.'"

Comments

sounds like more bloat.

[tenshioboe]

Adding features does not necessarily increase functionality -- it just makes the manuals thicker.

Re:sounds like more bloat.

[DaemonGem]

I can't agree more. 99% of the people I talk to on chat don't even know how to change their passwords. In numerous cases I've had to explain to them how. Simplicity is definitely valued more by the normal layperson than are features. I have seen people turn down Trillian because "it is too complicated". I think most people would love to have such a simple chat client.

Now, if we could only tell all those people that Apple exists.

-Dae

Re:sounds like more bloat.

[vought]

Simplicity is definitely valued more by the normal layperson than are features. I have seen people turn down Trillian because "it is too complicated". I think most people would love to have such a simple chat client.

I would rewrite this passage this way:

Simplicity is judged a valuable attribute by the normal layperson, but people buy features.

Put another way, simplicity is seen as a sophistication in and of itself, and is therefore desirable, but the average Joe pounding down CA Highway 41 in a Ford F250 doesn't buy simplicity - he or she buys 'features' that will 'make computing easier'. And they buy all this at a place where they can get the "Best Buy". S

Here's a laugh: Microsoft bills Windows XP as a fully color managed operating system, and insists XP works as well as a Mac for, say, fine art photographic interpretation.

You ever see fine art photographs on the wall in a BRIGHT SCREAMING RED AND BLUE frame - with the wall behind the print painted in still more primary colors? Me niether - and there's a reason why. Apple chooses to 'frame' documents in more subtle and understated silvery-neutral tones. Unlike Windows, where you have to create your own middle-grey desktop (uh, sorry, Wallpaper) pattern, Apple eincludes one by default. You can even turn off the traffic signal-colored windows controls with a single click. That's thoughful simplicity.

Windows XP is a terrible environment (by default, mind you) for using Photoshop or any other piece of software where you'd be expected to make careful color and tonality judgements on screen.

Does the Average User(TM) know that, or care? No and no. So the features (NEW, COLORFUL THREE-DEE WINDOWS THAT LOOK RENDERED BUT AREN'T!) sell more copies of XP while subtly increasing the number of elements that make color and tonal adjustments more difficult.

If Apple gave up on simplicity and built what everyone on Slashdot wanted (A $500.00 Mac OS X on x86 box with six expansion slots, ten drive bays, an Athlon64, a 400W power supply and an M+M dispenser on the front) the people who DO buy Macs faithfully every 30 months would leave in droves. The thing about simplicity is that it is incredibly tough to do properly. Simplicity done Microsoft's way = sparse.

Based on the PC market, you might say that about 3-5% of the people with computers value and purchase simplicity.

Comments on the Article

[rjstanford]

The new features of Messenger 6 include custom window backgrounds and interactive games like checkers; iChat AV is dedicated solely to communication.

This point, like the one the editor made, is what defines it to me. Do you want to play? Get MSN. Do you want to communicate? Get iChat. There are times and places for both of these activities.

It's a little disconcerting, too, that video-chat partners seem to avoid eye contact. No matter how close you put the camera to the screen, it's impossible to look at both simultaneously. Everybody comes across as weirdly inattentive.

As those of you who saw Jobs' keynote Monday will already have guessed, this was a prime requirement for the iSight camera that Apple released -- designed to attach to the various displays Apple has released. Looking at the pictures on the NYT site (yeah, registration, ooh, scary), there's a massive difference in the way that the people using the two apps look -- one that you wouldn't necessarily click to from just reading the text.

And because Apple has the luxury of manufacturing "the whole widget," as Steve Jobs often says - the hardware and software, the computer and camera - there's no configuration. The instant you plug in the camera, it's ready to work, without any wizards or setup.

This is true, as it stands, but misleading. As they point out elsewhere in the text, iChat works as well on any FireWire camera, such as pretty much all modern camcorders, etc. This has more to do with using an established graphics communication protocol over a generic bus like USB than who manufactures the hardware.

Re:Comments on the Article

[lpret]

Do you want to play? Get MSN. Do you want to communicate? Get iChat. There are times and places for both of these activities.

You have to remember that MSN is fighting AIM which has included a lot of this customisation (which the kids really like) in it's past versions. MSN is just playing catch-up to AIM, showing it up with the video, and catching up to iChat, showing it up with the customisation.

Re:Comments on the Article

[jwriney]

this was a prime requirement for the iSight camera that Apple released -- designed to attach to the various displays Apple has released.

Since you couldn't just, you know, SIT YOUR CAMERA ON TOP OF YOUR FRIGGING MONITOR!!!! The little Apple camera hoobajoob is cool, but Jobs made it sound like it was physically impossible to put a camera on top of a monitor until the glorious miracle of iSight.

--riney

Re:Comments on the Article

[rjstanford]

Since you couldn't just, you know, SIT YOUR CAMERA ON TOP OF YOUR FRIGGING MONITOR!!!! The little Apple camera hoobajoob is cool, but Jobs made it sound like it was physically impossible to put a camera on top of a monitor until the glorious miracle of iSight.

Well, if you have a flatscreen (like most of Apple's monitors for the last few years), or a laptop ... er ... then yes, it is prety difficult to just, as you say, "SIT YOUR CAMERA ON TOP OF YOUR FRIGGING[sic] MONITOR". So this was not a meaningless feature for most Apple users, who were in fact the targetted audience for this product.

That, and its a damned nice little camera, too.

Re:usability?

[glwtta]

WTF? That's like saying that this years new sport car models are great, but there are still many places in the world that don't have roads, so the engineers should be paving them instead of designing cars.

These people do video chat software, codecs and networking are all great, but not everybody has to be doing that. Besides, there is plenty of broadband to go around, just because everyone doesn't have it doesn't mean those that shouldn't be able to take advantage of it. (seriously, how many things are there that everyone has?)

Re:iChatAV vs. MSN Messenger 6

[FractiousWeasel]

The competition in largely orthogonal. i.e.: Apple (generally) targets functionality and style while Microsoft (generally) targets platform and functionality. There's a cost to MS's platform focus and lots of times it comes across as feature bloat. For example: all the "I want to..." tasks in the view pane of MSN Messenger's chat window are all 'the same' because they all plug into the same platform. The 'sameness' takes a serious toll on the user experience, which is what Microsoft often doesn't overcome well (and what Apple seems to excel at).

Re:gnomemeeting? (warning - kinda long)

[Mikey-San]

Right:

"Installation of Gnomemeeting is easy once you have the right version for your specific distribution of Linux! Here at PowerPage, we followed the simple directions:

4. Software installation
4.1. Which libraries do I need to run it?

You will need :

* the standard Gnome libraries (they are now optional in recent GnomeMeeting versions, but we recommend using them to have the full-featured GnomeMeeting).
* the OpenH323 and the PWlib libraries (See download section of this website).
* the OpenLDAP library (Included in your distribution)
* the SDL library (Included in your distribution). Having SDL is optional, but if you compile GnomeMeeting without SDL, the fullscreen feature will be unavailable.
* the Quicknet telephony development files (Provided with your kernel). Having those files is optional, but if you compile GnomeMeeting without Quicknet support, it will be impossible to use Quicknet hardware during calls.

4.2. How can I compile GnomeMeeting?

Simply use the binaries from your distribution, the ones in the downloads section, or compile that way:

As root, follow the steps :
4.2.1. Compile PWlib

You have to compile PWlib that way:

$ ./configure --prefix=/usr
$ make optshared
$ make install

If you want to compile Firewire support into PWlib, you have to pass either the --enable-firewiredc or --enable-firewireavc to the configure script. Notice that executing the configure script will generate a ptbuildopts.h file that will be placed in the include/ subdirectory of the pwlib sources. If you want to benefit from the callto URLs, P_LDAP must be defined and set to 1 in that file. Similarly, P_HAS_IPV6 must be defined and set to 1 if you want to be able to use IPv6 with GnomeMeeting.
4.2.2. Compile OpenH323

You have to compile OpenH323 that way:

$ ./configure --prefix=/usr
$ make optshared
$ make install

If you have any problem, please have a look at openh323 FAQ. You can also mail the GnomeMeeting mailing list.
4.2.3. Compile Gnomemeeting

Download it in the download section of the GnomeMeeting websit.

run the ./configure script, it supports several parameters:

--prefix=/usr to install it in /usr

--with-ptlib-includes= specifies the location of PTlib headers (for example,/opt/pwlib/include/ptlib if you extracted PWlib in /opt, default is /usr/include/ptlib)

--with-openh323-includes= specifies the location of OpenH323 headers

If OpenH323 and PWlib are correctly installed (both the libraries and the headers), we suggest you to compile GnomeMeeting that way:

$ ./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc
$ make
$ make install

We at the PowerPage were disappointed to see the installation instructions for iChat and MSN Messenger 6:

1. Download iChat if you're using OS X; download MSN Messenger 6 if you're using Windows.

2. Double-click the file you downloaded and click the 'install' button to begin the installation.

3. Double-click the program's icon to run it and sign on."

Give me a break. If they would have compared Gnomemeeting, it would have been trounced. Why? Because this wasn't an article geared toward people who like--or even know /how/--to compile programs and configure things from the command-line.

There goes another Slashdotter who just doesn't understand which software is geared toward which people. We don't /all/ like ./make and ./configure, dude. Sometimes, people just want shit to work.

Well good

[Call Me Black Cloud]

'Microsoft, true to tradition, has focused on expanding its list of features, while Apple has worked toward elegance and simplicity.

Elegantly simple? Or elegant for simpletons? I'll take "expanded list of features" for $1000, Alex.

One of the features of Microsoft's offering is "works with almost any old Webcam". Apple's "requires a video camera with FireWire"

I like things that work. From the article it appears they both work equally well so the deciding factor will have to be...features.

Re:gnomemeeting? (warning - kinda long)

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny all I had to do was follow these three steps.

1. apt-get install gnomemeeting
2. clicky the pretty gnomemeeting icon
3. there is no step 3. there is no step 3!

Useful?

[sahonen]

Number of years I've owned a camera I could use for videoconferencing: three years

Number of times I've actually used it for videoconferencing: 0. Nada. Zilch.

Could someone please explain to me why I would want to videoconference when I could just use GAIM and not rape my internet connection?

Re:Functionality

[jeffehobbs]

Simplicity is for those people who can't program their own VCR. Duh!

You know, that's a great metaphor for linux UI in general -- as most humans agree that programming a VCR is stupidly and unnecessarily hard. Even with VCR+ or VCR Gold or on-screen programming or *whatever*, I've never seen a VCR timer that didn't inherently make life hard for the user.

Compare this to tivo -- on tivo, you press one button, you can browse listings, you can search listings, you hit the record button and that's it. Much better human interface design and product engineering -- and as a result, they can charge for it!

I'd love to see linux become viable for more users, but until the "Simplicity is stoopid, and you are so stoopid" mentality is violently overthrown, linux will remain a decent server platform and a desktop also-ran.

~jeff

Re:Quote of the year

[gotr00t]

Not really, I'm suprised how usable a beta version of Safari is. In the 3 or 4 hours that I've tried it on a borrowed PowerBook, it didn't have any problems at all.

Really, I don't think you should set that standard for all beta software. Near-perfectionists like Apple probably would have a different standard of what "beta" means compared to "if it compiles, it ships" Microsoft.

when there's nothing more to take away...

[johnrpenner]

Evolution isn't a progression to ever greater and greater differentiation
but...is first an ascent to a higher point, and after having reached this
point is then a descent to more and more simple forms. (Rudolf Steiner)

Perfection (in design) is achieved not when
there is nothing more to add, but rather when there
is nothing more to take away. (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)

Everything should be made as simple as possible,
but no simpler. (Albert Einstein)

cheers!

Had it for years

[randomErr]

Yahoo Chat has had video feature for years. CuSeeMe been out longer then that. This is new?

Re:Side note: Apt makes it easy!

[KevCo]

more like:
Okay Dad, click the terminal icon
What's that?
It looks kinda like a monitor
*silence*
Like a black square thing
*silence*
It's in the lower left hand part of the screen
Okay I clicked it
Did a black window open up?
No
Um.. did any window open up?
Yes, it's white.
Okay, that's okay. Do you see a prompt?
A what?
Do you see a blinking cursor? Does it let you type?
Yes
Okay now type sudo apt-get install gnome-meeting
Okay
Is it doing anything?
No
Did you hit return?
Okay I did.
Is it doing anything?
No
What does it say?
It doesn't say anything
Okay lets try again. Type s u d o space a p t dash g e t space i n s t a l l space g n o m e dash m e e t i n g and press return
okay
What does it say?
nothing
In the window where you just typed the letters it doesn't have any words?
It says "Sorry try again, password:"
Okay, it probably worked the first time and thinks you were entering your password the second time.
What?
Nevermind, just put in your password and it should be okay.
What's my password.
I don't know your password, it's whatever you use when you sign into the machine.
I don't know
You don't know your password? What do you type when you logon to the computer?
I don't know
The computer... when you first turn it on... you have to type something before you can use it right?
Yes.
What do you type?
Your mother does it.
Okay well then we need her on the phone.
She's not home.
Okay, well.. we aren't going to be able to do this right now then. Um, have mom call me later when she gets home and we can try again.