Are apple going to do anything with ICHAT AV3???

Question

I think many people have had cause to search the web to find answers to why ICHAT AV3 does not work with AIM. As was the case under Panther and ICHAT. I have looked at these pages with great interest hoping to see an apple solution to these problems. But not a peep.
It is thanks to people like Ralph Johns and others that have offered very detailed technical advice and assitance on how to resolve the problems much better quality than you will find from Apple support. But am afraid for most non technical morons this is far too complicated for us to deal with. In this era of plug and play we should not be expected to become network experts.
I for one have reverted to a laptop running MSN and find it much easier unless I wish to talk to MAC only users, then it is really hit and miss whether or not it works, When I use an aim account. Sad fact of life MAC to MAC is great, but unfortunately we are the minority in the world.
In the past few weeks I have been travelling in Australia and have encountered no fewer than 5 MAC users who have bought Isights, and started using ICHAT and have run into exactly the same issues. Needless to say when I point them to these discussion pages - there are cries of disbelief.
The other major irritation is that if you contact Apple support regarding the issues you get a 10 minute story on how they do not support AIM???? Is very helpul.
So if any one from Apple reads this forum - do you think there will be a solution to hand?????

Answer 1

Hi Peter.
Welcome to the Apple Dicussion Pages
Some very salient points you make here.
However many people seem to think that a new application will work the same way and email and we browsing do, which have been around for years. I sure there was a time when people new to the intenet in it's infancy doubted it would catch on. I am sure those people, when used to the internet, found email programes just as difficult, as people now find setting up iChat, with all the new fangled POP or IMAP servers.
Apple, as it usually does, has aimed (pun intended) high with this application and have brought it from a text based IM chat tools to what it is today in just over two years.
Having said that they have decided to use the AIM servers to do this on. That lead me to this:
The other major irritation is that if you contact Apple support regarding the issues you get a 10 minute story on how they do not support AIM???? Is very helpul.
The Moderators (Hosts) of these boards do read the posts for Ideas and common problems But sometimes using http://www.apple.com/feedback/ichat.html also can help. Whichever method you rely on to get the message across you will not get a direct reply, and I appreciate this is not very satisfying.
The essesence of why you should set up your home network so that is does not have overlapping subnets is easy to describe. The how this is done with the myriad of devices out there is a litlle nore difficult.
In time iChat and other IM applications may become more tolerant of how people just plug modems and routers together in default DHCP server mode.
In the meantime if you want to stay near the front of this technology, you will have to change your thinking to that of the pioneers of the internet.
Ralph