Filed under: Macworld, Software, Internet Tools, Beta Beat
Yahoo! Messenger sneak peek
There was a time when Yahoo! Messenger on OS X, well, sucked. That time has long since passed thanks to the great Mac focused team that Yahoo! has created (the Mac team may be small, but they are passionate). I was able to sit down with Matthew Skyrm, Director of Product Management for Yahoo! Messenger, and take a look at what Yahoo! is cooking up for the next beta. It looks good folks, really good.The UI won't be changing too much, but it will be modified to allow for some new features:
- Tabs - this one is huge. We all know tabs, and the team decided to go with the classic one IM window with tabs on the bottom. If you close the window, it only closes the Tab that you are currently in (which is a nice touch).
- Voice chat support - one of the most highly requested features it would seem. You can make free computer to computer calls and you can even call phones (and have a phone number associated with your Yahoo! Messenger) thanks to Yahoo! Voice.
- A new notifications section - one of the nice things about Yahoo! Messenger is that you can IM someone who isn't online and they'll get that IM when they sign on. Sadly, that means if you haven't been online in a while you can face an onslaught of windows when you start up Messenger. Tabs remedy this somewhat, but the good folks at Yahoo! went one step further and create a new section in Messenger that will show you, in your buddy list, any IMs you might have missed. You will find your voice mail here, yes you will be able to get voice mail on Yahoo! Messenger.
- Archiving - finally the next beta will offer a way for you to archive your messages, and not just in an ugly text file. It is clear that the team spent some serious time on the UI for the archives, and it shows. The archives also offer full Spotlight integration so now you can search your IMs just as easily as you can search the rest of your Mac.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Barkin said 3:03PM on 1-12-2007
"Hey kids! Get the new Yahoo! Messenger! We know that you've already been enjoying tabbed chats and integrated logs with Adium for a while now, but we've finally caught up. Be happy for us!"
I don't get the draw of new, improved chat apps whose only improvements are features that 3rd party apps have been offering for years.
I guess the voice thing is pretty awesome... if you're one the 11 people that uses Yahoo! Messenger to talk to people, instead of your VOIP box, or your cell phone, or Skype, or iChat, or... whatever.
I don't understand what Yahoo! is offering that is so great. For me... no reason to switch. I'll keep using Adium.
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therepguy said 3:17PM on 1-12-2007
Now if they would just clean up their act when it comes to SBC Yahoo (i.e., sbcglobal.net) and it's not so Mac friendly software - it might be more enjoyable!
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Mr. Krinkle said 3:28PM on 1-12-2007
Given how old the current "beta" is, I was beginning to think they killed it off... again. So I kinda got excited when I read all of this. But then I saw this "sometime in the next several months" and all excitement was killed in so few words. I guess it has been killed off. Nice one Yahoo.
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Scott H said 3:36PM on 1-12-2007
All the new features sound nice, especially voice, but right now I'd really just like the damn video chat to work reliably with Windows YIM users. I used to have no problems with the 2.5x release, and even the 3.x beta worked OK for a while. Then the person I corresponded with upgraded their Windows YIM to a more recent version. Forget it. Now the video chat almost never works for me.
So if they could just insure more video compatibility with the Windows version, I'd be thrilled.
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Matt said 3:38PM on 1-12-2007
Just saw Barkin's reply...sorry, but I think Adium's archiving feature sucks. Why can't I just click on a username and have it delete everything out, rather than me having to go into the file, delete the individual logs, THEN it allows me to delete the name. Very poorly done! I can only hope that Yahoo Messenger for Mac will have a much smoother interface than that!
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Jake said 5:21PM on 1-12-2007
Yahoo has all but abandoned us old yahoo chatters who have macs!
That beta is not new. the new version is months away....
Is Yahoo really planning on being a player in the mac market? thier 'innovation' for the iphone is a simple program to notify phones when an e-mail is waiting...
Big deal! Programmers have had similar solutions for years! and the idea of browsing thru phone messages before listening is nothing new... I do it now!
BOTTOM LINE:
Yahoo Instant messenger for the mac still sucks! And I'll get an iphone regardless of the contributions from yahoo and at&t!
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Machia said 7:57PM on 1-12-2007
Yahoo Messenger is vital for me on Mac - keep up the good work.
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Michael said 8:36PM on 1-12-2007
At least Yahoo is giving it a try to give mac users some of the features that pc users have enjoyed for years. I just hope when they do bring it out I will be able to use it to talk with my friends who use pc's. I have to listen to them complain when I can not "talk" to them or use nor see some of the features they are using. Why should a superior computer and OS be held back? My prayers is that Yahoo does pull it off and it makes macs more on par with pcs in the IM world.
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hmmm personal said 11:33PM on 1-12-2007
Yeah, I remember my first yahoo client on the Mac, like you heard... it sucked. I'm a switcher and what a rude "welcome" that was to the Mac experience. The current version (3.0 beta1) rocks in my opinion. And I can't wait for the additional features like archiving. Everybody at my current job and everybody at my former job all use Yahoo. It's good to see them on-line and say “Hi” occasionally. I think Apple owes Yahoo a big “Thank You” for a job well done. Yahoo! IM is one of those apps on Mac that I can point out to PC users and say, Is your version as cool as this?
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rhiamom said 11:44AM on 1-13-2007
So what about the picture sharing? I *really need* that feature that the PC version has. I'd dump Adium for it. So what about file transfers that work to or from a Windows computer? I *really need* that feature, too. Voice I like but can do without.
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G said 12:00PM on 1-13-2007
I tried to voice chat with a PC friend on Yahoo Messenger a few weeks ago and was embarrassed to discover that I could not do it from the Mac side. So she suggested her second choice, Skype, which has now become our first choice because it rocks and it's free. Huge mistake on Yahoo's part. No reason to go back now. Everyone else I text chat with uses AIM or iChat, so no reason to go Yahoo there either. Bye bye, Yahoo.
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Oldkerosen said 4:48AM on 3-28-2007
so here we are almost 3 months since this was published and there is still no update for Y!Messenger. i suppose may be next year we'll get the 2nd beta and in 2 years the final version...
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piranhaDancer said 10:14PM on 3-30-2007
I totally agree with Oldkerosen ... this BITES! Was a daily yahoo chat room chatter until Yahoo took the chat rooms away from folks with older macs (got OS X vers 10.2.8 on a G3 so can't upgrade & a new(er) mac is WAYYYY outta my budget right now...)
Am surfing the web trying to find SOMETHING to make the 3.0b1 version work with my OS X version .... :|
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