Leopard's iChat Theater could change the way we do... well, everything

Forget new features, I'd just be happy if iChat would connect without trying a dozen times and reading router manuals and tips sites for days.

Whatever Apple does with this new capability, it should make it more compatable with MSN AOL and Skype clients. Even a hosted solution that could interact with both MAC and Windows client would be great. Free for basic A/V chat, fee based for full capability would be a viable option. I'm not a developer, but from a market based perspective, opening it up can only create more significant more growth for the company and the community. More business users would gladly convert if they could run this type of application natively and if it were more "universal" than proprietary.

I agree with John that Microsoft did not port netmeeting, and there is no compelling reason for Apple to port iChat Theater - but I sure wish there was better cross platform collaboration, and all Apple and Micorsoft are doing is leaving an opening for Adobe with Breeze (or something simliar, like TB2 with Skype) to take the market away....

Why can't we all just get along?

Ummm Vista was supposed to have this...the idea isn't new people.

-=|Mgkwho

It's a Mac application so why would they include anything for Windows? Microsoft doesn't include Net Meeting for Mac.

Thank You Ruben! That is exactly what I was saying. I am not trying to take anything away from the elegance and functionality of iChat Theater, I was just commenting that it is a me-too product that replicates functionality available in Windows (although these days radically unsupported and unimproved) for the last 10 years.
That said, I can't wait to get my hands on iChat Theater!

ebernet is absolutely correct, just because NetMeeting is not as good as iChat Theater it does not take away from the fact that iChat Theater does the exact same thing (in a more elegant way) that NetMeeting did 10 years ago.

My experience with NetMeeting was always positive and I can't wait for this to be FINALLY integrated into the Mac OS.

Timbuktu works with Skype now:

http://www.netopia.com/software/products/tb2/mac/

Jim Weiser

So basically they are taking some ideas WireCast already has and throwing them into iChat?

If only WireCast could output as a video device it could be used anywhere. Though it is hella expensive, it does a lot of stuff like chromakey, mixing live sources and sources from files.

Actually, Netmeeting had video conferencing by 1998. No one said it was not slow. No one said they did not further advance it (in fact, I said the deprecated it). They never put the resources into it they should have - but it was WAY ahead of its time, and therefore could not do well given the infrastructure available to it and the hardware it was running on.
To not give Netmeeting its due credit for really creating the conference of application/scren sharing copuled with audio and video conferencing is being naive.