Filed under: Open Source, Beta Beat
Adium 1.2 beta sneaks out for Christmas
Chances are, some of the Christmas switchers are just now realizing that they've got to find a way to stay in IM-touch with the MSN, Yahoo and other chat service users out there in PC land. Sure, you could run separate clients for each service (or iChat alone for AIM, .Mac and Google Talk/Jabber), but what fun is that? Enter the duck: Adium, the open source and free multiservice chat client.Adium's latest beta, 1.2b5, quacked out the door just before the holiday and is available for download now, as is the 1.1.4 stable release. The 1.2 milestone adds improvements for AppleScript, Bonjour, XMPP, group chat and more; with only a few bugs listed it's probably going to be finished pretty soon (assuming the dev team isn't over-wassailed this week).
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Ryan said 4:36PM on 12-26-2007
So i guess the Adium devs are cool with sites posting about the betas now? I recall them in the past not being cool with beta announcements being posted.
Reply
Michael Rose said 5:24PM on 12-26-2007
Ryan --
The Adium devs posted about the beta on their own blog, with no caveats -- didn't occur to me that they would not want it publicized. Generally for private betas they don't make an announcement other than by email.
As noted, only a couple of open issues.
Ryan Ulanowicz said 4:44PM on 12-26-2007
I wouldn't want people want posting about betas if I was running Adium... but in all fairness there are only 2 open bugs. One of which is that old Xtras don't work in 1.2. Only the 1px extra on the border needs to be fixed in order for 1.2 to be released.
Reply
Richard said 4:47PM on 12-26-2007
Still no video conference and still has inferior file transfer/direct connect support compared to iChat.
Now that Leopard's iChat has been made up to date with stuff like tabs and multiple concurrent connections, I don't have a use for Adium anymore. It's too constrained by its libpurple underpinnings.
Reply
Fraser Drew said 5:35PM on 12-26-2007
The Adium team have, however, said they are working on it, which can only be good. I'd be willing to guess it will be a long process, but still...
iChat is just no use for me, and I'm guessing quite a few others, because it doesn't support MSN - which is the most popular service in the UK, and other places.
Chris Forsythe said 6:23PM on 12-26-2007
File transfer and direct connect work wonderfully for myself and the lead dev on aim, so it's probably your network. Have you filed a ticket?
Regarding voice/video. Yes, we don't have that, and we won't for a while. However, we're not in the same submarket as ichat, we're solving needs that ichat just won't/can't. You can't discount that over something like voice/video. There are plenty of people who don't need this at all.
We'd need a lot more funds than we're getting to pay even one of our developers to work on Adium even part time. Nobody on the team is paid to work on Adium. If someone were to donate, oh, I don't know, 500 thousand to pay for some salaries, we'd certainly have a lot more time to spend on features as big as voice/video. But for now, we'll just chug along. Hopefully you get the point though, that Apple pays their employees and they have 40+ hours a week per person on a multi person team, and combined we have maybe 20 hours a week for all of our devs to work on Adium? Perhaps a little less complaining and a little more understanding would go a long way. :)
Anyhow, thanks for the feedback, and do let us know what's going on with the file transfer stuff through a ticket.
-Chris, Adium Project Manager
Fevida said 4:56PM on 12-26-2007
The lack of video-chat is so disappointing for me they can add as many features as they like, but it won't make up for it.
Reply
ipodrulz said 5:34PM on 12-26-2007
AND the biggest problem (for me) YOU can't talk when you are invisible!
Reply
Chris Forsythe said 6:16PM on 12-26-2007
That works for me fine. Have you filed a ticket?
-Chris, Adium Project Manager.
ipodrulz said 6:32PM on 12-26-2007
No.. not yet.. when I set it to invisible, and then I send a message, it tells me "Message could not be sent, not allowed while invisible:" this is on MSN.
Urien Aeson said 5:43PM on 12-26-2007
I find comments like Richard and Fevida's laughable.
iChat (especially w/Leopard) is a decent chat client, don't get me wrong, but Adium blows it out of the water.
Your biggest complaint about Adium is the lack of video chatting and file transfer -- Adium is a IM client.
Just continue to ignore dozens of *better* ways to both transfer files and video/audio chat with people ... iChat/MSN/Yahoo are by far the worst ways to do those tasks.
Reply
Alan said 6:19PM on 12-26-2007
Apart from visual customization, what does Adium offer over iChat in Leopard? Honestly, I'm curious. I can't really think of anything major. I still use Adium, but only because it supports MSN/Yahoo and I'll never get some of my friends to switch, but the lack of video chat is a pain. Video chat in general in OS X is poorly supported apart from AIM and Skype, which is sad given that all the laptops come with webcams!
urienaeson said 11:21PM on 12-26-2007
Adium offers over iChat:
* MSN Support - Not everyone is from North America
* Yahoo Support - Because I do have a couple friends *still* using this useless network
* Growl Support - I know Chax adds this to iChat
* OTR Support - I know you can use the OTR proxy for iChat AIM
* Xtras Support (themes, scripts, etc etc)
* Completely Customizable - I know you said "besides customizable", but I have to mention it anyway
* Frequent Updates - I don't have to wait for an entirely new OS to upgrade Adium
* Great Developers - All of these guys do in their free time what Apple pays $$$ to have done full time. They do more, faster and better.
Please note that I'm not sayng iChat in Leopard hasn't improved a lot. It has. And there are neat things like video chatting and screen sharing. But, imho, Skype has worked flawlessly for me (cross-platform video chatting -- win/lin/mac) and `remote desktop` was already available in OS X, it just wasn't a button in iChat and it didn't look as pretty.
James said 12:15AM on 12-27-2007
* MSN Support - Not everyone is from North America
MSN can be used with iChat (text only) with a little finagling:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20050505025440436
* Yahoo Support - Because I do have a couple friends *still* using this useless network
Yahoo can be used with iChat in the same method mentioned above.
* Growl Support - I know Chax adds this to iChat
What you said.
* OTR Support - I know you can use the OTR proxy for iChat AIM
What you said. Most people probably don't need this.
* Xtras Support (themes, scripts, etc etc) * Completely Customizable - I know you said "besides customizable", but I have to mention it anyway
"Xtras Support" and "Completely Customizable" sound largely like the same thing to me.
* Frequent Updates - I don't have to wait for an entirely new OS to upgrade Adium
Agreed.
* Great Developers - All of these guys do in their free time what Apple pays $$$ to have done full time. They do more, faster and better.
I have no doubt that the Adium devs work hard, but I'm pretty sure the overworked Apple dev(s) in charge of iChat (and probably a hundred other things) wants to punch you right now. I'd say Adium does things faster (more updates), some things better (MSN/Yahoo integration), but also does a lot less (Video, screen sharing, iChat theater etc).
I only point all this out to give the adium devs some insight as to why I *don't* use Adium as this info is much more useful to you than why I do (if I did, that is). I just don't see the "philosophy" of Adium. Is to to do the things that iChat "doesn't"? Honestly it seems to me that Adium's purpose in life is to be OS X's MSN/Yahoo client. This is fine, but since I can kind-of, sort-of add this functionality to iChat AND iChat is simply better at everything that isn't simple text messaging, it's easier for me to add MSN/Yahoo text messaging and install chax than it is to install Adium and lose all the cool AV/system features of iChat.
Put another way, Apple is simply *choosing* to not do what Adium does, but Adium *can't* do what Apple does.
And I don't see how Skype (using a whole new app just fore "video" chats) is solving any more problems than it causes. It's like having to use a whole new email client just to send a picture: redundant. "instant" communication is just that, whether it be text, sound, or video. No need for separation. And Apple is taking it to the next level with the document sharing and screen sharing features.
[And please, again, I'm only offering some feedback: the more great mac apps the better... I just have trouble seeing any philosophy other than crossing your fingers that Apple doesn't make Adium obsolete every time they release a new OS. Perhaps delving into some functionality that Apple would never dream of would prove more fruitful in the long run].
urienaeson said 1:23AM on 12-27-2007
* MSN can be used with iChat (text only) with a little finagling:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20050505025440436
-- Wow... That is a ridiculous 'solution'. Ditto for Yahoo. That is *not* a solution.
* OTR Support - What you said. Most people probably don't need this.
-- Most people probably don't *need* audio/video chat or file transfers via an IM client either. OTR is quite useful, especially anywhere on a public network.
* Xtras Support - "Xtras Support" and "Completely Customizable" sound largely like the same thing to me.
-- Xtras are addons and a central repository for those addons. Xtras are only a small portion of completely customizable. imho they aren't the same thing.
* Great Developers - I have no doubt that the Adium devs work hard, but I'm pretty sure the overworked Apple dev(s) in charge of iChat (and probably a hundred other things) wants to punch you right now. I'd say Adium does things faster (more updates), some things better (MSN/Yahoo integration), but also does a lot less (Video, screen sharing, iChat theater etc).
-- You're right, iChat does a lot, I was in no way dissing the iChat developers; rather stating how good I think the Adium developers are. iChat is *good* in Leopard. Anything previous to Leopard wasn't all that great.
-- I don't think Adium *can't* do what iChat can do. I think they're a few people working on Adium in their free time. I'd I think iChat should be *much* better than it is. If iChat was so great, Chax would never have been written.
And I don't see how Skype (using a whole new app just fore "video" chats) is solving any more problems than it causes.
-- It doesn't cause problems. What are you talking about? Can you video chat with anyone in the world on windows/linux/mac, even a PDA with iChat (or MSN or Yahoo on Windows)? Nope.
Email is entirely different. I can email anyone anywhere from anything I want to. Can I iChat (video or audio) with anyone anywhere from anything I want? Nope. Can I do that with Skype. Yep. Although, I'd much prefer to be able to use Skype, iChat, Adium, Gaim, Trillian, AIM, MSN, Yahoo, or *whatever* I want and be able to audio/video chat with anyone else using whatever client they choose.
Feedback is good. I like seeing a different perspective, even if I don't agree. :)
Fevida said 5:32AM on 12-27-2007
Can you give some examples of the "dozens of *better* ways" while laughing?
Ralph said 6:23PM on 12-26-2007
Nothing to do with this post; for heavens' sakes, please get rid of that backdrop, TUAW. Page loads often slow to a crawl waiting on that. (Not always, but it happens enough for me to stop visiting as often.)
Reply
Derek said 8:43PM on 12-26-2007
Agreed.
Hobbes said 11:13PM on 12-26-2007
I second that. The page really loads super slow now with that background. Make it simple. We like to read the articles, not look at the pictures. Sure a good design/visual is always nice, but it cannot affect the functionality or it doesn't make sense.
Jason said 12:24AM on 12-27-2007
Agreed - the new background is a pain.