Apple Continues To Expand Mac's New Media Tools

Videoconferencing
With the June 2003 introduction of iChat AV in Mac OS X and the FireWire iSight camera, Apple delivered a respectable desktop videoconferencing solution. The end-to-end solution leverages not only Apple's control of the hardware platform and operating system, but the media-handling capabilities renowned among streaming media experts and Apple-hosted servers for directory services. iChat AV uses SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) for signaling, H.263 for video compression, and GSM for audio compression.

Although Apple claims it is focused on making video calling a high quality experience for consumers, several meetings I conducted using the application established that it is more than sufficient for point-to-point business quality communications. One noticeable characteristic of the application is the lack of echo during a call because of hardware-assisted echo cancellation in the camera when used with the iChat AV application software. The application is easy to install and use.

Last fall, iChat AV’s ease of use and high video and audio quality caught the attention of researchers in the National Center for Atmospheric Research Supercomputing Group who were looking for ways to avoid travel and yet maintain productive meetings among distributed team members. For purposes of managing large scale weather and climate data visualizations, the team had already moved from Windows the Unix platform. In the past six months 15 to 20 of the team members have migrated to the Mac and currently use iChat AV with iSight on a daily basis.

"I leave my iSight on all the time," says Dave Schimel, Senior Scientist at NCAR. "People on my buddy list can click on my name and see if I’m at my desk, or if I’m in a meeting in my office before they walk over to see and talk to me." What has impressed Schimel most, however, is the impact the iChat AV use has had on the average duration of meetings. "When people are in a video meeting they pay more attention to the meeting than when we just use the telephone. We are finding that our meetings are getting significantly shorter because we get our points across more quickly and people are constantly distracted by their email. Using iChat AV is raising our productivity."

One hindrance to the business use of this application had been that iChat AV was limited to Mac users. On February 5, 2004, the Apple and AOL relationship yielded a significant development. With iChat AV 2.1 users can videoconference with AOL IM users around the world, even when the other user is on a Windows computer. In addition to interoperability, the relationship with AOL offers Mac users reach. The AIM service is one of the largest and most active online communities. AOL reports that it hosts more than 50 million active users each month and its network handles nearly two billion instant messages each day. AOL is not planning to disclose the number of video sessions it hosts. What it has publicly disclosed is that AOL is working with Reuters to extend its reach to the financial information provider’s IM directories.

With iChat and iChat AV, Macintosh users can have a foot in the business camp while keeping their other foot firmly planted in the consumer domain.