AIM for Mac sucks! Any news?

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I LOVE my mac... it's the best computer ever. The only thing is, I'm a frequent AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) user and the Mac version of AIM is extremely sub-par to the Windows version. It has basically no added features and hasn't been updated in what seems like YEARS. Has anyone heard about this? What's up with that, so many people nowadays, especially college students, have Macs... you'd think they would update the program. It's frustrating.

When I first got it, it would randomly shut itself off but i realized that was because i had side scroll turned on and every time I used it, it would shut it off. I fixed that by turning off horizontal scroll and everything has been fine except for the fact that it sucks ***.
 
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Couple of options.

iChat - My personal preference. Add Chax for more customizability. Very stable, logging, looks good, and great Video/Audio support

AdiumX - http://www.adiumx.com/ - Supports a bunch of clients, very customizable

Proteus - http://proteusx.org/ - Much like Adium, not finalized
 
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yeah it is not good at all, very buggy.

check out adium at adiumx.com

lets you use AIM, MSN, Google talk, ICQ and other chat clients all in the same program

edit: or i can be out ninjaed by a mod! lol
 
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I use iChat, and sometimes Fire. But I think iChat is the best for Mac.
 

dtravis7


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I HATE AIM for the Mac and really don't even like the PC version. I love iChat. It works great and has never let me down. Adium is excellent for a Multi Chat client.
 
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I use iChat, and sometimes Fire. But I think iChat is the best for Mac.
Fire is no longer being developed and two of its main developers are working on Adium, so maybe Adium is in your future
 

dtravis7


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Fire is no longer being developed and two of its main developers are working on Adium, so maybe Adium is in your future

Did not know that happened TM, thanks for the heads up! I tried Fire a long time ago but went with Adium instead for multi chat. Fire worked ok, but Adium seemed more up to date and they kept updating it and making it better.
 
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End of an Era

We are saddened to announce that there will be no future versions of Fire. There are several reasons for this end, but the most notable is the loss of developers. Fire's development had dwindled to few developers who do not wish to continue the project alone. In addition, another major contributing factor is the fact that all but one of Fire's IM libraries is no longer in active development.

The good news is that two of Fire's developers have joined the Adium team and have written a transition path. Adium 1.0, upon first launch, will import your Fire accounts, away messages, groups, buddies, and logs into Adium. For future updates and IM needs, we suggest that you look at Adium.
 
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End of an Era

We are saddened to announce that there will be no future versions of Fire. There are several reasons for this end, but the most notable is the loss of developers. Fire's development had dwindled to few developers who do not wish to continue the project alone. In addition, another major contributing factor is the fact that all but one of Fire's IM libraries is no longer in active development.

The good news is that two of Fire's developers have joined the Adium team and have written a transition path. Adium 1.0, upon first launch, will import your Fire accounts, away messages, groups, buddies, and logs into Adium. For future updates and IM needs, we suggest that you look at Adium.
Wow I didn't know Fire was so popular! In fact, I thought it was just a very unknown generic chat client! Silly me. :)
 
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I notices the same thing, but whenever I would scroll AIM would "quit unexpectedly." I now use iChat, but it seems to lack some of the features of AIM. At least it works, that's all I'm worried about.
 
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BethanyLieb
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Do these programs have the same capabilities as AIM such as having a profile and being able to view others profiles also? and away messages and being able to appear offline when you are online? if so... then.. awesome!
 
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I LOVE my mac... it's the best computer ever. The only thing is, I'm a frequent AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) user and the Mac version of AIM is extremely sub-par to the Windows version. It has basically no added features and hasn't been updated in what seems like YEARS. Has anyone heard about this? What's up with that, so many people nowadays, especially college students, have Macs... you'd think they would update the program. It's frustrating.

When I first got it, it would randomly shut itself off but i realized that was because i had side scroll turned on and every time I used it, it would shut it off. I fixed that by turning off horizontal scroll and everything has been fine except for the fact that it sucks ***.

Development for AIM ended when iChat was made. Thats what I use. Personally, I hate AIM in general, even the Windows version. Its filled with many annoying "features" (like taking you to aim.com right after logging in) and its very resource intensive.

Just use iChat (its very good and straightforward) or adium.
 
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Do these programs have the same capabilities as AIM such as having a profile and being able to view others profiles also? and away messages and being able to appear offline when you are online? if so... then.. awesome!


iChat uses your existing AIM account, so you can edit your profile from AIM's website. iChat also has away messages, direct IM, video chat, voice chat, etc.
However, it doesn't allow your account to be invisible. You can use adium for that, though.
 
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Do these programs have the same capabilities as AIM such as having a profile and being able to view others profiles also? and away messages and being able to appear offline when you are online? if so... then.. awesome!

yesss, adium has all of these features and more. you can personalize the look of it to fit what you like. I think adium, or even ichat if your not into customization, would work great for you. Some of the features are accesed differently than AIM, but you can definetely do all of those...
 
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I'm not a fan of adium. I prefer ichat.
 
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Another vote for adium here.
 
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BethanyLieb
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I don't like iChat just because of the away messages and the difficulty in viewing profiles. AIM is just one click... ichat is a bit annoying. Also the away messages have to be typed as a paragraph and you can't make font changes or anything like that. I also don't like how i can't group my buddies into groups... they're either listed by name or availability. that bugs me. and i can't put people's cell phone numbers on there either. :(
 
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I don't like iChat just because of the away messages and the difficulty in viewing profiles. AIM is just one click... ichat is a bit annoying. Also the away messages have to be typed as a paragraph and you can't make font changes or anything like that. I also don't like how i can't group my buddies into groups... they're either listed by name or availability. that bugs me. and i can't put people's cell phone numbers on there either. :(
Yea customizability of away messages and profiles is not very robust in iChat.

You can use groups and phone numbers though. To use groups*go to View -> Use groups. When you click the plus at the bottom of iChat you can add groups or edit groups, from there its just drag and dropping.

To add phone numbers just put in +1 in front of the area code and number
 
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Get Adium. It puts every other IM program to shame. iChat is old and busted... Adium is the new hotness.
 
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i was in the same boat...i loved AIM and found out how bad it sucked once i got a mac. I downloaded Adium and i didn't really like it at first, but once i got used to it and figured out how to use it(tons of customization)...i really started to like it. it basically has everything AIM does on the PC, just a little different look. but once you figure out how to do everything it has to offer, its great.
 

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