This sounds like it's going to be really cool.
AppleInsider has an article about 10.4 Server features. One of the new features is an "iChat Server" so you can run your own private and secure iChat server. The best part? It's based on the open source Jabber Server.
The iChat server works with both the iChat client in Mac OS X Tiger and most other popular open source clients available for Windows, Linux and even PDAs.
Apple's press release.
But does Tiger's iChat implement Jabber? Or does the Jabber server in Tiger Server facilitate the interop? That's the big question.
On the face of it, it would seem like having it in iChat Server would necessitate it being in the iChat client but I would think that they would have said so in the iChat preview page. Since they didn't, it's not clear that it's in the client at all.
Bill,
It doesn't seem too unlikely that they'd use the Jabber protocol. I believe it's already used for rendezvous for one thing. And not being one of the big players in the IM market I'd think it'd be a the better strategy to use an open standard...
- ask
That is awesome!
I for one am pumped. I'm an admirer or Jabber, but using it turned out to be something of a pain. I know that AOL let Apple "under the tent" for iChat, but I wonder; will Apple start handling the @mac.com screennames over Jabber as part of mac.com instead of AOL? And if so, and we're no longer under the thumb of AOL would they set up the much sought after AOL/MSN/Yahoo bridge module that Jabber is capable of? That would win me back from Adium for sure. iChat reliability, and I get to keep my Yahoo/MSN buddies. It's a dream, but who knows.
Jesse, if you set up your Jabber gateway accounts (AOL/ICQ/MSN/Yahoo etc bridges) with any Jabber client that supports it, those buddies will work with any other Jabber client, regardless of whether that client has transport browsing implemented or not; and you'll be able to add new buddies just fine.
For example, I still have a few buddies who haven't switched from ICQ to Jabber yet. I've got an ICQ account, which I configured a Jabber-ICQ gateway to use a while ago. Nowadays I don't have to think of that, I just log in using any Jabber client and ICQ works just fine.
If I wanted to add another protocol, such as Yahoo or MSN, I'd have to use a client that supported transport browsing and gateways to set it up, then I could go back to using whatever client I prefer.
Then the question is if iChat will support that. If not, and it's simply a Jabber/AIM client, I'm sticking with Adium.
Just to confirm, iChat implements Jabber. The current version uses Jabber for Rendezvous chatting (i.e. when you find other people on the LAN to talk with), and the 10.4 version uses Jabber to talk with Jabber servers, in addition to being able to talk to AIM and .Mac servers.
I just wish that I knew what jabber server Apple was using in MacOS X 10.4 Server.
Jesse, all Jabber clients support these gateways once you've set them up.
(It can be buggy, though.)
info: Use Psi on OS X to set up the gateways.