To edit comparisons on Mac vs. Windows wiki, you must be a contributor. Sign up today!
For help with editing comparisons on the Mac vs. Windows wiki, refer to our online help guides.
Instant Messaging
From Mac vs. Windows
Mac OS X Tiger comes installed with iChat for online text, audio, and video chatting. Windows Vista does not come installed with an instant messaging client. Instead a link to download Windows Live Messenger from Microsoft's website appears in the start menu.
Contents |
Compatibility
Mac OS X
Besides being able to chat with other .Mac members who use iChat, it also supports OSCAR-based clients (such as AOL Instant Messenger or ICQ) and Jabber-based clients (used by Google Talk). However, the user will need to be signed in using a Jabber account in order to chat with other Jabber members.
Users are unable to chat directly with members of Windows Live Messenger or Yahoo! Messenger; this, however, can be accomplished using transports, a feature of Jabber that allows for accessing other protocols. This however is not a function of iChat, but a function of a special jabber server
Windows Vista
Windows Live Messenger can chat with other users on Microsoft's Network (Windows Messenger or MSN Messenger included), Xbox360 users logged onto Xbox live or with users of Yahoo! Messenger. Windows Live Messenger cannot chat with AIM or Jabber users.
Buddy & Contact Lists
Mac OS X
Apple refers to the contacts a user chats with in iChat as "buddies".
iChat's buddy window is very minimalistic. The toolbar lets the user manage their online status and display picture. Custom away and available messages can be set to be displayed. iChat even offers the option to display the currently selected song and artist being played in iTunes. Unfortunately, custom "available" messages and iTunes activity is only visible to other iChat users.
Below the toolbar is a list of all the buddies the user has set up. Buddies can be sorted by:
- Availability
- First name
- Last name
When sorting by availability, iChat will arrange buddies in the order of available, idle, and away. Buddies will visibly slide up and down the list as they change status. In addition, users can create groups (such as buddies, co-workers, family, etc.) to further sort their buddies.
When a buddy is online, a dot appears next to their screen name to show their chat status. A green dot indicates that the buddy is available to chat, yellow is used when the buddy is "idle", and a red dot means the buddy is "away".
iChat can display some limited information about your buddies inline in the buddy list window. Idle time and custom away messages appear underneath a buddy's screen name. Buddies connected through a mobile device will have the word "Mobile" displayed underneath their name. Audio/video icons appear next to a buddy's screen name if they are able to participate in audio or video chat sessions. Click one of these icons to start an audio/video chat with that particular buddy. Optionally, these icons can be hidden to reduce clutter (View > Show Audio Status or Show Video Status) - audio or video sessions can still be initiated with the buttons at the bottom of the window.
On the bottom of the iChat buddy window appear controls for starting a text, audio, or video chat with the currently selected buddy. Clicking the + button on the bottom of the iChat window lets a user add a new contact to their buddy list. They can choose to either add a contact from their address book or add a brand new person.
iChat can play a sound, bounce its dock icon, or speak custom messages for various actions such as when a buddy becomes available/unavailable or sends a message. Users can even setup custom notifications for each buddy.
Windows Vista
The upper section of the WLM contacts list contains a menu to set the user's status, a text box for the user to enter a personal message (which can display the currently playing song and artist in Windows Media Player,) and the user's avatar.
Below it, there are links to several WLM features, including a link to Windows Live hotmail (a web based free e-mail account) with an unread mail counter, a link to open your sharing folders, a link to the users Windows Live Space (a blog service), Windows Live Today (a page which lists MSN articles, recent emails, and MSNBC headlines), Windows Live call (a VOIP phone service), a link to send SMS messages to any of your contacts, and finally a paintbrush icon allwoing you to chnage the color of the interface
The contact list displays contacts in one of two ways. By default, an icon representative of the contact's status is displayed to the left, while the contact's personal message is displayed to the right of the contact's name. If the user elects to show contact details, the contact's avatar is displayed, then their status icon, then their name, message, and email address
Contacts can be grouped by status, by last known update of their Windows Live Space, or by custom groups. In the latter two cases, online contacts are sorted above idle contacts above away contacts above offline contacts.
Beneath the contact list, there is a section which displays either an advertisement or a rotating list of videos on MSN Video, as well as a Windows Live web search form.
Text Chatting
Mac OS X
To initiate a text chat, double-click on a buddy's screen name, or select their name and press the text chat button the bottom of the buddy window.
Text chats have four different display modes:
- Bubbles
- Boxes
- Compact
- Text
"Bubbles" is the default, which displays instant messages as colored, cartoon-like bubbles originating from each buddy's picture. Within the bubbles display, you can also:
- Customize the color of the chat bubbles (or turn them off altogether, showing plain text instead)
- Display buddies as just their icon (default), just their name, or both
Text chats can each occupy their own window (one for each buddy), or can be grouped into one window with tabs down the left side to switch between multiple chats. Tabs can be drag-reordered within the list, and will only appear if there are multiple concurrent chats.
Users can choose from a variety of included smiley graphics to insert into their messages.
There are several ways to send a buddy a message:
- Instant Message -- Message goes through central chat server and appears on buddy's desktop.
- Direct Message -- Similar to an instant message, but bypasses the central chat server and connects directly to the buddy's computer (if networking and firewall settings allow).
- Chat -- Chats are designed for a back and forth conversation with one or more individuals. An option to start a chat is sent with every instant message.
To start a chat session with multiple participants from scratch, go to File > New Chat. Add buddies to the chat by clicking the + button in the participants drawer.
To join an open chat session, go to File > Join Chat.
iChat can automatically save all your text chats to files. It also conveniently names the files to reflect the name of the participant and the date and time of the chat, for example:
Steve Jobs on 2007-07-15 at 13.09
iChat also supports inline images and PDFs in text chats.
Windows Vista
Double-click a contact's name in the Windows Live Messenger window to begin a chat session. Windows Live Messenger allows a user to send a contact an instant message even if they are offline. When that contact comes online, they will receive the message.
Users can change their message's font style and color from within the chat directly from the chat window. Users can also add a background image to the chat window and WLM will optionally automatically choose a color for the window that matches the background picture
Besides inserting smileys into messages, the user can send "Winks" (short animations that cover the whole window) to other buddies, and use display pictures which react to the emoticons you use in a conversation, among other things. "Winks" superimpose themselves over your chat window, and resize to fit the available space
Windows Live Messenger does not have named chatrooms, just multiple user IM sessions. Users can invite contacts into a currently ongoing chat. Unfortunately, this means that users who leave the chatroom can't come back without being invited.
If your buddy list window is hidden, Windows Live Messenger will spring up a notification in the corner of the screen nearest their system tray icon (next to the clock) whenever a buddy comes online (this notification style is sometimes referred to as "toast"). The buddy list, of course, is updated when it is visible. Windows Live Messenger can notify you when a buddy comes online, when they start a conversation or other activity with you, when you receive an email in your hotmail inbox, and when a sharing folder is updated. Sounds for each event, as well as for some events that don't use toast (nudges, voice call, etc ).
The advantage to Windows Live Messenger's method is that notifications will spring open in front of other applications so that you can always see when someone comes online.
Windows Live Messenger has a strange handling of pasting content from the clipboard. If the conversation window is already active and selected from the taskbar or by clicking on the window, text can be pasted normally. If the window is openned by double clicking on the user's name in the contact list, the text has to be copied to the clipboard again to enable pasting.
Audio Chatting
Mac OS X
If your buddies are capable of participating in audio chats (i.e. their systems are equipped with a microphone) you can invite them to an audio chat. An icon with a handset next to the buddy icon indicates that the buddy can participate in audio chats.
iChat sports a powerful and intelligent system of echo cancelation, which suppresses any feedback that may bleed into the microphone. This allows for using loudspeakers safely without the fear of the microphone picking up the sound coming from them.
Even if your interlocutor does not have a microphone attached to his computer, you can initiate a one-way audio chat.
Up to 10 people can participate in an audio chat. You can invite them simultaneously by Command-clicking their names in the Buddy List and then clicking the handset button, or add them to an ongoing audio chat by clicking the "+" button and selecting their names from the list.
Windows Vista
Video Chatting
Mac OS X
As soon as the user connects a video camera to the computer, the green icon next to his picture will change to indicate that he is now capable of participating in video chats. Clicking this icon will send an invitation to a video chat, while giving you a preview from your camera. This is helpful for adjusting the position of your camera prior to chatting.
When the buddy accepts your invitation, your picture will smoothly scale down and slide to a corner revealing your buddy's picture behind it. This is not dissimilar to the picture-in-picture effect used in many TV sets.
After the video chat begins, you can adjust the size of the main video window, enter and leave full screen, and move and resize your own picture.
Up to four people can participate in a video chat. Inviting several participants to a video chat is similar to the way you invite people to a video chat. One-way video chats are also supported. You can also invite a person that is only capable of audio chatting to a video chat.
The same echo cancelation system that iChat uses for audio chats is used for video chats. This lets you not to worry about the relative position of the camera mic in relation to the speakers and enjoy your video chats.
iChat supports many USB or FireWire video cameras ranging from specialized Web cams to regular camcorders.
Windows Vista
Security
Mac OS X
iChat lets users block specific individuals or only allow a select few to see they are online and chat with them.
If all buddies in a chat are all .Mac members, sessions can be encrypted.
Windows Vista
Windows Live Messenger requires approval from one buddy to be added to another buddy's list. This feature leads to block the user from communicating and also enhances privacy. Users can also block their contacts from seeing when they are online.
WLM also ties into a free antivirus to scan all files you receive.
Sharing
Mac OS X
iChat offers a basic level of file sharing. Users can send files to buddies while either in a chat session by dragging into the chat window or by right-clicking on a buddy's screen name in the buddy window and selecting "Send File" from the pop up window.
With the release of Leopard, iChat now provides remote desktop sharing where one user can view and manipulate (with permission of the other of course) the remote desktop. In effect, iChat allows the remote user to take over the mouse and keyboard thereby giving him complete control of the system.
Windows Vista
Windows Live Messenger allows sending of files either during a chat or by right-clicking on a contact and selecting Send Other>Send a Single File. WLM also supports drag and drop of files onto the chat window to send them
In addition, WLM has a feature called Sharing Folders, where a folder named for each contact is stored on the user's computer and an identical folder with the user's name is stored on each contact's folder. WLM will then sync the two folders to have the same contents. Each user can add additional files to be synced between the two folders. The Sharing Folders feature allows very large files to be transferred, as syncing can be interrupted when one user goes offline and resumed when both users are online again.
Odds & Ends
Mac OS X
- Users have the option to have iChat archive their text chats to a file on their hard drive. These archived chat sessions can be indexed and searched by Spotlight.
- iChat can record video teleconferences to QuickTime movies.
- iChat lets the user take a picture of themselves with their webcam to set as their buddy icon. Click your current buddy icon, choose "Edit Picture..." from the drop-down menu, and then choose "Take Video Snapshot."
Windows Vista
- Users can their your contacts in the messenger to many activities, including simple games, a collaborative web search tool, and a whiteboard.
- WLM supports the logging of conversations to the user's hard drive and can display the last few messages from a previous conversation with a given contact in the message window (separated by a line.)
- WLM allows a user to request or offer to take control of another user's computer. Indiviudal application windows can also be shared.
Discuss | Show All Comparisons | Download PDF
