Impulsive Highlighters

Leopard "Preview" Gallery - Part VIII (iChat)

iChat has all the features Steve Jobs demonstrated on stage plus a bunch of nifty tweaks such as being able to set your status to online when you login. It took five years for this?! Amazing, but at least it's finally here. Also, you have tabbed chatting in iChat which is actually fantastically implemented, totally blows the pants off Adium and AIM for Windows and the animations are absolutely gorgeous as you might expect from Apple. Almost everything in iChat's UI seems to use some sort of animation. It just can't be shown in pictures and currently, since I'm on an Intel-based Mac, I can't take videos for you. The screenshots above should reveal most of the tweaks and hidden features though. iChat is also one of the lucky ones in this Developer Preview to get a 512x512 icon.

Also, as I mentioned, Apple seems to be putting together its act as far as user interfaces are concerned and is either converting apps to the Smooth Metal model (à la iTunes 6) or to the Unified Title Bar model. iChat and Automator have moved to the Unified Title Bar model. Perhaps, now, Apple will finally start following its own HIGs. 

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