Continuing our preview of new features coming in Mac OS 10.5 “Leopard”, this week we’ll profile something old, and something new. The “something old” has so many new capabilities that it might as well be new. The “something new” offers an innovative approach to an old problem. So, everything old is new again. Or something like that.

Anyway, Leopard will sport a new an improved version of “iChat”, Apple’s internet chat application. iChat is compatible with AOL Instant Messenger and provides text, audio, or video chat, depending on the capabilities of the computers involved. It’s a great way to keep in touch, with, for free, those kids you just packed off to college or boarding school.

Here’s what’s new in Leopard’s iChat. Some people have more than one chat account (or identity) – perhaps one for play, and one for work. Currently, you can only be “logged on” with one account at a time. With Leopard’s iChat, you can be as schizophrenic as you want, logging in with as many personas as you wish.

I don’t know how they do it (well, actually, I do, and I’ve decided it’s an age thing), but some people (female teens mostly, I’ve observed) can hold multiple conversations at the same time. Today’s iChat requires a separate window for every chat, which can call for a lot of screen space, desktop gymnastics, or adept use of Expose´. Leopard’s iChat comes to the rescue with a new tabbed interface, wherein you can consolidate all your chats in one window, and toggle between them.

With Leopard iChat you can apply fun Photo Booth effects, in real-time, to your visage when engaged in a video chat. You can also drag and drop movies or still photos onto your video chat window to create backdrops (kinda like the bluescreen the TV weatherman stands in front of, and perfect for masking the disheveled state of the dorm room in the background). iChat (at least the version demoed by Apple) comes with several fun static and moving backdrops built in – the surface of the moon, Times Square, an idyllic beach, even the view from the front car of a roller coaster.

So far we’ve focused on the fun stuff in Leopard iChat, but there are actually a couple more “mature” teleconferencing features coming as well. In a video chat window, you can host a Keynote (Apple’s version of “PowerPoint on Steroids”) presentation, where the viewer can see, in fullscreen, both you (in a small window) and the slides you’re presenting. You can also present video from your computer or iPhoto slideshows in the same manner. iChat Theater. Very cool.

Our final Leopard iChat feature is called iChat Screen Sharing. As the name implies, you and a buddy (on a video-capable Mac) can share and control a single Mac desktop, collaborating on any task you can perform singularly. When you start Screen Sharing, an audio chat is initiated so you can talk about what you’re doing. It’s basically like you’re sitting in front of the same computer, from across the street or across the globe. Tech support folks (both official and unofficial, like me) will love this. No more asking “what do you see on your screen?” Uber-cool.

So, that’s something old, made new again. The “something new” Leopard feature is called “Spaces”. Think of Spaces as virtual desktops. Macs with lots of RAM allow many applications to be open at the same time. Although it’s easy to step around through various open applications, your desktop space can become cluttered. What if you could have multiple, easily selectable desktops? That’s Spaces, and, sure enough, I’ve run out of space for this week. More next time.

© 2006 Peter F. Zimowski