AOL has released Desktop for Mac, the new all-in-one application was built from the ground up for Mac users, by Mac users.
It puts your Web browser, instant messaging, email and other popular features all in one place for you, so you can get more done with fewer clicks.
Features include:
• Fast, new AOL browser
• New email and AIM
• Leopard-ready for your new Mac
System Requirements:
• PowerPC G4 or Intel Macintosh (minimum)
• Mac OS X 10.4.8 or higher
• Minimum of 256MB of physical RAM
• Minimum of 60MB of available hard disk space
• 28.8 Kbps or faster modem/existing Internet connection
More info and download link here.
HUH, what for? no thank you
Okay, so no one’s big on AOL or AIM, but iChat runs the AIM standard. What good are all the built-in cameras on iMacs and MacBooks unless you convince your friends and family who are also using Macs to fork over for a .Mac account? The option for Windows users to at least attempt to video chat so we can use iChat is for them to sign up and use AIM.
Does anyone have a better solution?
“What’s so important with AOL Desktop?”
It’s another prop to distract owners of TWX from the futility and inevitability of AOL’s future already obvious to most of the rest of the world.
For some people that wanted to have tight control over young kids, it was great in the day. Now Apple has great parental controls in the OS, so this is almost not needed any more.
@jonohan
“From the screenshots it just looks like safari/mail and ichat running.”
I can only see a single, tiny screenshot:
But I may be missing some content. I’m running Firefox with NoScript right now, and while I’ve temporarily allowed aol.com, NoScript is telling me the page is also using:
aolhat.com
aolcdn.com
and
yieldmanager.com
AOL could be supplying further content that I can’t see via JavaScript from one of those domains.
I’ve also got page content disappearing under a brown bar at the bottom of the page, as if there’s something to scroll to, but nothing to scroll with. Maybe that’s down to scripted content, too — maybe the page is partly built with JavaScript and doesn’t “degrade gracefully” when scripts are off.
@ Apple Cider
“Does anyone have a better solution?”
Sure. Get those Windows users to use Trillian or Pidgin or any one of a number of multi-protocol chat clients.
Even better get ’em to use JABBER. It’s an open XML-based protocol. Apple iChat understands it, and so will any decent chat client on Windows. Google uses it, too; so it has backing from at least one big player.
Here you go — excellent article.
The The What and Why of Open IM:
http://www.informit.com/articles/printerfriendly.aspx?p=1155867
“For some people that wanted to have tight control over young kids, it was great in the day.”
Strong rope and lots of Barney DVDs?
Sounds like they’re bringing back Netscape Communicator. Remember version 4.7? It had everything. Those were the days!
Two things come to mind when I think of AOL:
1. People still use AOL?
2. Anger–For the way they screwed me and continued to charge their monthly fees to my credit card for over a year after I cancelled their service, and for the way that for several years, I couldn’t go anywhere without being attacked by those stupid discs!
Right on, Ampar. I miss those days… signing in, the roar of the modem, and the five minutes of icon updates before I can actually view my AOL home page or “gotmail”.
Crap + crap = More Crap
Strictly for those who can’t bear the thought of freeing themselves from AOHell.
To rasterbator: I had my three initials plus @aol.com for an e-mail address. Over the years, several people offered to buy it from me when they had to settle for something like dan49459673@aol.com. I’m not sure if that was even possible. I was also a frequent beta tester for the AOL Mac team in the early years. Then, AOL got really old and tiresome (like random and unannounced TOS changes?) when the actual internet got more interesting. I remember logging in to the bombardment of artwork and icon updates. And random disconnects.