Update: Though I never really expected this article to get dugg, I’ve been enlightened by readers on some interesting points. First of all, the Official Microsoft Mac Blog addresses a lot of my issues in their blog entry describing why A/V support hasn’t yet been implemented. Though it does lessen my frustration, it is still not enough for me to switch back to MSN Messenger for Mac. wackybit also gives a nice tutorial on how to remove the annoying “Never give out your password…” message that appears on every chat window. MSN Messenger for Mac does in fact support groups.
As far as I know, there are three common ways of using MSN on Mac OSX: MSN Messenger for Mac, Adium, and iChat via Jabber. I, like many Apple users, have been a long time die-hard fan of Adium for instant messaging. Microsoft recently released a new version of MSN Messenger for Mac and although the improvements are nice, there is still much that could be worked on.
First of all, the new MSN Messenger for Mac 6.0 comes upgraded with a variety of new features such as chatting with Yahoo! Messenger contacts, integrating iTunes with MSN to display the song being played in your personal message, searching through your history logs with spotlight and of course being bundled in Universal Binary allowing for full speed with PowerPC and Intel-based Macs. However, these features are hardly anything to be impressed about. Being the software giant that Microsoft is, you can’t help but think that they’re teasing you for holding back on some key features that regular PC users get. For example, there is still no video or audio chat support, no support for offline messages, and still no support for user groups except “online” and “offline”. Another feature that MSN Messenger for Mac lacks is the ability to show a little bit of the message history directly in the chat window. There are even some tiny nuisances that just makes the app down right annoying. For instance, the caution message that goes along the lines of “Never give out your password…” appears on every new chat window and there is no clear indication of where to turn it off. Although I do appreciate the security advice, I’m well aware of what I should and shouldn’t share while I chat and would very much like to turn this feature off. Furthermore, there is a slight lag when you try close your chat window via Apple + W. If you close the window with the red x in the top left hand corner, the window will close instantly. If you use keyboard shortcuts on the other hand, there is about a second lag which again is not that big of a deal but a nuisance that should have been fixed prior to release.
Above all, what I’m really confused about is why it’s taking Microsoft so long to enable video/audio support for MSN Messenger for Mac. I mean, Skype seems to be getting it with their beta software so why can’t Microsoft? Because they’re incapable of? I don’t think so. It’s simply clear that Mac users are just not a priority for Microsoft. Perhaps when Apple gets a stronger market share will they start thinking about implementing all the great features that MSN Messenger has for PC users onto the Mac version.