"share my screen" not available

Question

"share my screen" not available

I spent several hours trying to figure out why I could not "share my screen" with a friend of mine and wanted to publlish my findings.

For share my screen to work, you need to have more then an AppleID, you must also have a AIM accont and it needs to be associated with the person's Contact.

To be a bit more clear:

my email is: Lenny@LennysDomain.com

my friends email: Tony@TonysDomain.com

These are also our Apple IDs

In the Contact program, our address cards only had the above information.

Using the Message program, we were able to chat and facetime, but not Share Screen.

We both have AIM accounts, and when I added our AIM accounts to our address cards in Contact, you then get the Share Screen option in Message. It is my understanding that this works if you both have Google Talk, or Jabber accounts, but I have not tested this. What is relevant is that screen sharing will NOT be an option in Message unless you have registered for a non-Apple chat service and link that information to users in the Contact program.

I hope this post saves other people some of the time I wasted figuring this out.

Enjoy

Posted on Sep 24, 2012 2:43 PM

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Answer 1

Sep 27, 2012 1:52 PM in response to Leonard Barshack

Hi,

You are talking about the Messages app in Mountain Lion.

The iMessage Account does not do Screen Sharing where as all your iChat style Logins will. (Those that have Buddy lists).

For some people with Apple Issued IDs (@mac.com and @me.com) you have to set up two accounts (one for iMessage and one for AIM) with the same ID to be able to Screen Share over AIM.

AIM valid names include AIM ones (D'oh) and @Mac.com and @me.com from Apple.

Some other United States ISPs have agreements like Apple's to use emails as names.

Jabber IDs (Included GoogleTalk and Facebook IDs)

It does not work with the Yahoo option (it does not do Audio Only or Video and Audio is needed for Screen Sharing in iChat/Messages).

9:52 PM Thursday; September 27, 2012

Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Mountain Lion 10.8.2)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and and iPad
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

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Answer 2

Sep 28, 2012 11:03 AM in response to Ralph-Johns-UK

Ralph,

Thanks for your post. I had actually read other posts you have made on the same topic which helped me solve the problem.

I believe we are saying the same thing, with you being a touch more technical. It is my hope that people will find this thread if they are having trouble with screen share functionality.

I did find this issue poorly documented by Apple, both as part of the configuration process as well as in the help section. I finally called Apple Care and got a very polite assistant who had no idea what the issue was. If someone from Apple reads this, I constructively suggest that you provide better documentation on this issue.

Enjoy !

Lenny

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Answer 3

Feb 6, 2013 4:38 AM in response to Ralph-Johns-UK

Ralph,

For some people with Apple Issued IDs (@mac.com and @me.com) you have to set up two accounts (one for iMessage and one for AIM) with the same ID to be able to Screen Share over AIM.

AIM valid names include AIM ones (D'oh) and @Mac.com and @me.com from Apple.

Some other United States ISPs have agreements like Apple's to use emails as names.

I infer from this that I can create a new AIM account with a mac.com or me.com username. Am I reading it right? If so, how do I do it? When I try to register with aol.com, it only allows XXXXX@aol.com usernames.

Many thanks,

david

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Answer 4

Feb 6, 2013 12:35 PM in response to David Bean

Hi,

No.

Apple effectively let AIM or rather seems to give AIM the Apple IDs so that when you go to either https://settings.aim.com/ with @mac.com names or try to "re-register" and name at the registration page you will get a message about the name being in use.

At the AIM registration page the full name of the account is technically username@aim.com

However in most cases the username is normally what you use in AIM capable messaging apps.

It is possible to activate the name as email as a separate step.

Currently you may have older @mac.com names from Apple as well as @me.com and @icloud.com issued by the iCloud registration process.

In Messages and iChat 6 all these variants will work.

However in iChat 5 and earlier version only the @mac.com names will work due to this Dual Login that the last two version make to me.com as well as AIM.com that allows the password to be "read".

Summary.

You can't "re-register" an Apple ID as AIM are already aware of it.

AIM can't "see" the password until iChat tells them they can look.

In iChat 6 and Message this includes and extra step that is created by the app also logging in to Me.com and this then confirms that AIM can "read" the password.

AIM names can be any other email if you wish your name to be that email. davidbean@wellKnownEmail.com for example (yourUserName@Yahoo.com for another).

However creating a new name and to show it will be a name that is @Aim.com but this suffix is rarely used in any app - relying on the username only part.

It can be made to be an active email as a separate step.

8:34 PM Wednesday; February 6, 2013

Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Mountain Lion 10.8.2)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and an iPad
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

Reply

Answer 5

Feb 6, 2013 1:17 PM in response to Ralph-Johns-UK

Thanks, Ralph. I'll have to re-read a couple of times, but I think I get it. How did Apple let it get so complicated? (It's OK, that was rhetorical, it does require an answer 🙂 )

david

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Answer 6

Feb 6, 2013 1:50 PM in response to David Bean

HI,

Reading the Freudian slip

(It's OK, that was rhetorical, it does require an answer 🙂 )

You get your answer anyway.

Once upon a time iChat only did AIM Chats.

When AIM added the ability to SMS via AIM to Cell phones it was limited to only US based Computers (easily set as the region or country depending on OS version) and to (certain) US based Carriers so only US phones could have SMS messages forwarded to them.

iChat included this and the SMS items would only appear in the menus if the computer was set as a if in the United States.

SMS by AOL/AIM never got rolled out world wide. However you have to add the phone number to the Buddy list as if it were a Buddy, listing +1 as the country code (As in +1234567890)

Since then we have had iChat 4, 5, 6 and Messages Beta and Mountain Lion full on version.

At Messages the implication has been that it will do SMS in the iMessages account but it appears it will not do so.

At the same time the menus that contained SMS if the region is the United States have disappeared even if an AIM Buddy list is "Front"

However in an AIM Account it will still do SMS if the computer thinks it is is in the United States and you have an United States phone (on the "right " carrier) to send to.

See pic

What we have now is an app that have been added to (AIM, Jabber, Bonjour and now Yahoo and iMessages) on the accounts side and has had features added to the other functions (iChat Theater for Sharing in Video chats, Effects and Backdrops in video chats).

People are seeing iMessages as a potentially useful part of syncing their chats and are coming to the app without knowing the history.

As with jumping in at any Version 7 it can be difficult to pick up how the thing developed so that you know how it works.

9:49 PM Wednesday; February 6, 2013

Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Mountain Lion 10.8.2)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and an iPad
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

Reply