ICHAT

You don't need a webcam to use iChat. In fact, the vast majority of people on iChat do not use a webcam. iChat is for "text chatting" first. You can also use it for "audio" chat if you want. And, if you do have a FireWire webcam, you can use it for video chat. You can use iChat at first and then decide if you want to buy a webcam later.

-Doug

Hi 2Ss,

Welcome to Apple Discussions

Basically, iChat is a "gateway application" for chatting. iChat isn't a service in itself, but an application that uses other services. With iChat you can talk to people on AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), ICQ, Jabber, and more. With Jabber you can talk to other messenger services that iChat natively can't (example: Yahoo or Hotmail). You can find directions on how to here.

As for a web cam, I believe at this moment you can only audio and video chat with AOL users. I am pretty sure with Yahoo you can video, but no audio. I suggest the iSight because it by far is the best web cam around. I use it every day to contact (video meetings) people all over the world. It is really kind of nice to be able to see people rather then just hear their voice. You may want to post iChat/iSight/Messenger/web cam questions either the iChat or iSight forum. There are people there who may have the same question or others who are more knowledgeable about those topics.

Jon

PS The section on iChat is my thoughts; there may be more to it.

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