New Mac OS X Tiger builds reveal iChat Jabber support, parental controls
New developmental versions of Apple's Tiger operating system sport beefed up iChat security options and a refined system account management pane with parental controls.
As expected, Apple Computer this week began seeding a select group of developers with new builds of the company's next generation Mac OS X "Tiger" operating system, reliable sources told AppleInsider.
The new seeds, which include builds in the 8A2xx range, are the first developmental versions of Tiger to exit Apple's Cupertino campus since the company's World Wide Developers Conference in June. Revealed in the new builds are features such as Jabber support in iChat and family controls for account management.
Screenshots: Jabber Setup Assistant; About This Mac
In addition to supporting video conferencing with up to three people, the most recent builds of iChat 3.0 include support for Jabber's real-time communications software. The iChat implementation will let organizations host their own Jabber servers, allowing employees to use iChat privately and securely behind a local firewall. A new addition to the iChat setup assistant provides an interface for enabling Jabber support.
Sources also noted changes to Tiger's account management. In the latest builds of the software, Apple has consolidated its "Security" and "Limitations" account preferences into a set of "Family Controls." Using the new controls, administrative account holders can refine a user's access privileges by application. As standard, Apple lists separate configuration options for the Finder, iChat and Safari; allowing parents and educational institutes to sensor content and restrict access to minors and students.
Speaking of Safari, recent builds of the Apple-branded web browser have exposed a set of handy preferences for customizing its new RSS reader capabilities. From a series of drop-down menus, users can tell Safari 2.0 how often to check for RSS feed updates, how long to retain the saved feeds, and what color to label new article listings. Additionally, users can select a default RSS reader other than the Safari browser. Meanwhile, the browser's security preference pane includes a new option to support the aforementioned family preferences (Parental Controls).
The latest builds of Tiger included dozens of additional enhancements that are not present in the release of the system provided to developers in June. Additional reports covering these changes will follow.
35 Comments
Juicy!!!
Can't wait to read about the dozens of other changes.
Here's a quote from a press release that Apple... uh... released in June.
"Tiger Server includes a brand new iChat server designed for organizations that need to keep internal communication private. Organizations can define their own namespace, use SSL/TSL encryption to ensure privacy and Kerberos for authentication. Tiger Server?s iChat server works with Apple?s popular iChat conferencing software in Mac OS X Tiger and is compatible with open source Jabber clients available on Windows, Linux and popular PDAs."
The above quoted press release informs, at least hints strongly, that Tiger's version iChat will have Jabber support. I, probably a lot of us, don't remember seeing that press release, so thank you for bringing it to our attention.
Maybe Apple will release a Jabber compliant version of iChat for Windows and Linux with the technology formerly known as Rendezvous support.
Edit: Capitalization and Punctuation
Here's a quote from a press release that Apple... uh... released in June.
"Tiger Server includes a brand new iChat server designed for organizations that need to keep internal communication private. Organizations can define their own namespace, use SSL/TSL encryption to ensure privacy and Kerberos for authentication. Tiger Server?s iChat server works with Apple?s popular iChat conferencing software in Mac OS X Tiger and is compatible with open source Jabber clients available on Windows, Linux and popular PDAs."
The above quoted press release informs, at least hints strongly, that Tiger's version iChat will have Jabber support. I, probably a lot of us, don't remember seeing that press release, so thank you for bringing it to our attention.
Maybe Apple will release a Jabber compliant version of iChat for Windows and Linux with the technology formerly known as Rendezvous support.
Edit: Capitalization and Punctuation
what is Jabber?
Here's a quote from a press release that Apple... uh... released in June.
"Tiger Server includes a brand new iChat server designed for organizations that need to keep internal communication private. Organizations can define their own namespace, use SSL/TSL encryption to ensure privacy and Kerberos for authentication. Tiger Server?s iChat server works with Apple?s popular iChat conferencing software in Mac OS X Tiger and is compatible with open source Jabber clients available on Windows, Linux and popular PDAs."
The above quoted press release informs, at least hints strongly, that Tiger's version iChat will have Jabber support. I, probably a lot of us, don't remember seeing that press release, so thank you for bringing it to our attention.
Maybe Apple will release a Jabber compliant version of iChat for Windows and Linux with the technology formerly known as Rendezvous support.
Edit: Capitalization and Punctuation
Why? iChat will work with any Jabber client. Porting iChat to Windows would be a rather difficult task and time-consuming task. Porting any Cocoa app is near-impossible without major rewriting.
Well...we all knew it was coming (those that read the press release) but we hadn't seen any real evidence like the screenshots (although they *could* have been faked.)
Porting any Cocoa app is near-impossible without major rewriting.
*cough*YellowBoxForWindows*/cough*
But I agree, there's no point porting ichat.