New Year’s Treat…AIM.app for the Mac

Happy New Year everyone, and today we have some exciting news to go along with the new year. The AIM Lite team has been hard at work on various different projects, and we’re proud to announce a preview version of our favorite — AIM.app.

Download AIM.app for Mac

This is a native Mac AIM client with a large feature set. It’s made for Mac users, by Mac users, and I think you are all going to like it.  This client is used by the Open AIM development team to test the API.  AIM Lite is the test client we use on the Windows side of the house.  Much like MFC Buddy whose source code is shipped inside the Windows SDK and is available via the AIM Gallery, AIM.app’s source code is available in the Mac SDK.  As always you can download all of our SDKs and read all about our API on http://developer.aim.com.

This is the first public release of the client — but for those Mac developers out there you can see old versions in source at the OpenAIM developer website here. You can also see full release notes here.

AIM.app also supports plugins! Try out KidIM, which allows parents to setup a simple IM environment for kids. Try that our here

As always, we thrive on feedback. Just like in the windows version of AIM Lite, please send us feedback via the AIM.app Help menu.

Here are the screenshots:

15 thoughts on “New Year’s Treat…AIM.app for the Mac

  1. No offence, but why is AOL bothering to make an official AIM client? iChat is far more refined an application and has great support for video and voice chat. As for feedback on the UI:

    – In Location Services you really need to put backgrounds on those text fields, they look extremely ugly
    – Same with status, make them real text fields
    – For the preferences, all I can say is read up on the Apple HIG and look at the preferences in other applications because they’re just a cluttered mess of buttons and labels that makes very little sense at first glance.
    – And try to get someone to make some decent toolbar icons. At the moment the toolbars look like a mixture of apple icons and ones done in 5 minutes to fill the rest.

  2. Martin thanks for the feedback. iChat is a client that is built using libraries that my team writes, however does not use the top level Open AIM library, thus missing out on many of the advantages that the Open AIM platform gives us including a plugin interface. To understand the value of plugins see AIM Tunes on Windows or any of the other plugins on gallery.aim.com. We now have a great client that developers can now build plugins on top of on the Mac.

    I think having multiple options out there to be good, whether its iChat, AIM.app, Adium, etc.

  3. Keep up the good work. I know they both use same protocol but make sure ICQ integration works fine too.

    To iChat fans: Just having something built into OS doesn’t mean nobody else will code any alternatives. If AIM.app works good, Apple will feel some kind of competition (which LACKS on OS X) and it may result in a better iChat client too.

    I personally don’t want to pay $140 for each iChat update, you get what I mean.

  4. Laugh all you want at the AIM client, but the kids love it. I have used iChat from day one, but my kids (and all the other kids I know), are hanging on to that old AIM client. I can’t get them to switch to iChat.

    Soemthing about the buddy lists, profiles, and how you change colors/fonts in your chats…

    My kids are going to be all over this…

    I’ll be curious to see how well it interoperates with iChat – especialyl when transferring files…

  5. First thing I’ve seen after tried to log in into my account was the alert: “The AIMCC key is unknown or empty.” OK, I tried to get the key on http://developer.aim.com, but to no avail. Wouldn’t it be more convenient to display the information about necessity to get such a key BEFORE the user tried to enter his AIM login and password?

  6. Pingback: AOL develops another new AIM Client For Mac » tek

  7. Thank you so much!
    I really wanted this for the mac.
    By the way a lot of people don’t have ichat so it isn’t as fun if theres know one to talk to.

  8. Greg,

    Is there an easy way to merge the files form the AIM included in the AOL for Desktop with AIM.app That would bring tabs and some updated features to the standalone version. I played around with it a little bit but couldn’t figure it out.

  9. Hi there , I must say that you have a great information on your blog AIM.app for the Mac . Even I could not understand the whole article it is nice to know that people are writing also for aim wallpaper as that is how i found you on Google , anyway just i stop it to say hello and posted my thought on your blog AIM.app for the Mac comment section. Cheers and keep growing your blog.

  10. Hi Greg,

    This Dilip from Bangalore, I am having an issue with logging into AIM if I use any client other than AOL desktop in Mac. I have tried with iChat and Adium, but I get the “user suspended” message. I tried with this version of AIM client for Mac and and error is same. The only client which works for mac is AOL Desktop which is poor in its functionality.

    Can you tell me what could be the issue?

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