Jason Snell chats up iChat

A week or so ago, Jason Snell placed spotlight on . . . er, Spotlight. Today he chats a bit about iChat.

His assessment? Thumbs up for smoother video chats than previous versions of iChat allowed and significantly better video quality, thanks to the H.264 video codec. Also better buddy group handling list integration and good news for businesses who need secure instant messaging, thanks to Jabber-compatibility. Thumbs down for high-end hardware requirements and mishandling of video chats hosting/initiating and no native chat log archive browsing support.

Overall, Jason seems pretty pleased with iChat 3, although a few readers in the Macworld Forums think the average iChat 3 user will not be as happy. Check out the discussion and weigh in with your thoughts.