Trillian Astra for mac. weeeee

See here. Personally I think it looks like crap, but so did the first version of trillian for Windows. Should be interesting competition against Adium. Maybe it might push one or the other to finally support video chat.

 

This is interesting...in my opinion the UI is a bit heavy in brushed metal, but I always welcome competition. It drives more innovation.

 

Actually I think Trillian STILL looks like crap It's just looks less crappy than every other instant messenger out there.

Of course, Astra looks nothing like the Windows counterpart. It definitely would be nice to have an alternative to Adium though. I wonder if it'll support as many services as Adium - the Windows version as I recall only did the major ones.

So who wants to be the guinea pig and play with it for the rest of us?

 

I use Trillian for my Windows partition, but I prefer Adium in general. I'm in the Astra alpha program, so I might give the Mac version a shot at some point and just see how it does, but i still think Adium will be the premier client on OS X after this.

 

My I ask (naively) what is wrong with the built in iChat application? that u have to look outside?

 

iChat does not support MSN, or any other messaging service other than .Mac or AIM, which makes it almost 100% useless in non USA countries.
This is indeed very welcoming news, as altough Trillian might not look as fancy as Adium, it might be able to fully support the missing features Adium is unable to support due to its restrictive programming framework.

 

Yeah, I'm not an AIM user, nor do I have .Mac; I use MSN Messenger for my IMing, and iChat doesn't support MSN, unfortunately.

 

To be fair to it, it does support Google Talk which is quite popular in India atleast. But yah, Adium beats it hands down with its support for Y! and MSN as well.

 

I have issues with sending files from people using trillian on the windows side to adium. But file transfers work with people in windows using yahoo or msn for file transfers to adium.

Does anyone else have this issue or know if trillian fixes them between them?

 

I guess you can add me to the pissed off people who cannot use msn with iChat. MSN is used by 97% of the people in my country so yeah... I wish at least microsoft would release a decent mac version.

 

that would be me. i love downloading free things i dont need.

==edit==

cant seem to find the download for it. could someone please pass on the linky?

 

You have to request the Alpha from Trillian:

Source

 

Hmm. I moved away from Trillian for one reason: Google talk support requires upgrading to Pro, which costs $$ that I don't want to pay. As mentioned before, Google Talk is hella popular in India, and among a lot of my friends even in other places. Thus, I switched to Pidgin on XP and Adium on OS X. However, if Trillian Astra offers Gtalk, thats a must download for me. The interface is brilliant, compared to the cluttered nonsense that is Adium. I also like the Trillian for windows interface better than Pidgin, as well.

 

I totally agree...here in Vancouver, nearly everyone is on MSN...barely anyone has AIM here or Yahoo and such. Everyone chats on MSN, everyone has Hotmail.

I would use iChat if it supported MSN. iChat does video chatting very well. And yes, Microsoft needs to catch up with the development of Messenger for Mac.

 

^
Indeed.

Anyway, I signed up for the alpha. Let's see when they contact me. I'll keep you guys posted.

 

I dont understand what is so bad about Trillian or what makes it less good looking than Adium. Trillian is colorful and solid all around...the other ones like Pidgin and Adium look plain.

 

I'm in the Alpha already for Windows, I'll go get the Mac version.

 

The bad about Trillian is that it lacks Google Talk support in the freeware version.

Other than that, its the best multi-protocol IM client, IMO.

 

so did i. space filler

 

How do you get the Alpha version of Trillian for Windows?

Also I want to ask this question here: Has anyone purchased the $25 Trillian Pro version? If you have, how does that run, with video/audio functionality (Google Talk audio/Yahoo/MSN/AIM video/jabber)

Thanks in advance

 

I applied for the program a while ago, and got in several months ago. I use it when in Windows mode. I did buy Pro back in last December when I had an HP, which I'm sure helped me get into the program (I think all Pro members are now allowed in, or will be soon).