New toy: iSight

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This entry was published at least two years ago (originally posted on October 23, 2003). Since that time the information may have become outdated or my beliefs may have changed (in general, assume a more open and liberal current viewpoint). A fuller disclaimer is available.

iSight screencapture

So I went and got myself a new toy today — Apple’s iSight webcam. I haven’t done a ton of playing with it so far, but from what I have done, it’s quite the nifty little addition to my arsenal of toys.

The packaging is up to Apple’s usual standards of excellence. The box unfolds in half to reveal all the pieces: the iSight itself, a plastic carrying case, and three types of stands (one for sticking to the top of a CRT, one for sticking to the back of an LCD screen, and one for clipping to the top of a PowerBook). A FireWire cable is included, packaged underneath the camera.

Setting it up is incredibly simple — plug it in. Instantly, iChat recognizes it, and you’re ready to go!

I didn’t have anyone online who I could test a two-way video chat with, but I was able to test a one-way video chat (me broadcasting, them receiving) with audio going both directions, and it worked fine. The iSight has a microphone built in, so no extra cables or pieces are required to get the audio portion of the chat working.

After playing with iChat for a bit, I bounced into Yahoo! Messenger for a few moments. While Y!M doesn’t have anywhere near the speed or quality that iChat does, and doesn’t support voice chat on the Mac, it was able to recognize the iSight and allow for video/text chatting with other Y!M users without a hitch.

All in all, I’m quite impressed. It may not be the most practical toy that I could have picked up — especially with so few other iChat/iSight users in my sphere of influence at the moment — but it’ll be quite handy to have around at those times when I can take advantage of it.

17 thoughts on “New toy: iSight”

  1. Hidey Ho! Nice to see ya again! ;-)

    Hmm, that makes me think I should get some photos of James and me together. All we have is our wedding photos and well, that was over a year ago…

  8. you lost your job for a pleasant, yet non descript picture? -how Anal! I hope all is well dude and things sort themeselves out. But, hey!, Im posting from a Linux beasty so MicroPoop can go and stuff themeselves-maybe you could run this instead, then get a job for Macintosh Marketing!- your bound to be hot property thee dude!

    see ya!

    Me!
    woof

  10. Being fired by Microsoft only shows the low quality of this company.. They are not going to lose market share for this photo… only making some mac users have a little bit of fun stuff to see.

    Actually firing you is really bad deal for themselves, because they are spreading more this new around the world!!! :)

    Greetings from Spain

    Good Luck!!!

  11. the only think MS on my PC is the OS and the bull shiz that comes with it.
    Be happy you don’t work for those anal mother ******s. XP is OK but i learned about Macs after i bought this PC and if I had known that macs osx was superior to win 9X and how much more STABLE they are and USER FRIENDLY and not DUMBED DOWN like XP is i would have gone with them in an instant. i’d LOVE to have an Imac 20inch running my dvds and ilife.
    I wont even support a hotmail account. everything about MS is half assed.

    work for Apple, the company bill couldn’t hack it with.

  12. I love my Isight as well. The only thing wrong with it is , well not with the Isight it’s self, but Yahoo Messenger is the version doesn’t let you have access to the chat rooms. Which is where I used my webcam the most back in my PC days. smile

    IChat is good; but — I want my yahoo chat rooms back. I loved how it was simple to hook up and use, and how it was packaged. Although I must admit, it took me a moment to figure out how to get into the box.

    :: laugh ::

    I’m a blonde sometimes; not that there is anything wrong with that.

    If anyone knows of a program that does Video chatting like Netmeeting for PC, or Yahoo chats — please e-mail me and let me know. I miss that!

  13. Maurice — unfortunately, Yahoo! Chat support under Mac OS X is nearly nonexistent. The only program I’ve found that can handle it at all (and that’s chat only, no cam or voice support) is ChitChat X, and it only seems to work about half the time I bother to try.

  14. Well, I’m so impressed with the iSight, but there is one question, is it compatible with PC based, or they are just lucked out.

  15. Hi there.

    I’m a Mac user and am thinking of getting iSight. I have a PC friend who I talk with on Yahoo Messenger. Will I be able to send him video using iSight? How shoud I set it up? Any advice would be helpful. I will also be using iSight to chat with at least a few friends who have Macs too. But most others are PC users.What’s the best chat program to use with them?

  16. are there any actualy real comments on how isight could work with yahoo.

    i mean shit, i don’t care about your opinions on his looks are or some person’s wedding.

    I just want to know how the fuck to work my isight with yahoo hahaha

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