Macenstein

Posted by Dr. Macenstein

In response to our article concerning Apple’s iChat update last week and possible iPhone (aka iChat mobile, aka Mobile Me) integration, faithful Macenstein reader Joe sent us this comment:

“Did you read the last paragraph of the license agreement? Is that new? It deals with communicating over cellular networks. Maybe the new iPhone will allow you to chat directly with iChat users…?”

We got all excited, and decide to check it out. It seems the paragraph Joe is likely referring to is Paragraph “G”, which at first glance actually appears to rule out any iPhone integration:

“G. AMR Notice. The Adaptive Multi-Rate (“AMR”) encoding and decoding functionality in this product is not licensed to perform cellular voice calls, or for use in any telephony products built on the QuickTime architecture for the Windows platform. The AMR encoding and decoding functionality in this product is also not licensed for use in a cellular communications infrastructure including: base stations, base station controllers/radio network controllers, switching centers, and gateways to and from the public switched network.”

Pretty clear right? No iPhone (or cellular phone) compatibility. Case clossed.

However, if you read what the license agreement is NOT saying, more than what it IS, you can come to a more salacious conclusion. We have no idea what AMR is, and are too lazy to wiki it right now. But from what that paragraph says, you can either interpret it as:

A) The ARM encoding (which sounds necessary for telephony functionality) in iChat is not licensed to work on cellular networks or telephony products AT ALL…

…OR,

B) it is saying it is not licensed to work on cellular networks or Telephony products on the WINDOWS platform.

From the wording, it seems that B is what it is saying to us (but we are avid conspiracy theorists). Sure it is not necessarily saying iChat will work with an iPhone on Macs, but it doesn’t seem to NOT say it either, and only mentions Windows apps using QuickTime as being a point of contention. .

We’ll admit the line about not working on “cellular communications infrastructure ” sounds pretty damaging to our case, but since we ARE conspiracy buffs, we’ve found a work around that let’s us stick to our claim AND sleep at night. You see, that line either could mean iChat can’t communicate at ALL with cellular services, OR… we like to read it as, “iChat can use the iPhone as a Skype-esque internet phone and then communicate with cellular infrastructures.”

As for Joe’s second question, as to whether that paragraph’s wording is a new addition to the iChat license agreement, we can’t confirm or deny that, as we can’t find the old one online anywhere, and it is too late in the night to do a fresh install of OSX and download an old ichat update for OS X 10.3.9. But if any of you are bored, let us know what you find out!