As the suffix implies, Apple's new iChat AV adds audio and videoconferencing to the company's instant-messaging program. We tested a public beta, but the final code should be available by the time you read this, bundled with Mac OS X 10.3 (also known as Panther; reviewed in First Looks) and sold separately for users of Mac OS X 10.2.5 or later. We are pleased with iChat's ease of use and video quality—the best here— but like MSN Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger, iChat is best suited for personal use.

There isn't a lot to say about iChat AV. It is purely a messaging client and doesn't offer many user-changeable settings or extra features, such as application sharing.

Setup is simple. Conveniently, you can log on using either a .Mac or AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) account. Unfortunately, iChat AV requires several open ports in your firewall, ruling it out as a business solution for most Mac users.

If a user on your buddy list is using iChat AV and has audio or video support, a green phone or camera button will appear next to that person's name. Because iChat is compatible with AIM, you can contact PC users who are on the AIM network—a useful capability. You can't, however, establish videoconference connections with PC users. Your cross-platform communications options are limited to text chat.

iChat AV will work with any Mac-compatible FireWire-based digital camera. For our tests, we used the sleek Apple iSight, which supports 640-by-480 VGA resolution. iChat AV is set to 352-by-288 and can be scaled up to full-screen. For this, the application interpolates the image, offering very high video quality.

When set up on a connection with no firewalls, iChat AV offers an excellent videoconferencing experience. The video and audio are very good, and the streams exhibit minimal latency. You view the other party in a large window. Within that window is a smaller one that displays your own stream. You can move this smaller window to any corner of the larger one, or you can close it.