Apple has just released a new public beta of iChat AV 2.1b (build 151) that adds support for video-conferencing with Windows AIM 5.5 clients. This is a feature that was recently mentioned in my report of December the 26th.

It's frankly a surprise this feature comes so early but notice this is just a beta version of iChat. This public beta is available for download on Apple's web site and expires on May the 31st. I think we can hope for another beta or a final release then.

I quickly tested this version and I found it a bit buggy : unexpected quit after just half an hour of use and telephone/cam green icons not appearing accurately.

I think we can still hope the other features like encryption and wider range of web-cams support that I had mentioned on my late December article will come on the next final release.