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TidBITS Presents “Explaining the Big 3 Confusions with Messages”

With the introduction of Messages in OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, Apple took a large step toward unifying the messaging experience between OS X and iOS. But because Messages in Mountain Lion had to integrate the instant messaging functionality of iChat with the iMessage/FaceTime capabilities of Messages in iOS, it’s easy to get confused.

While writing “Take Control of Messages in Mountain Lion,” Glenn Fleishman poked and prodded at every part of Messages, and he’s heard from numerous people (including me!) who have had trouble with many different aspects of Messages. In this live TidBITS Presents event on Wednesday, 14 November 2012, at 12:00 PM Eastern, he’ll be explaining the three most-common confusions:

  • Since an Apple ID can be associated with multiple email addresses and iPhone phone numbers, it’s easy to end up in a situation where iMessages don’t arrive where you think they should, or where you’re unable to contact someone at the desired device. Glenn will explain how to ensure that you’ve associated the desired addresses and numbers with Messages on each device.

  • Many people start a conversation via text chat, but want to switch to audio or video at some point in the middle. Messages makes it hard on us by sporting a bit of terrible user interface reminiscent of using the Windows Start button to shut a PC down. Couple that with the lack of audio and video support in the iMessage system, requiring a shift to the FaceTime app, and lots of people can’t figure out how to move from text to talking out loud. Once Glenn scrubs away the poor user interface, you’ll make the jump with ease.

  • Messages makes chat transcripts central to the user experience (a major change from iChat), maintaining them as essentially permanent conversations that you can search as desired. Many people don’t understand the connection between conversations and transcripts, and very few people realize just how destructive the Clear Transcript command in Messages is. Glenn will explain all, and make sure you understand exactly what Clear Transcript will do.

So please join us live on Wednesday, 14 November 2012, at 12:00 PM Eastern (9 AM Pacific) at the TidBITS Presents page (if you’re in another time zone, check out the Every Time Zone site to convert to local time). You’ll see the event on the public TidBITS Events calendar (for more details, see “Subscribe to the TidBITS Events Calendar,” 15 October 2012). The presentation is open to everyone. We’ll be trying to keep
the main discussion to 15 minutes, and we’ll take questions from the live chat at the end for another 15 minutes. If you can’t make it live, you’ll be able to watch the recorded presentation afterwards at your leisure. For additional details about Messages, check out the full 113-page “Take Control of Messages in Mountain Lion.”

We continue to learn about the best ways to use Google Hangouts On Air, so be sure to scroll down and read the FAQ at the bottom of the TidBITS Presents page before the presentation. See you at noon on Wednesday the 14th!

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