Mikey Campbell
In an email to users on Friday, Apple reminded Messages beta program participants that the preview period will end on Friday, Dec. 14, noting that the service will then only be available on OS X Mountain Lion.
AppleInsider Jim was first to note the upcoming closure, which brings the OS X 10.7 Lion preview service to an end.
Apple first introduced Messages beta for Mac in February, bringing cross-platform messaging support for OS X and iOS. As a replacement for the previous iChat application, Messages beta was meant to bridge the gap between Apple's computers and portable devices with "Messages Everywhere," a feature that allows users to start a conversation on one machine and move seamlessly to another.
In June, Apple cut off downloads for the beta in preparation of OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, which replaced the beta service with the dedicated Messages application.
The email points out that users must upgrade to Mountain Lion in order to keep using the service.
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Wesley Hilliard
AppleInsider Staff
Andrew Orr
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36 Comments
This sounds obviously logical to me. But I hope there's improvements coming to Messages itself, as it's definitely buggy, particularly coming out of sleep.
If Apple is upgrading Messages in such a way that it will no longer run on Lion, and have no intention of upgrading Lion, then I get it. Otherwise it seems to amount to little more than extortion. Mountain Lion will not run on a whole selection of recent Macs, meaning more than just a simple inexpensive upgrade for some. So why do it? Why not allow Lion users who have been successfully using an integrated Messages app to continue to do so? Who does it hurt? Plus it keeps this kind of communication in the Apple ecosystem. Will Lion users be able to downgrade back to iChat? Not having been involved in the beta program, were users notified at the beginning it was limited and would eventually be forced to upgrade? When Apple choses not to support a particular feature on older equipment, I get it, but to take away something that is otherwise supported just doesn't feel right.
That is just positively dickish. What if you have hardware that is not supported by Mt Lion? I suppose you are supposed to 'upgrade' your hardware too?!?!?!?!
Messages works fantastic for me. I use it to text my family on their iPhones and to talk to my co-workers in another town who are using Live Messenger (using the Cocoon plug-in). It all integrates together perfectly.
Messages works fantastic for me. I use it to text my family on their iPhones and to talk to my co-workers in another town who are using Live Messenger (using the Cocoon plug-in). It all integrates together perfectly.
It's still very buggy for me and the people I message with it. Especially on multiple devices. Often half of the messages go to one device or another and the rest go somewhere else.