Come July 1, Mac users running various older versions of OS X won’t have the ability to use their mac.com and me.com addresses to log into the AOL Instant Messaging service via iChat.
Apple says that users who want to take advantage of the service must upgrade to at least OS X Lion 10.7.2.
If users are unable to upgrade for whatever reason, they’ll need to create completely new AIM IDs from the AOL site. This means rebuilding Buddy lists from scratch, and removing the old ID from the iChat preferences.
As with every aspect of its software — iOS and OS X — Apple tends to be quite successful at getting its users to upgrade to the latest available version. However, while more than half of Mac users are running OS X Mavericks, according to Net Applications’ Net Market Share counter, the proportion of users likely to be affected by this transition still adds up to 19% — almost one in every five users.
Source: Apple
Via: ZDnet
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
One response to “Older Macs Must Upgrade To Keep Using iChat Logins For AIM”
Dude… it’s *Mavericks*. Get an editor.