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I discussed the mobile icon briefly with Marc, it boils down to this:
There are two protocols for accessing AIM, OSCAR and TOC. OSCAR is the one "AOL sanctioned" clients use and have the wide variety of features, including the flag to change your buddy list icon (i.e. the little phone). AOL keeps this protocol closely held and doesnt allow others to use it.
TOC is less feature filled and doesnt have the ability to change the buddy list icon, but is/was open-source in that anyone can use it.
Chatter and Verichat both use Jabber (a multi-IM service, this is how you can connect to AIM, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ simulataneously). Jabber uses TOC to talk to AIM, primarily because it is more stable. If AOL detects an unauthorized client on OSCAR, they tend to change the protocol, such as the MSN and Trillian debacles last year.
My problem is by the time an IM goes from Chatter Client thru the Chatter Server to the AIM server to the AIM client, there is a slight delay, for normal IM this is unnoticeable, but since I am deaf, I have a screenname to IM that hooks to an Operator for a phone call, and the delay is noticeable to them. But aside from that, Chatter is the best for me
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