Those of you who’ve migrated to Apple from the world of PCs most likely remember Trillian—a popular Windows-based, multi-protocol chat program that lets you log into a bunch of your favorite chat services at the same time. Since moving to the Mac, you’ve probably grown accustomed to using Apple’s iChat or the open-source Adium, which lets you do much the same thing.
For those who still miss Trillian, Cerulean Studios has released an alpha build of Trillian for Mac. At the moment, the build is rather unstable, and lacks many of the features Windows users may be used to, such as audio and video chats, a social-network feed, mail integration, and a number of major preferences and customization options.
However, basic IM functions work fine, including support for Trillian’s proprietary protocol Astra, as well as Windows Live, Yahoo, Facebook Chat, AIM, ICQ, XMPP, Google Talk, Bonjour, and MySpaceIM. File transfers also work, as do most Mac hot keys and iTunes tracking.
Cross-platform users will also be pleased to know that contact sync works with Trillian for Mac; just enter in your Trillian username and password and all of your other instant messaging accounts will be imported—passwords and all. An iPhone version of Trillian that syncs contacts and other changes with the Mac version is also available.
While Trillian for Mac has a long way to go to catch up to its deeply entrenched competition, if Cerulean can get features like video and audio chat to work reliably, it may be able to win over Adium and iChat users who yearn for an all-in-one client that can offer such features.
The Trillian for Mac alpha is a free download, and requires an Intel-based Mac and Mac OS X 10.5 or higher.