AOL Releases AIM 6.0 Beta

[Jeff]

by Jeff Hester
April 27, 2005

America Online decided to release an early beta version of AIM 6.0, code-named "Triton," to the general public. According to the blog of one of AIM's developers, this is a very rough beta version, and this has been confirmed by users on the BigBlueBall forums.

AIM 6.0 is completely rewritten, with a new GUI (code named "Boxley"), a documented API for developers of third-party add-ons, and as of this beta release, a bevy of bugs and missing features.

What's new in AIM 6.0?

• A new, "modernized" appearance. Lots of gradients and softer curves, similar to MSN, Yahoo! and ICQ.
• IM "Quick Notes" -- a pop-up form that allows you to store notes about new IM contacts.
• Tabbed chat windows for access to games, file sharing, picture sharing and voice. You can also have a single chat window with tabs for each conversation.
• Support for multi-party voice chat. This has been possible on Yahoo for ages, but it's a nice feature, especially for interacting while playing games.

There are too many problems with the current beta to list them here. There are many features that have not yet been enabled, and a lot of existing functionality (like AIM: urls) do not yet work with the AIM 6.0 beta. Probably the most significant issue right now is that this beta is only supports Windows XP systems with at least 256 MB RAM.

Many people have suggested that this is really more of an alpha version, so unless you're really curious, you're better off steering clear of this beta.

But for those of you who just can't wait to get your hands on it, you can download it here:

• http://beta.aol.com/projects/tritonbeta

How do I get rid of the ads?
BigBlueBall member f0rbez has found a way to turn off ads in AIM 6.0 using a hidden tab in the AIM preferences. Read more...

Thanks to Syntax for alerting us to the beta release, and thanks to Someguy03 for correcting me on the tabbed chat window.