IOXWebcamX - 1.1

Given the fact that you can buy decent UVC cameras for a little over $30 I find $20 for a driver much too expensive. Would buy for $5, though.

I upgraded to a new Mac Mini Intel and asked for a serial swap for my new computer. I got that reasonably soon. Then I tried to find an option to insert that new serial number. Did not work, the programme told me, I'm already registered. After a few days I got response after filing a new question on their website. They told me to use the uninstaller and then install again. So I did, but it still said I'm registered with my unique ID code, so no picture! I asked for a way to be able to insert the new serial. No response. Meanwhile I got Leopard and upgraded. Now my Logitech Quick Cam Zoom is not recognised at all! No response from IOXperts.... Still it worked fine for the time beeing on my old G4 Mini.
It might be time just to buy a "Vista"-supported camera, they seem to be recognised by OSX out-of-the-box, still it's a shame IOXperts is so lax in helping me out...

I bought TWO of these cameras based on this description. I have e-mailed the company to ask them to remove it, but no joy. HOW INCREDIBLY FRUSTRATING. APPALLING CUSTOMER SERVICE

I bought a Labtec Webcam Pro, based on the discription stating it was supported. Hoiwever, it does not work with my cam and it's not listed on their website even though it listed here.

This issue comes up a bit. We support iChat AV -- the problem is that iChat AV contains code the checks for and explicitly prohibits it from working with non-FireWire cameras. Our drivers directly support FireWire cameras and USB Webcams are supported in iChat AV when you install iChatUSBCam.

This is not a technical problem, but a conscious marketing decision by Apple, made very high up the chain -- there is nothing we can do, no certification we can pass to get iChat to support our drivers directly for non-FireWire cameras -- you will noice that our drivers work fine in iChat with a FireWire camera.

What iChatUSBCam does is to use Objective-C's patching mechanisms to break into iChat and patch out the code the prohibits it from working with non-FireWire video sources.

It is IOXperts' policy to produce correctly implemented drivers using manufacturer-supplied data and with the camera or chip manufacturer's permission. We try to avoid patching into Applications or reverse-engineering access to cameras, which is also why we don't support a few popular cameras supported by the open-source community. (We'd very much like to but the in some cases, the licenses to do so legally have been upwards of $25,000)

That said, we do work closely with the authors of iChatUSBCam to make sure our products interoperate and we both take bug reports seriously -- if you have crashes with our product(s), please report them to both of us.

If you'd prefer not to resort to patching iChat AV to conference, your choices are:

• File a bug report with Apple that iChat AV doesn't support all devices equally
• Make your feelings known to Apple marketing
• Vote with your wallet and buy an appication that supports your hardware
• Buy a supported camera -- Apple wants to sell you an iSight and you can still get Face Tracking with our drivers
• Buy iChatUSBCam and support small developers trying to make a living

Again, I repeat, there's nothing IOXperts can do to "directly" support iChat AV for a USB camera -- iChat AV explicitly and intentionally unsupports USB cameras. The only things we could do are:

• Patch iChat AV ourselves
• Pretend to be a supported device (which we've considered)
• Resort to some other form of trickery

But none of these choices are "direct" and both all result in an arms race as Apple disables them in future releases.

The only way to a "direct" solution is for someone to presuade Apple marketing to allow iChat AV to support all properly implemented devices -- even if they choose to provide a cerification program for driver vendors.

In the mean time, Ecamm provides a reasonable solution and we see no need to compete with them at the moment.