I originally posted this over on but it somehow seemed more appropriate here.
Ah, yes, the flammable Wil Shipley - the not-so-delicious monster of Mac development. Wil publishes a long rant on the tired old topic of Carbon vs.
Cocoa, some folks respond, and Wil goes off. Hasn t this happened before?
Wil s latest article contains a number of errors and silly comments, including his disparaging of FSRefs, his ignorance re: the relative age of Carbon and Cocoa, etc.
, yet when taken to task on his opinion, Wil calls people names and shifts goalposts.
I m just glad I m not the only one who s kind of tired of Wil Shipley s ego. I mean I m no developer but Shipley s rants kind of get to me, probably because (as Barzeski points out) when someone disagrees with him or points out a problem with his argument he calls them a name and proceeds to say something like don t read my blog if you don t like it.
let s talk about Delicious Library, ok, Rosyna? Yes, it s slow if you load in hundreds of items. Version one was not designed for that many.
Version 2 is designed for tens of thousands, so customers with larger collections will be happy there.
Why wasn t Delicious Library designed to deal with hundreds of items? That s just dumb.
When I got my copy of Delicious Library I had over 300 CDs, over 100 DVDs and around 50 games and I don t know how many books. Delicious Library was slow to load with this many items, but compared to other people I know my collection is relatively small. Maybe the people I know are the minority, but with an app like Delicious Library is that minority not the exact group you should be coveting?
Just asking.
Unless you live under a rock (or don t live on the internet as some of us do) you know that Apple held an event today and released a bunch of new toys to we, the seething roaring shouting masses. Here is a quick rundown of what s come out.
Version 7 of Apples flagship iApp includes a bunch of new whiz bang features, most of which are pretty cool. Here are my impressions in no particular order.
The updated iTunes icon.
The icon: It s blue again. Not a huge deal, but as far as I remember this is the first time there has been a major iTunes release without a completely new colour (and no, iTunes 6 was not a major release).
art for your songs.
My results with this have been hit or miss so far. It seems to take a long time and even then it doesn t get everything. For now I ll stick to on my PC and just wing it on the Mac.
CoverFlow: Nifty new way to browse your music by its cover art. Cool looking if a bit slow loading some of the art.
Gapless playback: All I can say is that it s about fucking time.
Kind of like vaults in Aperture.
I haven t tried it yet, but here s hoping that unlike Aperture vaults this works over a network.
Higher resolution videos: Videos are now encoded at 640 x 480 instead of 320 x 240.
Cool, and leads into the next point:
Movies: You can buy movies on the iTunes Music Store now.
Sounds cool, but I ll likely stick to DVDs. Movies/Videos are now encoded at 4x the resolution that they were previously though, which makes it such that I might actually look at it as an option.
already bought all the PopCap games on Steam, and I sincerely doubt the Steam versions are going to get me licenses for my iPod anytime this eon.
iPod syncing across multiple computers: See comment regarding Gapless Playback.
Playback via multiple speakers: Probably my favourite new feature, but it doesn t even You know the little drop down menu you can use to select whether you want to use local speakers or AirTunes speakers?
Now you can select both and it plays back in sync through both. It s so very cool. Now I can fill my house with music.
Imagine this feature for parties! You can have music blaring everywhere all at the same time!
I haven t had a chance to see if this works for multiple AirTunes set ups yet (because I only have one AirPort Express) but if I find out that it does I ll likely get another AirPort Express just because of it.
rather than the iApps. New buttons scroll bars and library organization are all well and good (I don t mind it but I m sure some of you do), but I wonder how long until we get a consistent interface across the iLife suite? That d be super.
There is also a new list view for music which groups music with its album art which I quite like.
We also were treated to new iPods today, too.
The full-sized iPod now comes in at 30 GB or 80 GB, with the ability to play the new iPod games, gapless playback support, and longer battery life (14 hours on the 30 GB, 20 hours on the 80 GB).
No word yet on whether older 5G iPods are going to be updated for the higher resolution videos or the games. The 30 GB model comes in at $250 USD ($300 CDN) while the 80 GB model is priced at $349 USD ($399 CDN).
The iPod nano is now in its second generation and now comes in three sizes: 2 GB, 4 GB and 8 GB.
The case has also seen a significant change, now made from aluminum and resembling a smaller, thinner iPod mini and sporting different colours. The 2 GB model is priced at $149 USD ($169 CDN) and comes in silver, the 4 GB model is priced at $199 USD ($229 CDN) and comes in silver, green, blue and pink, and the new top end 8 GB model is priced at $249 USD ($299 CDN) and comes only in black.
The new nano also comes with an increased battery life, up to 24 hours (which is an increase from the previous generations 14 hours or even the mini which had 18 hours).
I was kind of surprised to see the nano looking so much like the mini did, but at the same time it isn t something I m going to complain about. Apple s not really known for regressing in terms of industrial design, but I always preferred the look of the mini to that of the nano.
The new iPod shuffle is amazing.
It now comes in one model: 1 GB. It also sports a shiny, tiny, new silver case with a built in clip for your pocket, belt or whatnot. it also boasts a 12 hour battery which isn t that long until you consider the size of the unit which is as I previously mentioned, shiny.
In all seriousness, the new iPod shuffle is the most impressive of the lot and comes in at $79 USD ($89 CDN).
Last but certainly not least Apple also announced a new set top media playing box so you can watch or listen to your iTunes content on a television set. There aren t a lot of details yet, but it outputs video via HDMI or Component (RGB), audio by optical or RCA, can connect to a computer via USB2, ethernet or WiFi and will be priced at $299 USD.
I need to see more details before I make a final judgement about this one. I d like to know what powers the thing and how big the HDD/active memory (which I m sure it ll need for caching) is and so forth. Honestly my first impression is a little bit disappointed though, because in order to use the thing I d have to get a new television or a component switch box, neither of which is an ideal.
I know the video resolution is good, but it s be nice if the thing had S-Video or RCA video too, since most TVs have more of those than anything else.
All in all it s been a pretty good day for Apple. Lots of new products and lots of new press.
I m sure they re going to do well with movies sold via iTunes and I know they re going to sell a lot of new iPods (I m going to grab a 4 GB nano. I m still a little annoyed that movies can t be burned to a playable disc but I m sure that has more to do with Apple toeing the MPAA line than anything else.
Apple this month, giving it all kinds of universal binary and Tigery goodness.
Also included, the ability to copy and paste from the admin machine to a client machine (which has been around in other similar products since the mid 1990s).
Microsoft will be limiting access to the fancy-pants new Windows GUI, Aero. Aero, already limited to those who purchased a computer in the last five minutes, will now also only be available to those with legitimate copies of Windows Vista.
Having experienced Aero first hand we here at Geek Patrol think it might be more compelling if Microsoft changed the policy such that only those that paid for Vista were able to turn Aero off.
13 April 2006 Apple releases Aperture 1.1, drops price by $200 USD
and then subsequently .
I guess they were really sorry for all the problems that Aperture has had.
. Most relevant in our opinion: al the cool new features that aren t included anymore, glass windows are confusing and the general breaking of Media Centre.
done button that nobody bothers to read any more. around, you ll mindlessly allow it access to whatever it wants, just out of habit.
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As such, he s doing Daring Fireball full time now, and Geek Patrol wishes him all the best. We also hope he ll write more often.
Apparently, there .
There are a couple of OK ones, but no good ones. In related news, the staff at Geek Patrol were not surprised at this revelation in the least.
was announced featuring two inches more screen, one more USB 2 port and a FireWire 800 port.
Those with hopes of a sub notebook that s not a consumer machine continue to hold their breath.
. It s not terribly surprising news given that Aperture has had a lot of problems, mostly to do with performance.
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1 May 2006 Apple looking at ZFS for OS X?
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Are they looking to replace HFS+?
Well, that s not all that happened in April, but it s all that really caught our eye when scanning a month s worth of headlines.
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