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Next eBay Purchase: Skype

By Arden, September 12, 2005

Apparently, they want to rule the world of online busines..

The New York Times reports that the e-commerce conglomerate, eBay, has announced it will purchase the Internet voice-communication provider Skype for $2.6 billion.  This is just the latest, and probably biggest, acquisition in eBay’s aspirations to grow beyond “just” an auction site.  As the Times writes:

“Communications is at the heart of e-commerce and community,” said Meg Whitman, eBay’s president and chief executive. “By combining the two leading ecommerce franchises, eBay and PayPal, with the leader in Internet voice communications, we will create an extraordinarily powerful environment for business on the net.”


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Dazed, Confused, and Quite GUI

By Nick, September 10, 2005

I'll take the BLT--no, wait; the Chicken Salad--er, no. Pork chop?

Another application update, yet another custom user interface. It’s an interface that happily ignores preexisting UI standards and guidelines like an eight-year-old ignoring his mother’s pleas to pick up his room while playing ball in the house. Not only is the layout nonstandard, the theme used is nonstandard. Just to think this application was made by the same company that once held interface consistency in high regard.

The company is Apple. The application is iTunes 5. The mess is enormous in the eyes of UI geeks (Average consumers must think we’re all nuts). Aside from standard Aqua and metal, there’s the platinum look, the pro look, and now iTunes’ look. I’m not including GarageBand’s look since it is clearly meant to mimic a mixing console and therefore won’t make its way into other applications (or so we hope!).

Is Apple losing its mind? Is Steve Jobs about as decisive as me when picking something for lunch? (I’ll take the BLT--no, wait; the Chicken Salad--er, no. Pork chop?) The evidence currently points to Apple dropping any pretense of interface consistency and going towards an “anything goes” mantra. Mail has toolbar buttons from another planet. iTunes has non-standard widgets and buttons. Just about every Apple app looks different. But there seems to be a movement to finally bring some semblance of consistency to things. Sure, Mail’s toolbar buttons are completely unlike anything else. Sure, both Mail and iTunes new interfaces have been controversial (I’ve been critical of both), as has brushed metal. But…
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The Good, the Bad and the Not So Ugly Interface

By Pilky, September 9, 2005

The top two corners are STILL not antialiased.

Well, iTunes 5 is out and I’ve been using it for the past few days. If it wasn’t for the “streamlined” interface then it wouldn’t seem so much like it was worthy of being 5.0. That’s not to say that it isn’t good, it’s just it seems to be lacking from what I thought iTunes 5 would be.

The most obvious change is the new interface. Gone is the brushed metal, here is the, well.. umm… grey thingy. Now I’m not one of the people who likes to talk about how they hate brushed metal every 5 minutes, because in all honesty, I kinda like it. I think that this new look could be the new brushed metal of OSX and I think it’s pretty nice. The bigger display is nice, though I liked the more rounded sides. I also like the small changes they’ve made to the source list. The blue background, the shadow on the highlighted text.

Searching has been improved quite a bit. The search bar is nice to switch between what you want to look for but searching also filters the browser columns too, which is nice cause when you have a few 100 artists it can get annoying to scroll through, but a simple search may not return just the results you want.

Folders for playlists is pretty good as well, though I’ve moved away from playlists now and listen more to entire albums. I can’t exactly comment on the new shuffle features because I never…
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iTunes 5.0: First Impressions

By Nick, September 7, 2005

Excuse me for being horribly underwhelmed.

With great fanfare, Apple announced several new goodies; one of which was iTunes 5.0. Wow! Version 5! It must be bursting at the seams with new stuff!

Excuse me for being horribly underwhelmed.

At any rate, here are some of my first impressions of iTunes 5.0.

The UI Police
Under the guise of “streamlining” the iTunes interface (an interface that was damn good), Apple decided it would be a good idea to mangle what was one of the most refined, most elegant user interfaces on the Mac OS and turned into, well, I don’t know how to describe it. Some like it; I detest it. I can’t describe it, but the word “awkward” describes it well. Prior to iTunes 5, I complaoned about the hideousness of Mail 2.0 (which I have since tweaked to make it halfway tolerable). I thought Mail was the ugliest app on OS X; iTunes has since taken that title. Ugh.

Look at me, Strong Bad! I’m smart!
Smart Shuffle is a minor addition and its usefulness may or may not be important to you (zero importance for me personally). But if you use shuffle and don’t like it when itunes randomly plays three straight Smashing Pumpkins songs, this feature will make you happy.

There it is!.
Search is greatly improved. At least Apple got something right.

Okay, that’s about all that has caught my attention. I know; it has folders, parental controls, Outlook syncing and such. But wow. This is by far the least impressive update…
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Lakewood Studios Releases iList Data 3.0

By Nick, September 7, 2005

Lakewood Studios has released version 3.0 of its iList Data database software for Mac OS X. According to Lakewood Studios’ press release:

Lakewood Studios today released iList Data 3.0, by far the most powerful, low cost, single-user database software for the Macintosh.

Now available in an easy-to-install personal edition, iList Data is built on the same engine that powers iList Studio, our multi-user database software. iList Data supports nearly all of the single-user features of iList Studio, but creates standalone databases that do not require the installation of server software.

iList Data’s benefits include integrated graphing, user designed record editors, ten find modes, and batch editing. Also included is extensive support for cataloging images and other files.

iList Data 3.0 can normally be purchased for $69.95 though it can be purchased for $49.95 via a special Introductory offer through Saturday September 10. Site licenses and Academic pricing can also be purchased. A free trial version is available for download from Lakewood Studio’s web site.


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