What a treat, two brand new great cocoa apps released on the same day
Today two brand new applications were launched for the Mac. Yes I know, I should probably add Adobe Acrobat 8, but I can’t really get excited about that, even if it is now a Universal Binary.
The first one is XTorrent, a new BitTorrent client. What is so exciting about a product that will compete in a category where many free alternatives (Azureus and Tomato torrent come to mind) are already available. Well, for starters, the interface is gorgeous. It reminds me of Podcast Maker, another personal favorite. However, beyond great looks, XTorrent actually includes some interesting innovations. The most important one is the search system that allows to easily locate torrents without having to search torrent sites. While XTorrent is still in beta it shows a lot of potential. One caveat though. The application has been developed by David Watanabe, author of Acquisition X, Inquisitor and NewsFire). While nobody questions David’s programming talent, a quick look at MacUpdate forums shows that he has many unhappy customers. He may have been too busy working on his latest project, but to be successful he will have to offer better customer support for all his products. XTorrent is currently in beta and can be downloaded for free.
Fission is a new sound editor from Rogue Amoeba the makers Airfoil and Audio Hijack. I have found that editing podcasts and other MP3 files is more difficult than it really should and I hope that this product will help me streamline this common operation.
Hopefully this trend of great new original programs for the Mac platform will continue in the future. It is what we need to grow the Macintosh market.