It’s a week since the release of Feeder 1.1 and so far it’s been surprisingly quiet on the support front considering how many new features there are and how many other things had to change to make the new features possible. A small bug-fix release, 1.1.1 should be out next week – it makes sense to let things settle down before releasing that, since nothing in it is particularly earth-shattering – thankfully!

I want to write about some of the changes in 1.1 and there will be a series of posts on this subject. I’ve neglected the software development side of this blog for a while because it can be hard to talk about what you’re developing when you’re head’s well into it and you’re not entirely sure what will make the final cut.

Two things that didn’t make the final cut were AppleScript support and HTML export / publishing. I’d mentioned that these would likely be in 1.1, but I was working against a fixed deadline and had to do what needed to be done to meet it. It’s not that Feeder itself was running late but that other things got in the way, most notably Tiger, which devoured a lot of my time thanks to KIT not working with some of the final builds.

Anyway, I need to make a special mention for two very special people who ensured that 1.1 made it out in time and with all the features that it has – my best friends Claire and Ade. Without your help, Feeder 1.1 would probably still not be ready or even if I had released it, it would not have been anywhere near as good!. Also, I could not have managed to move home without you.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Are you using Tiger yet, and if so what do you think?

Actually, both my Macs are still on Panther at the moment, since I’ve spent all my spare time testing stuff on a pre-release version of Tiger I don’t have time to backup, backup my backups and switch over yet. However, I have been using various builds of Tiger for almost the last year (installed on a Firewire drive) and I think it’s fantastic. I’ve already found plenty of use for Dashboard, played around a-plenty with the updated Mail, Safari, Spotlight, Automator etc and here on Panther I’m missing the new features already.

What I really can’t wait to do is start to move my apps over to Tiger and take advantage of some of the amazingly cool stuff Apple has put there for developers. Over the next few months I think you’re going to see some incredible applications appear for 10.4.

Update: I couldn’t take it any more, I upgraded all my machines (I like the Archive and Install method) and installed Panther on my Firewire drive for compatibility testing – the joys of being a developer.

It’s all been pretty event-free apart from a problem with my iMac not automatically joining the Airport network. The answer, which I found in Apple’s Support Discussions, is here.

I forgot yesterday to mention a few more Feeder appearances in the world of print. In addition to its two mentions in Macworld UK‘s June edition, Feeder will also appear on the CD. It also appears on the CD for the May issue of MacAddict and on the CD of the June issue of Macworld US magazine.

Feeder gets not one but two mentions in the June issue of Macworld UK magazine, out 21st April 2005. The first in the Product News section on page 42, the second in Andy Ihnatko’s opinion piece at the back about using it for Podcasting. Thanks to Gillian Thompson from Macworld for letting me know in advance. 😀

Also Omni Group are now using Feeder for their news feed. Thanks to Scott Maier for making that happen. 😀

Having subjected myself to the iRiver podcast review / supermarket sound-seeing tour again, and having received some feedback, I should post some notes on the iRiver and Griffin Lapel Mic recording itself:

• I managed to take a better picture today of the iRiver and mic that doesn’t look like there’s a nasty fingerprint on the screen (this was actually corrected glare from the flash) and shows the pretty blue backlight.
• Apologies for the heavy breathing. It would appear the Griffin Lapel Mic is very sensitive and when swivelled into a vertical position for stealth purposes picked up the down-draught from my nostrils, making me sound like an asthmatic toad. Lovely.
• Likewise, you definitely need some sort of furry windshield for the mic because there was little more than a breeze, yet it sounded at times like I was in a hurricane.
• Dreadful sound quality on the music – I thought I had the levels right at first, but my car stereo automatically raises the volume when you go above a certain speed. You don’t notice this yourself because that’s the point. At 22 kilohertz you have a narrower range of frequencies than real life – hence the crackling – not the iRiver or mic’s fault
• I chose the supermarket because I thought it would be noisy enough that I didn’t feel self-conscious. I was wrong.