I’ve been working very hard on the next version of Peel for the last few days. It’s been more than a year since I started a new fresh project for Peel 2.0 and unfortunately I haven’t focused enough on getting it done. I’m really feeling good about this now and I think it’s coming along strong this time. Here is a sneak peak of the current state of the app.

If you’ve used the current version of Peel, you should be able to see a lot of improvements.

Here is a list of few of my favorite new features:

• RSS Support
• The ‘web’ feature has now been replaced by a RSS-view displaying the post containing the song
• Folder structure
• Smart lists (two showed here, ‘Today’ and ‘Unplayed’)
• Clicking a song in the RSS-view plays the song
• Currently playing song is highlighted in the RSS-view
• Refreshing blogs has been sped up a lot
• Last.FM support

Hope you like it and don’t hesitate to leave a comment if you think something is missing.

Ps. It should be noted that this is not just a Photoshop mock-up and some of the interface elements will probably change.

Interesting post describing the process we go through when creating a new game.

This means that ideas are very important to us. Polished game mechanics, innovative features and games that fit the intended platforms perfectly are all things that we look to incorporate in an initial idea. A lot of our time is spent on ideas. Everyone can participate and pitch their ideas. At any given time.

Available in iTunes Store

• Review by AppVee
• Review by RazorianFly

I just received the updated version of Cocoa Programming For Mac OS X written by Aaron Hillegass. I already owned the 2nd edition so I’m quite familiar with the book. I strongly recommend this book for anyone wanting to start developing for the Mac.

In my last article I mentioned how Mac applications tend to be more straight to the point. Tonight when I was reading through the updated HIG from Apple I stumbled upon this.

“During the design process, if you discover problems with your product design, you might consider applying the 80 percent solution—that is, designing your software to meet the needs of at least 80 percent of your users. This type of design typically favors simpler, more elegant approaches to problems.

If you try to design for the 20 percent of your target audience who are power users, your design may not be usable by the other 80 percent of users. Even though that smaller group of power users is likely to have good ideas for features, the majority of your user base may not think in the same way.”

Pretty much says it all.

CocoaDev just created a forum for all of us mac loving programmers. I’ve been wondering why there isn’t (or wasn’t) a forum for Cocoa developers ever since I started developing for the Mac. I even thought about creating my own but this is even better.

Go take a look.

I switched to Mac about two years ago, mainly because I didn’t see any progress in the Windows world. It used to be exciting to be a Windows user and I remember waiting for the next release of Windows just like a little boy waiting for christmas. I often installed beta versions of Windows only to try out all the new exciting features.

Eventually it all faded away, Vista had been in the makings for about seven years and there was just nothing to get excited about anymore. I slowly realized that if I wanted new features and a better experience I had to make a change. However, I postponed it in 2003 when I needed a new laptop. I was beginning my first semester in computer science and somehow thought that I wouldn’t be able to do all my assignments on a Mac.

I finally switched in 2006 and it only took me a few days to realize that I was wrong. I didn’t need Windows at all.

Back on topic. When I was a Windows user I didn’t buy software. That’s right, I have never bought software for Windows. I didn’t even think about it before I switched. I’m not going to try to excuse myself. I know it’s wrong, illegal and all that but that’s not really the subject of this article. (We had a fairly good academy deal at my university so I got all the tools I needed for my projects.)

However, I had already bought a Mac application before I switched. (Money very well spent on TextMate). With that said, since I jumped over, I’ve bought every software I need and I’m going to list the reasons that I think made me start buying software.

• Mac software is in general better designed, more fun to use, more straight to the point and not bloated with features you don’t need.

• It’s almost always very fairly priced. You can get quality software for as little as 15$. That’s nothing, even if I only use it once it has already saved me money.

• Mac developers are often in a small team so they can give a personal service and really listen to their users. This also means that they can make changes and fill requests more quickly and easily. This is described in details in Getting Real by 37signals.

I believe that if Windows software was better designed, less bloated and fairly priced I wouldn’t have to admit that I didn’t pay for all the software I used when I was a Windows user.