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Software Businesses Apple

The Real Story of Audion 180

Posted by CmdrTaco from the something-to-read dept.
mijkal writes "Panic's Audion music software has been retired and made freely available. The developer has a nice write up on his experiences with Audion in relation to early-MP3 days, failed AOL deals, and the could-have-been iTunes app. It's an inspiring read on the history of a shareware developer and his adventures thus far."
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The Real Story of Audion More

The Real Story of Audion

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  • Shareware? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mfh ( 56 ) on Friday November 12, 2004 @01:39PM (#10800430) Homepage Journal
    It's an inspiring read on the history of a shareware developer and his adventures thus far.

    Shareware developer? I know what a Spyware developer is, and I know of open source and closed source; but is there really such a thing as a shareware developer anymore? There's adware, begware and nagware (hardly any freeware left, but there is some)... but this shareware is not computing. I can't think of one product that is truly shareware [wikipedia.org]; "A shareware program is accompanied by a request for payment, and often payment is required per the terms of the license past a set period of time (although some consider this requirement to cause the software to be not shareware but a demo)."

    Well I guess Audion is going the way of actual freeware. Nice!
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • No.. there is tons of nagware and adware, all claiming to be shareware. But due to the millions of nagware apps labeled as shareware, it would be next to impossible to find any true shareware anymore.

        This can be proven by going to a search engine and typing in 'keygen' or 'krack'.
        See all the apps you can get keygens for? Shareware by definition can not require registration. Those are called nagware.

        The closest thing i've seen in the past few years was an app labeled as 'postcardware' asking you to send

        • CHRIST, I have never seen such dense people. (Score:4, Informative)

          by Holi ( 250190 ) on Friday November 12, 2004 @03:40PM (#10801773)
          Waaaahhhh it has a pop up asking me to purchase it. it's evil....

          Your definitions of shareware are soo out of whack it is not funny.

          Shareware is software you are authorized by the author to distribute but you are not allowed to charge for and either the software has a time out function or some other way the author (ie a pop up or something in the readme file) reminds you he expects to be paid.

          The idea behind shareware is that the users are able to "SHARE" the software with their friends/associates/random strangers. It is way of advertising by word of mouth, and no, Shareware can and usually does require registration. What your are mistaking for shareware is freeware or donation-ware (ie. bittorrent client).

    • Re:Shareware? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by diamondsw ( 685967 ) on Friday November 12, 2004 @01:57PM (#10800666)
      Welcome to the Mac side of things. We still have a *very* active and vibrant shareware community over here, and a lot of freeware (much of that thanks to GUI wrappers on th UNIX underbelly). I have at least a couple dozen shareware/freeware titles that I couldn't live without.

      Additionally, since the shareware/freeware developers know they have to stand out, you get a lot of examples of outstanding interface design (and you also get a flood of RealBASIC crap as well ;).
      • While it might be unfair to any decent REALbasic [perversiontracker.com] shareware developers*, I basically run whenever I see the REALbasic logo.

        Have you ever been to PerversionTracker [perversiontracker.com]? Amusing site that slags on useless and poorly designed Mac shareware, especially those "applications" written in REALbasic, like this one [perversiontracker.com]. Proof that MS doesn't have a monopoly on bad shareware. =)

        *existence of said developers is highly theoretical

      • Re:Shareware? (Score:3, Informative)

        by I_Love_My_Mac ( 714760 )
        And what's wrong with REALbasic? Any development app is going to allow a developer to create poor code, and lord knows, as a developer, I've had my share of bugs in my applications but just because RB allows a user to produce code quicker, easier (and yes, more sloppily) doesn't necessarily mean that it always creates poor code.

        Look at the top business apps on Apple.com's own download sections...
        Task Time 3.0 [ttpsoftware.com]
        Redlien Account Executive [redlien.com]
        Studiometery [oranged.net]

        These are just the ones off the top of my head... and

      • Welcome to the Mac side of things.

        And we can set it so that spelling errors are automatically highlighted when typing in Slashdot comment submission text boxes in Safari :)

        Just check the "Edit>Spelling>Check Spelling as You Type" menu option while the text cursor is in the comment text box. You can also access it by control-clicking or right-clicking (yes, we can use 2-button mice) on the text box. It gives the usual spelling suggestions option when you click that way on a highlighted word. Once

        • Ah, but it's very hard to enable that option in Firefox at work. ;)

        • Re:Shareware? (Score:3, Informative)

          by AstroDrabb ( 534369 )
          For Firefox there is a great plugin called Spellbound [sourceforge.net]. You just right click in a textarea or input box and select "Check Spelling". There is also a plugin for IE called IESpell [iespell.com] which works well for those who still use IE for some reason.
          • It is implemented very nicely in OS X. It's not just a Safari feature, but a system-wide one. It also shows up in Mail, TextEdit, Stickies, etc, as well as third-party applications that adhere to OS X programming standards. I believe the spell check dictionary is based on the International settings in System Preferences. I guess they make it easier to program into applications, and it would reduce the bloatware factor.

    • Re:Shareware? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by OverlordQ ( 264228 )
      So . . how do you differentiate between begware and shareware then?
      • Begware (IMHO) would be differentiated by a pop up or some other obtrusive request for payment. While shareware usually has these requests in the help->about and/or an accompanying README...
      • In my mind, begware is a fully-functional program that asks you to donate, which is optional. Shareware is a program that is limited in some way (features, time, limited saves, etc.) where to get the complete version you must pay.

    • Re:Shareware? (Score:5, Informative)

      by DLWormwood ( 154934 ) <wormwoodNO@SPAMme.com> on Friday November 12, 2004 @02:03PM (#10800720) Homepage
      I know what a Spyware developer is, and I know of open source and closed source; but is there really such a thing as a shareware developer anymore?

      Your confusion is understandable; in the Windows/x86 world, shareware truly is dead. But the distribution format continues to exist (though barely) in the Mac market. Besides, Panic, there's Ambrosia Software [ambrosiasw.com], Freeverse [freeverse.com], Littlewing [littlewingpinball.com], Spiderweb [spiderwebsoftware.com] and others.

      Mac users, partly due to reduced malware exposure and partly due to cultural conviction, tend to be more appreciative of shareware developers, and as such are more likely to download strange unknown software and pay their fees. I used to have a link to a developer's anecdote where he got about 3% or so pay-in from Mac downloads, but only got much less than 1% when he ported his product to Windows. The result is that Mac shareware tends to get more income than on Windows, despite (or because of?) the low market share of the platform.

      That said, even the old shareware houses are starting to migrate to brick-and-mortar. Freeverse sells some of their games in Apple Stores, and even Ambrosia has made CD pressings of Escape Velocity: Nova (as well as a board game!). It's a shame, shareware was as close as the "little person" could get to a true free market of software sales, sacrificed during the current war between Corporate software and Open Source.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • Ambrosia always made CD pressings...

          I wasn't refering to their regular "collection" discs... (I have their #1 of that series somewhere.) Prior to Ferazel's Wand, Ambrosia didn't sell pre-registered CDs in commerical venues. They also made a pre-registered bundle of Mars Rising and an EV game for sale as well. Andrew Welch was a really big believer in the viability of the shareware model, but the malware and security issues involving the modern Internet put a damper on that...

      • Re:Shareware? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by shlong ( 121504 ) on Friday November 12, 2004 @02:45PM (#10801195) Homepage
        One thing that is being overlooked here in the Windows vs. Mac shareware observation is that it's no longer possible to get a decent Windows development environment at a decent price. There are free or low-cost tools out there, but none have the bredth and depth to allow you to develop a decent app or game. It's not like 10 years ago when you could pick up a $99 copy of Turbo C++ and write a decent win31 program from it. So shareware is dead there because hobbiests can't justify the price tag for Visual Studio. Mac, on the other hand, has a decent environment with decent tools for doing Cocoa apps, and it's all free with the OS. Same goes for things like PalmOS. The tools are priced right to allow access to the hobbiest. That's what keeps shareware alive.

        • Re:Shareware? (Score:3, Informative)

          by Speed Racer ( 9074 )

          It's not like 10 years ago when you could pick up a $99 copy of Turbo C++ and write a decent win31 program from it.

          It's funny you should bring up Turbo C++ since Borland still has inexpensive development tools that are perfect for a shareware developer. Delphi 7 Personal is under $100 and is very capable for Win32 GUI development. If C++ is more to your liking, you can pick up C++ Builder 6 Personal for around $65.

          • It's funny you should bring up Turbo C++ since Borland still has inexpensive development tools that are perfect for a shareware developer.

            Just how was Speed Racer's post offtopic? The Audion article is, in part, about the trials and travails of shareware development. This side discussion might be slightly off tangent, but it's still relevant to the discussion at hand.

        • Re:Shareware? (Score:3, Informative)

          by scribblej ( 195445 )
          I don't know where you're coming from.

          There are many free "development environments" for windows.

          My favorite is MinGW with MSYS. If you need an IDE, you can use something like bloodshed's Dev-C++, which is a bit buggy, but completely useable. I don't use the IDE, I prefer using a text editor... I guess I'm old, slow, and tired.

          Or, if you don't like that, you can get Microsoft's compiler and SDK's for free from MSDN. Again, you'll be doing without an IDE, or suing a third-party one.

          Or, if you don't li
        • There's OpenWatcom. What's missing, I think, is the RAD tools that allow you to put together an interface without a lot of deep thought.

          I'd actually like to see someone clone HyperCard. I've wanted to do that myself for years, but I just don't have the developer juice. Never had it, actually.
      • Sweet, I haven't used a Mac for gaming for at least a few years, I'm glad to see Spiderweb Software is still around.

        Exile was one of my favorite games, seeing as I had a very slow 120mhz 603e (Performa 5260/120)... My gaming selection primarily consisted of Clan Lord (when it was in beta), Exile, Escape Velocity (and other AmbrosiaSW games of course) and eventually Quake.

        It was all the shareware Mac games that inspired me to be involved in game development one day. That dream hasn't yet come true but ther

    • Not dead on the Mac (Score:4, Informative)

      by kuwan ( 443684 ) on Friday November 12, 2004 @02:25PM (#10800965) Homepage
      The Mac platform has a pretty good shareware community that is helped by sites like MacUpdate [macupdate.com] and VersionTracker. [versiontracker.com] The Mac, having a smaller percentage of the market, has the benefit (for shareware developers at least) of having more holes that shareware developers can fill. So if you have a great idea and can turn it into a great app, then you have a good chance of finding success in the Mac market. Watson, Konfabulator, and NetNewsWire are a few great shareware apps on the Mac. Unfortunately Apple might decide to fill the same holes that your app might fill as was the case with Watson and now Konfabulator.

      I have found a small amount of success myself with my Shareware app, HyperSpell. [kuwan.net] But its nothing I could ever quit my day job over. Mainly its something to do in my spare time and it filled a hole that I wanted filled. The biggest problem most shareware developers face is just getting people to know that their app exists (marketing).

      --
      Not free as in effort, but I'm willing to try it. [wired.com]
      Free Flat Screens [freeflatscreens.com] | Free iPod Photo [freephotoipods.com]
    • Total Commander?
    • I've been using Transmit another product from Panic software, for a couple years now. Its a FTP client and so much better than anything else out there that I've upgraded from the command line and bought a licence.

  • Sonique (Score:5, Insightful)

    by inKubus ( 199753 ) on Friday November 12, 2004 @01:42PM (#10800474) Homepage Journal
    Speaking of old MP3 stuff, there was once Sonique [sonique.com] but it went by the wayside after it was bought by lycos and the original creative team was disbanded.

    Sometimes it's better for everyone if some big corporation doesn't buy an application because then the developers and creative people stay together simply for the love of the project and breakthrus can be made rather than pandering to profit margins......

    • Re:Sonique (Score:5, Insightful)

      by superpulpsicle ( 533373 ) on Friday November 12, 2004 @01:49PM (#10800568)
      There is nothing in the entire corporate universe more important than management folks getting richer.

      Your creativity, your breakthrus, your love of projects, your family, your rights... are all secondary.

      • Re:Sonique (Score:3, Funny)

        by PMuse ( 320639 )
        There is nothing in the entire corporate universe more important than management folks getting richer. Your creativity, your breakthrus, your love of projects, your family, your rights... are all secondary.

        Second place? My, my. Aren't we full of heedless optimism today?
    • In terms of features, interface and customability, I still think Sonique holds the top position. Their decoder is not up to par anymore, but it still sounds better than Winamp (which is dead now too). It's a shame that Lycos let Sonique languish and then die..Sonique 2.0 was very promising. It's funny how the Mac used to have almost no mp3 players and Windows had great ones, and now the reverse is true (though I'm still not totally enchanted with iTunes).

      But do people even use software mp3 players anymore,

      • Re:Sonique (Score:2, Informative)

        by ProtoCat ( 452381 )
        The only reason why Sonique's decoder sounds 'better' is because they're breaking spec [underbit.com] and likely doing filtering behind the user's back. I'm not so sure if the 1.9x series of Sonique players before their eventual failure to realize 2.0 were any different, but I doubt it.

        As it says in the article linked above, they weren't do anything they shouldn't in regards to filtering. All things being equal, everyone's MP3 decoder following proper specs, should sound exactly the same -- the way it should be. It's not
        • I don't know if that really matters, though. Since most of the software DSPs only work with one particular mp3 player (except for the DBX plug-ins), end-users should only really care about the overall sound quality of the player. I should note that to my ears, XMMS on Linux has a greater sonic fidelity than either Sonique or Winamp.

  • Never liked Audion (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Pope ( 17780 ) on Friday November 12, 2004 @01:42PM (#10800479)
    Much preferred SoundJam, mainly from an interface point of view, but also because Panic's apps aren't the most stable things in the world. It (SoundJam) still does things that I much prefer to iTunes, mainly no song database and having Finder-labeled files showing up in their proper colours in the playlist. Very useful for quickly finding all the bad files I label Brown. :)
    • Huh? Transmit is wicked stable. I left it going for a few days when I lost my broadband and had to download a Linux iso.

      Maybe you're talking about using it in OS 9, but *nothing* was really stable on that system.

      • I would agree that Transmit is stable as hell. I've *nerver* had any problems with it. Now admittedly, I have only been using Transmit (registered, of course) and the Mac in general since January. Support has been excellent.

        If you want buggy software, look at photoshop elements. It blows up on a regular basis. Not much to encourage me to upgrade to CS, that is for certain.

        Back to the point - Panic has been excellent in providing software and support for the Mac.

        And of course, I'm eager to have eno

  • Good business practice. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rice_burners_suck ( 243660 ) on Friday November 12, 2004 @01:43PM (#10800489)
    It's nice that this program is being made available, rather than becoming a footnote, lost forever, in the software history books. Kudos to the programmer for being considerate of his users.
    • agreed. Panic is a pretty good company. My *personal* preference is, if you are quitting development on a piece of software, and have no plans of going back to it, that companies would GPL is. I mean, that's just my wish, and I'm sure many here would agree.

      However, it's their software, and I do think it's very considerate, and even generous, to go ahead and make it freeware. By doing this, Panic hasn't really lost anything, if they were going to quit selling it anyway, but it builds good will.

      • Re:Good business practice. (Score:4, Informative)

        by plj ( 673710 ) on Friday November 12, 2004 @03:37PM (#10801738)
        My *personal* preference is, if you are quitting development on a piece of software, and have no plans of going back to it, that companies would GPL is.

        Umm, I think the Panic guys would have a rather hard time in doing that for Audion, as the thingy has a built-in Fraunhofer-licensed MP3 encoder...
        • Umm, I think the Panic guys would have a rather hard time in doing that for Audion, as the thingy has a built-in Fraunhofer-licensed MP3 encoder...

          That's not much of an obstacle, given that they could easily GPL it without that one encoder (they could even keep the LAME encoder, I believe. Isn't LAME GPL?)

          Anyway, I'm not trying to say they absolutely should have, I'm just saying that it's what I *wish* companies would do.

          • Isn't LAME GPL?

            It is LGPL, but as far as I know redistribution in binary form still requires a patent license, if you're located in a country where software is patentable; source is covered by free speech. For more information, see About LAME [sourceforge.net].

  • Breath of fresh air (Score:4, Interesting)

    by dshaw858 ( 828072 ) on Friday November 12, 2004 @01:44PM (#10800506) Homepage Journal
    This is kind of a breath of fresh air for me. I hardly ever read accounts of Apple developers. There are infinite stories of Linux and Windows developers, but finally having the experiences of an Apple coder published is pretty cool.

    - dshaw

    • Re:Breath of fresh air (Score:5, Informative)

      by NardofDoom ( 821951 ) on Friday November 12, 2004 @02:12PM (#10800813)
      I was fortunate enough to have two job interviews with the makers of Reunion. [leisterpro.com]

      It's a tiny operation, comprising four people. They were extremely dedicated to doing one thing and doing it well, and to the Macintosh platform. It made me proud to be a Mac user, since I was in such good company.

      Then I read slashdot.

  • and its free now! (Score:3, Informative)

    by i_c_andrade ( 795205 ) on Friday November 12, 2004 @01:56PM (#10800647)
    http://www.panic.com/audion/download.html
    "Audion has been retired. It is now free of charge, but is no longer being actively developed, and is provided as-is without support. We hope you continue to enjoy Audion!"
    http://www.panic.com/audion/buy.html For OSX and 8.6(+)

  • Alvin? ALVIN?!?!? (Score:5, Funny)

    by ps_inkling ( 525251 ) on Friday November 12, 2004 @02:07PM (#10800768)
    Among the intrigue of negotiations with AOL and Apple, and feature-itis competition with SoundJam, is a link to what Alvin and the Chipmunks sound like at normal speed. Very amusing.

    A solid tale of adventure, including the Reality Distortion Field.

  • I know Audion plays more audio formats than iTunes, and as freeware it's worth downloading just for that even if all else were equal.

  • And the moral of the story is... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by javaxman ( 705658 ) on Friday November 12, 2004 @02:19PM (#10800897) Journal
    When Apple ( or any large potential customer ) wants to set up a meeting with you, meet with them! Find out what they're interested in! Don't cancel the meeting because your potential partners are too busy ( i.e. too busy for you ). Don't go hangliding/sailing/hiking. Don't think opportunity knocks all the time. Don't be too busy; find room in your schedule and get to work! MEET with your potential clients/partners/meal ticket!!

    Freaking pathetic. These guys passed up an opportunity to become iTunes, and why?? Because they thought AOL was going to solve all of their problems, because they couldn't hold a frickin' meeting without them?!? I know it's easy to spot in retrospect, but that's so pathetic, it should have been easy to spot at the time... I mean, you're an Apple developer and Apple wants to meet with you, so you... don't??!? What would Apple have had to do to buy these guys big frickin' houses?!?

    Tell you what - if you're a small software developer being contacted by Apple, hire me as your managerial consultant. I'll make sure you meet with them, at the very least!!

    • These guys passed up an opportunity to become iTunes, and why?? Because they thought AOL was going to solve all of their problems, because they couldn't hold a frickin' meeting without them?!?

      IANAL, and I don't have the details, but Panic might have opened themselves to legal exposure if they tried to negotiate with Apple without AOL being present. AOL would have treated such a meeting as "going behind their back" and even if they didn't sue over some technicality, their representatives in the industry co

    • From TA:

      If we could do it all over again, would we change anything?

      You know what? No, we don't think so.

      They are happy with what they did. Pathetic is people like you looking back on it and calling them pathetic.

    • I'd Say They Made The Right Decision (Score:5, Insightful)

      by chia_monkey ( 593501 ) on Friday November 12, 2004 @03:07PM (#10801396) Journal
      In theory, it sounds all good to meet with Apple. I mean hey, they rock, don't they? They have a cool culture, cool products, etc. But c'mon...give these guys a break. First, they didn't know they were going to be asked to be iTunes. Hell, maybe in the back of their heads they were thinking Steve (Jobs) just wanted to shut them up. It's easy for you to say they were dumb now, but back then...they had no clue. And let's not forget...everyone laughed at the idea of mp3s being a viable money maker. It was just for college kids to steal music and play...

      Let me ask you this. Do you run your own shop? I commend them for thinking about what they want in life. Like he said, they're young, not married, so why not go for it? Follow your dreams. And if the going gets tough, I'm sure Jobs would have no problem hiring them if they said "we need a job". I for one am impressed with their decision. It was tough, and they're following their dreams.
      • >Like he said, they're young, not married, so why not go for it?

        That's a wierd attitude to have. I'm not sure what kind of success they were looking for. Maybe they're just tinkerers.

        People who get married make more money, and are healthier, on the average as most studies have concluded. That's a good thing about getting married! If you can do that without getting married, great! I think money and health are something any rational person will try to obtain.

        These guys seem to be holding back because of
        • People who get married make more money, and are healthier, on the average as most studies have concluded. That's a good thing about getting married! If you can do that without getting married, great! I think money and health are something any rational person will try to obtain.

          I think, in general, that statement of marriage/money is true. However, when you have a wife and two kids to support, it's not easy to say "hon, I'm not going to have a 'real' job with health insurance and a steady paycheck. Just
        • People who get married make more money, and are healthier, on the average as most studies have concluded. That's a good thing about getting married! If you can do that without getting married, great!

          Oh, dear... you've confused correlation with causation! If you actually think having a spouse will suddenly and magically cause you to make more money, you are sorely mistaken.

          The reason people who are married tend to make more money is because they tend to be more emotionally stable or have some other perso

      • c'mon...give these guys a break. First, they didn't know they were going to be asked to be iTunes.

        I like the way you think, in general, but what you've stated is precisely my point. They didn't even know why Apple wanted to talk to them. It would have been easy to find out, wouldn't it?

        Just because I hate it when people don't answer my questions, no I no longer run my own shop. I gave up private contracting work long ago, have a wife and child, and don't see in the current American economic climate a lot

      • I do run my own shop. I meet with just about anyone that requests a meeting. If Apple requested a meeting, I would be there. Remember, knowledge is power, and if a competitor/potential investor wants to share some info, I will be happy to listen and increase my knowledge.
    • I agree-- but most importantly, the article indicates the guys had some kind of ethical problem with meeting with Apple without AOL present-- the words were something like "AOL came to us first, it's only fair." They should have realized that when you're a small developer dealing with two mega corporations about your future, there is no such thing as "fair" or "not fair." You pull out all the stops and milk the deal for all its worth by making the two mega corps. compete and making each of them want you m
    • Actually, don't talk to Apple. They're interested in you? They must have other things on their mind. Furthermore, don't entice them of any features that you think is a cool unique idea in your app. Features can easily be duplicated. Look at what happened to song ratings and play counts in Audion. Now Apple put them in iTunes.

      Really, if you keep quiet about it, maybe Apple will never notice you, and you get to survive.

  • Referral to Slashdot (Score:5, Interesting)

    by GregAllen ( 178208 ) on Friday November 12, 2004 @02:20PM (#10800908) Homepage
    The funniest thing is the referral to the /. [slashdot.org] announcement of the iPod.

    With my 20/20 hindsight glasses, the comments are hysterical.

    CmdrTaco editorialized "Lame." Many vehemently predicted a miserable failure: "I don't see many sales in the future of iPod."

    At the time, I thought "Really cool, but really expensive." Who could have known it would be so popular! :)

  • Doesn't quite add up (Score:5, Funny)

    by wombatmobile ( 623057 ) on Friday November 12, 2004 @02:20PM (#10800909)

    I don't quite get the sine qua non of the story, although its a nice story and I'd like to.

    Let's see... They're so enamoured of Jobs that they have "brain expolosions" in his presence.

    They love making their software.

    Jobs courts them.

    They pass.

    They stop making the software.

    Now they're happy ever after without Steve and without making the software??

    When Frank did it his way he got to keep the money and the software.

    Oh and there were women.

    Still, it's nice to read a story from happy people.

    • I don't quite get the sine qua non of the story, although its a nice story and I'd like to.

      Ummm, sine qua non is Latin for 'without which nothing.' E.g. egg white is the sine qua non of meringues. The sine qua non of a story would be words, maybe.

      Maybe you were just searching for an erudite way to say 'point'?

      • .

        Maybe you were just searching for an erudite way to say 'point'?

        More like I meant 'essence, from the author's view'.

        Even more like I meant 'sine qua non'.

        Nothing to do with meringues at all.

  • Skins and Alpha Channeling? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by hellfire ( 86129 ) <deviladv@gmTOKYOail.com minus city> on Friday November 12, 2004 @02:21PM (#10800928) Homepage
    Okay, I'm not a huge MP3 hoarder, and never was, but I never really got into MP3s ever because all the audio programs seemed "too cool." It was cool to make an audio player that supported visual features? Why? Back in the days before napster:

    Me: Hey, are there any programs that can play these MP3s?

    MP3 guru: Are there? d00d! Look at these MP3 players!! This one has awesome support for skins and its skins are cross compatible! Look at all the choices you have to make your MP3 player look cool!

    Me: ummmm yea but is it easy to use and will it play my Mp3s?

    MP3 guru: and this one supports alpha channeling so it's like L337 n' stuff!

    Me: Hello? How does making the player transparent make it work better. Does this audio program even have audio features? And what is L337? Some kind of code to unlock the program?
    ----

    Basically I never got why back in the day so much time was spent on how the player looked vs. how the player worked. Even these days, there are visual features of iTunes (such as that weird psychedelic screensaver thingie that changes shapes while different music is playing) which I just don't get why anyone wants them. I just want to listen to music and I want my software to make sense!

    It seemed like MP3 players were designed by the niche and for the niche, until MP3s were no longer a niche.

    • Re:Skins and Alpha Channeling? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by DaveJay ( 133437 ) on Friday November 12, 2004 @02:38PM (#10801107)
      Arguably the best MP3 player (not organizer) ever created was SoundPlay for BeOS. For the basic task of playing one or more MP3s, either cross-faded or back-to-back (or simultaneously) it was virtually unmatched in smoothness and ease-of-use -- the interface was typical BeOS, bland but instantly intuitive. Of course, it owed a lot of that to BeOS's underlying media handling.

      There's still (I think) a system out there using SoundPlay and an organizational system using the filesystem itself for the database, called TuneTracker...designed for automation of radio stations, but makes a killer MP3 organization/playback rig.

      One small note about SoundPlay: there is a slider that allows to you alter the speed of playback infinitely (well, as much as you can in the digital realm, anyway) in real-time, with instantaneous response...and if you slide the bar far enough, it starts playing BACKWARDS at variable speeds, too.

      Boy, I miss that program. Now I have to reinstall BeOS on an old box. ;)
      • Yeah, it was the single most cool feature I've noticed in BeOS back in the days I played with it. That, together with the capability of _PLAYING_A_BLEEDIN_DIVX_ on my old iron Mendocino 300A totally filled me with everlasting SPITE for goddam Microsoft and it's assasination of BeOS. I mean, they could have bought it and given the world a decent Windows experience... no, they killed it... drove it onto the ground... wiped it out of existence... grrrrr... M$ I hate you. Today I see Pentium4 laptops kneeling t
      • One small note about SoundPlay: there is a slider that allows to you alter the speed of playback infinitely (well, as much as you can in the digital realm, anyway) in real-time, with instantaneous response...and if you slide the bar far enough, it starts playing BACKWARDS at variable speeds, too.

        Pssst, you can do that with Quicktime Player also. I believe the keyboard shortcut is to hold control, then press the 'skip-forward' button, but I haven't tried it in many years so I could be wrong.
    • Sounds like you want something like MPG321 [sourceforge.net].
    • Let's see. On winamp.com the most popular skins in the past 30 days (random selection):
      MMD3 13,068,873
      Nucleo NLog v2G 7,168,089
      Nucleo AlienMind 4,039,015
      ZDL GOLD STACK 3,515,717
      Pimeer v2-2 Ultime 1,844,601

      And these are skins that I've never seen before and aren't even that good. Trust me, you are in a tiny minority. Even I go straight to the skins page after each re-install of winamp, and I don't really care that much about how it looks (though I try and find a skin that minimises the amount of screen real

  • Mac audio players (Score:2, Interesting)

    by sdkaneda ( 798299 )
    I'm about 2 months in on owning my first Mac (thrilled by it, thanks) but the one thing I couldn't help notice is the absolute dearth of good mp3/audio players on OS X. iTunes is grating on my nerves! Can anyone recommend an audio/mp3/media player (pref. one that takes advantage of Cocoa) that's a little more poweruser friendly?

    • Re:Mac audio players (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Thu25245 ( 801369 )
      Without any idea of what you consider "poweruser friendly," I'd have to suggest you 1) Investigate Audion, if you haven't already, since it's now free, and 2) Investigate the power-user features of iTunes, like Smart Playlists and the Browser.
    • Uh, Audion maybe?

    • Re:Mac audio players (Score:3, Informative)

      by wibs ( 696528 )
      I used to have the same complaints about iTunes. Unfortunately, if you want to play AAC-encoded music, you're pretty much stuck. So I finally gave up trying to find an alternative and now just use software such as Synergy [wincent.com] to give me system-wide hotkeys, a little transparent info window, and a bunch of other stuff like control buttons in the menubar. It's pretty nifty all by itself, but there's no shortage of cool little shareware and freeware apps to get more bang for your buck with iTunes. Just look around

  • Steve's Value is in Cutting Away the Unnecessary (Score:4, Insightful)

    by glennrrr ( 592457 ) on Friday November 12, 2004 @02:46PM (#10801208)
    I'm writing this because I too am part of the small fraternity of Mac MP3 application developers. I was part of a three man team writing MusicMatch Jukebox for Mac OS when iTunes was released. And soon afterward I was out of a job.

    I know that iTunes would have crushed all competition anway, but Steve Jobs is the guy who saw through the stupidity of skins. WinAmp had them, so every MP3 player has skins. You can read in the article about the incredible amount of wasted development effort spent on improving the skins-giving them transparent corners and whatnot.

    At MusicMatch we spent a third of our time developing the skinning engine. And what did we end up with? A lot of ugly, non-intuitable windows designed by graphic artists with no concept of UI design, windows that docked in some skins but not others, and with list views that couldn't expand because of the surrounding bitmapped edges. If we'd have settled on a standard interface and just worked on getting the music database, radio streaming, and audio playback working we'd have finished much, much faster, and given the user a nicer experience to boot.

    Steve saw what was valuable in a music player and told the SoundJam guys to junk everything else. Simplify. Simplify. And the result is the preeminent digital music player.

    The Panic guy writing the linked article even now doesn't admit the wasted effort, and why he couldn't come up with a list of reasons why Panic 2 was better than iTunes 1.
    • Interesting - that was always Woz's strategy as well. He wouldn't be happy until he had ripped all but one or two IC's out of a drive controller design.
    • I think you hit the nail on your head about MP3 players in general focusing too much on skins and Jobs has been consistently great at simplifying things and focusing on what's really important

      But I have to disagree your characterization of the Panic guy's views. While he mentions the interface was a major differentiator, especially the alpha part, for the most part, they did those things without losing sight of the big picture--making a clean, Mac-like interface. And he explicitly shows his lament for t

  • Well, I have to admit: I was a paying SoundJam user. I was a paying Audion user. But, in the end, iTunes won out over both of them in terms of how integrated it is - and i'm not even talking about the iPod side of things, or even the iTMS. I'm talking jsut the whole package that iTunes is. it's very clean, very simple, very easy to use.

    Do I miss SoundJam? Hell, yes. Though, I will admit, that iTunes still reminds me of SoundJam every now and then. And I still install SoundJam on the pre-OS X Macs I

  • Great story, but not a "how to be a success" story (Score:3, Interesting)

    by adzoox ( 615327 ) on Friday November 12, 2004 @04:13PM (#10802075) Journal
    This story was one of the best I have read in recent memory.

    That said, I hate it when great programmers just sit on a product and stop innovating or coming up with new directions to take their product.

    In my opinion, Panic should try to become something like Pixo and create great Mac friendly interfaces for Mp3 portable players or work with Napster and Real, and Microsoft to produce a player that will play secure WMP files well on a Mac.

    My preference was always towards SoundJam over Audion, but still after SoundJam became iTunes - I leaned towards Audion for the custom skins.

    If interested, I wrote a bit about this on my website [jackwhispers.com].

  • aquisition = death (Score:4, Insightful)

    by joe094287523459087 ( 564414 ) <joeNO@SPAMjoe.to> on Friday November 12, 2004 @04:31PM (#10802241) Homepage
    i worked for scopus, bought by siebel. millions of lines of code, all trashed

    i worked for centerrun, nee raplix, bought by Sun. 40 people worked really hard to make a great product. now you can find it on sun's site, if you look carefully. advertising budget/market awareness of solution? zero

    if you sell your software company, you can be confident the software will cease to exist.
  • What I'd be interested to see is a history "story" like that written by Andrew Welch of Ambrosia Software [ambrosiasw.com], whose games I played ever since Maelstrom (In fact, Maelstrom was one of the first games I played on my parents' IIci back in 1994).

    When Escape Velocity came along, Ambrosia SW became one of my favorite game developing companies. That game was so fun... I spent many nights staying up way too late playing it. What was also great was my Windows-using friend was very jealous he couldn't get the game on

  • FTA...

    Here's a little side story that you might not have known about Audion: it was a huge success in Japan. Really! At one point in November, 1999, Audion sold more copies in Japan than any other software title -- Mac or PC! In fact, overall, Audion sold better in Japan than it did in the USA.

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