BackRow, ugly Windows cousin of FrontRow

Wow... I'm as much a Mac nut as the next guy, but seriously... this one guy, in (I'm guessing) about a week, whipped up the code, if not the graphics, for a decent imitation of an Apple product that was probably months in the making with a dozen-odd professional programmers. Give him some credit.

This is unreal. Casey wasn't trying to inflame Mac users - this is quite typical of the type of project he engages in - namely, using the latest stuff to build something cool. Being that he never writes about MACS with this exception, it's funny to see how someone can accuse him of intentionally trying to inflame MAC users when they aren't his audience. Wow, he made one statement "nor would I ever want to " and THAT MAKES HIM A POMPOUS JERK? ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND? We have two Macs in the family and my girlfriend doesn't like Windows much for her Graphics work and has said she doubts she'd ever want to use a Windows box - I guess that makes her a Pompous Jerk too. Does this standard apply to anything else in the world, or just Computers? If I shop at 7/11 and "Don't ever want to shop at QuickyMart", can I be in the Pompous Jerk Club too? ----- And to the others that dog Casey's programming skills - Put up or shut up. Maybe you do have room to talk - but look at his list of apps on the side of his site - look at his app that he won Coding your way to PDC with - yah, OBVIOUSLY the work of a real 'lamer'.

Craptacular.

Well I am a long time Mac user, and I just sent this guy an e-mail. A positive one! I like his effort. These developments - new presentation layers in OS's - are really great. New api's like WPF and QTZ (on the Mac) help bring us (developers and designers) closer to one another adn ultimately help create a better user experience. So: kudos for backRow and kudos for FrontRow!

Casey: "yes, i am jealous of the RSS feed of quicktime movies. as far as other missing functionality, that was laziness on my part. playlists, play all, and everything else could be done easily ... but i wasn't going to learn anything by writing that code, so i didn't. remember ... learning exercise." Not being much of a programmer, I'm not going to say nasty things about Casey's attempt to replicate Front Row (at least to his face). However, I have to *strongly* disagree with the choices he made in the paragraph above. Casey, if you're listening, you're not going to become a talented programmer by ignoring *ANYTHING* talented programmers can do. Learning to parse and display RSS feeds, constructing playlists, providing polished UI designs -- these are the stuff of *your future* if you're actually planning to work for, say, Microsoft or Sony. (Unless you're some sort of business-process dweeb or somethin' -- then you can be as dull as you like.) In short, it's the parts that you have no idea how to accomplish that are going to teach you the most. Don't pass up the opportunity -- but first... Dude, toss your clip art! It's embarassing!

Some of you guys are giving that person WAY too much respect. And what's with all this BS about this is what's wrong with the Mac community? The guy wrote what he wrote and did what he did in such a way he was guaranteed to inflame Mac users. This guy is a pompous jerk by his own admission. " i have never touched an iMac (or an iPod) in person ... nor would i ever want to (prefer the power and flexibility of MS products)." Who wants to bet he has ANY experience with Mac, OS X, programming with Obj-C and using the Cocoa API's? Like a lot of Windows people he loves to take pot shots at the Mac with little or know personal experience with them, unlike a lot of Mac users who's negative feels come from actually USING Windows. IMO He deserves no respect at all, and his little stunt is little more than to get himself from free publicity. It's obvious that Frontrow, and Photobooth were very quick and easy programs to put together. I imagine large portions of both could actually be created with Quartz Composer without much trouble at all.

mike writes "Oh i see.. so someone does a FUGLY port and all of a sudden, Apple's Engineers look like amateurs. Check." Doesn't that say more about Mr. Thurrott's (and Mr. Agreda's) understanding of software development than Mr. Chesnut's engineering ability? Microsoft's Presentation Framework is interesting precisely because it does allow engineers to make engineering prototypes very quickly. I continue to hope that FrontRow is either based upon a similar framework or that Apple are working to re-engineer FrontRow to factor out a media/presentation framework. Time will tell. My other observation is that FrontRow really sums up what Apple is about. The concept and implementation is actually rather simple yet the combination of lateral thinking, a really usable UI design and amazing sense of style is what sets FrontRow apart from the competition and marks it out as an innovation rather than merely an evolution of what has gone before. BTW, repeating Paul Thurrott's statement about it being a port still doesn't make it so ;)

What a bunch of jerks here. The guy makes the app just for fun and clearly states... "it is not even close to production quality, this was just a means for me to experiment with the next generation presentation technology with a real world app. nor does this implementation match the visual polish or functionality of FrontRow" --- Hmm that's nice.. cuz a blowhard named Paul Thurrott had this to say: "Looks interesting and, interestingly, painfully easy. There are actually a few missing features (the photo and video previews aren't skewed, though they do offer a nice bottom reflection) but this is a pretty faithful port. I had heard that Front Row was the product of a very small team working very quickly, and this sort of bears that out." Oh i see.. so someone does a FUGLY port and all of a sudden, Apple's Engineers look like amateurs. Check.

this (news)post along with some of the comments made in it sums up the problem with some parts of the mac community.

Yes we have seen media centre front row is not a media centre like media centre is.. ohh that sounded wierd.. it is taking a different approach. A media centre PC like windows is to replace a TV and therefore has TV cable content. Front row is just a front end to show photos DVD's and your music . It is clean and works great for what it is. Front row is exactly what alot of people want.. Media Centre on XP is a different market. I personally hate the idea of the PC as the centre of my Lounge others obviously love it. The remote in front row to me just means when my friends are around I can show them my photos easily and while working spin around and use a remote to change songs