Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Software, Cool tools, Productivity, Odds and ends
Trampoline updates to 2.3.2
We reported on Trampoline a while back-- it's a radial application launcher that bills itself as a way to give you quick access to your "core set" of tools. A few people have marked it as very similar to Sapiens, and that's true-- both are circular launchers that allow you to fire off applications quickly when you need them. Sapiens is a great application, but it seems to have a little more under the hood in terms of learning your apps and where to place them, whereas Trampoline seems to be more interested in just providing quick access, not mapping your apps out for you. The other main difference in usage seems to be that Sapiens can be activated with a circular mouse movement (sometimes a bonus, sometimes an annoyance, if you didn't mean to activate it), while Trampoline is activated with a mappable hotkey. It's up to you whether one is more or less efficient than the other.At any rate, this is your Mac we're talking about, so you can use either or both or none. Trampoline's Joseph Wardell let us know that his application has just been updated to 2.3.2, which brings better compatibility with Leopard applications (including Time Machine), and some speed updates and improvements. Trampoline remains shareware (just like Sapiens, incidentally)-- use a trial for as long as you want, or support the application with a purchase for $19.95.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Macroy said 7:14PM on 11-13-2007
So this will basically turn my entire desktop into The Sims?
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Bryan H said 8:17PM on 11-13-2007
I might have bought this if the developer actually answered end-user email questions. Instead I bought Sapiens because that developer did respond to my emails. Customer support goes a long way.
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thethirdmoose said 9:43PM on 11-13-2007
I think the proper term for this software is donationware.
Shareware is typically crippled until you buy it.
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x said 10:33PM on 11-13-2007
just tried sapiens. it seems that the main feature of sapiens is that has a much easier or faster way to open. which is a selling point. got me to try it. problem is it needs another way. i think the opening gesture really only works well with a mouse because it sucks with a trackpad. it's very slow to respond. and if i use a tablet it always triggers itself when unwanted. i'm staying with quicksilver.
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Russell said 12:14AM on 11-14-2007
This reminds me remarkably of the One Laptop Per Child's home screen: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Image:Home.jpg
The resemblance would be almost non existent if they hadn't put in that random almost identical icon at the bottom.
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Christian said 2:59AM on 11-14-2007
@5: My initial thought exactly!
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Jan said 4:27AM on 11-14-2007
Quicksilver [http://docs.blacktree.com/quicksilver/what_is_quicksilver] has a plugin (for a long time) called 'Constellation' [http://www.tuaw.com/2006/07/26/enable-a-slick-constellation-menu-in-quicksilver-49/] which works great if you like the circular form factor and IS Quicksilver (for me the best launcher so far).
I myself am not such a fan of the circular form factor, a lot of people in the western world read from left to right. My eyes just can't get used to looking 'around'.
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Manuel Martensen said 4:47AM on 11-14-2007
Macroy. - So this will basically turn my entire desktop into The Sims?
I almost peed myself, man! ROFL
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dolores wheatly said 6:24AM on 11-14-2007
Innofest 2007
Innominds is planning to organize its 2nd Annual Convention and Customer meet (InnoFest 2007) in Santa Clara, CA on Friday, November 16th, 2007.
The common theme of Innofest2007 is “Defining business models and partnership objectives to gear up global growth strategies for the participants in the IT ecosystem”. During the Convention Party they plan on identifying and debating fundamental issues that will shape the future of innovation and software product development in the lines of the common theme.
Innofest2007 will be attended by Innominds’ ISV customers, business partners, prospect ISVs, VCs and industry analysts. The event provides a platform that would enable the players of this ecosystem to interact. It will be an opportunity for you to meet your peer community and learn from their business practices, potential partners, funding houses who may be interested in your products and analysts who may want to write about you in their features.
http://innofest2007.blogspot.com
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Simpleton said 12:34PM on 11-15-2007
I have been using Trampoline since before it was called trampoline! (Originally called "Bullseye".) I really enjoy trampline as an application launcher...and I don't really get most of the votes for Sapiens over Trampline here.
Previously, Bullseye had the option to assign a mouse button to launch it but it was removed when the app was transitioned to "Trampoline". Don't really understand why that feature was removed but I found that it's super easy to assign a mouse button through the OS in the system preferences; go to "Keyboard & Mouse"->"Mouse". (I've assigned the scroll ball button on my Mighty Mouse to "Open 'Trampline'" by selecting "Other". And maybe that's why they removed it!) Also, one huge improvement over the earlier Bullseye is that Trampoline no longer has to take up space in your dock when running. (Sapiens developers take note!!!)
Anyway, I've found that while Sapiens has "intelligence", the static nature of Trampoline makes it much more of a muscle memory thing. After using a set of apps in a radial configuration for a while I don't have to look around for the app I want to launch; I just know that Adobe apps to the left & upper left, iPhoto lower left, email and web browsers to the right & lower right, PDF and conversion apps up and upper right, etc. I think it will be a long time before an intelligent app like Sapiens is smarter than our own muscle memory.
@7 "Jan"
Really this radial application launcher doesn't have anything to do with "reading from left to right" although I have heard your critique many times before. As I mentioned earlier, it's about muscle memory of a set of icons. Of course, this means you can't use it to hold your entire applications folder. You have to use a small set of often used apps and be sure that the size of the radial isn't too large. (Remember, this is about a quick launch. You don't want to have to move the arrow more than a couple inches.) For me, Trampoline has become my second dock. Particularly, it provides the convenience on my home computer to load only the apps our whole family uses in the dock (on a permanent basis) so my pro apps are hidden but very accessible through Trampoline.
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