Delicious Library 2 has just issued a mandatory 2.2 update that all users must install if they want to actually scan in, update or look-up new items automatically. As of August 15, 2009, Amazon.com requires all applications that use its data and API to digitally sign information requests. This update complies with that requirement.

The Delicious Library iPhone app was pulled from the App Store last month because it violated Amazon's terms of service. This was a blow to many of us who like to manage or access their media collections on the go.

In addition to complying with the new Amazon.com policies, Delicious Library 2.2 fixes a few bugs (including the largest single source of crashes) and brings in Snow Leopard compatibility.

Delicious Library 2.2 is a free update for all 2.0 users. Delicious Library requires Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard or higher. New licenses are $40US.

Update: As one might expect, this API restriction has also hit Pocketpedia; the app is now pulled as well (as of 7/17).

Sudden removal of an item from the App Store isn't unheard of; sometimes an app has a hidden bug or a content problem, and if Apple hasn't seen fit to take it off the store shelves then the developer can take matters into his, her or its own hands. Even applications that would seem to be wholly gratuitous and obvious ripoffs of other companies' IP might make it past the first round of Apple's scrutiny, only to be abruptly pulled under threat of litigation.

Apps that leverage content from websites and online services have another hurdle to clear: they may run afoul of trademark or licensing restrictions that prevent them from doing particular things with data from those third parties... things like, ferinstance, using that data on mobile devices.

This all brings us to Scenario D: the 'D' is for Delicious, and it's Delicious Monster's iPhone version of Library that's undergoing an unwelcome and rapid yanking from the App Store -- and believe it or not, Apple has nothing to do with it. Earlier today, Head Monster Wil Shipley announced that the iPhone app is on indefinite suspension and is no longer for sale; this is the consequence of a particular clause in the Amazon API terms and conditions. Part 4(e) of Amazon's agreement, which Shipley is a party to due to the desktop DL app's reliance on Amazon for book and DVD data, reads as follows:

(e) You will not, without our express prior written approval requested via this link , use any Product Advertising Content on or in connection with any site or application designed or intended for use with a mobile phone or other handheld device.

Amazon gave D-M an ultimatum: pull the iPhone app, or lose the API access for the desktop version of Library. Despite Shipley's requests for a mobile device exception, the big A did not relent. It's not 100% clear why Amazon chose to enforce this clause now, nor why the company is not providing exceptions to developers. We have an email in to their press office to inquire.

If you've got DL on your iPhone already, enjoy. If not... it could be a long wait.

Anvil photo from flickr: fboyd and remixed via CC license.

His flagship application gave its name to an entire movement of graphical sophistication among Mac apps, so it should be no surprise that Wil Shipley's Delicious Monster booth at Macworld Expo carries Delicious Library's recognizable UI into the real world. Special care was taken to get bookshelves that matched the wood grain, the products on the shelves look unremarkably like themselves, and the leaves at the top of the booth are dead ringers for the ones on the DM site. The overall effect is a bit disconcerting, but still enjoyable.

We took a few minutes to discuss the booth design with one of the "Delicious Librarians," then talked to Wil about his approach to an iPhone version of Delicious Library and his thoughts on the development challenges he faced in creating DL2. Videos in the second half of the post.

Have you ever been stuck on a train, plane, or bus and wanted a good book to read? With Classics [iTunes Link], you can easily pick up your iPhone and begin reading a small collection of classic literature and novels. As I mentioned last week, Classics takes a new approach to reading books on the iPhone.

The book selection interface reminds us of Delicious Library, as it has a wooden bookcase with the library of books stacked on it -- the developers will add new books with future (free) updates. You can re-arrange your books by tapping on a book and dragging it around. Once you select a book, it will load, and you will see the reading view. If you are continuing where you left off, a bookmark will appear and slide off the page; otherwise, you will presented with the first page of the book. To turn the page, you simply slide your finger in a page-turning motion (right to left or left to right, depending on if you want to go forward or backwards respectively). The page turning is really addictive, and you'll find yourself reading quickly through the text just so you can flip to the next page -- yes, it's really that addictive.

By tapping on the list icon in the top-right corner, you will be presented with an index of the chapters; you can tap on any of these chapters to jump to the beginning of the section. When you tap the back button in the top-left, a bookmark will slide onto the page, saving your place for later.

After extensive testing over the past two weeks, I have become addicted to reading in Classics. But, there are some improvements I would like to see. There is a good selection of books to read, but I would like to see this list expand (and bring more recent books to the bookshelf). I would also like to be able to search through one (or all) of the books to find a single passage. In addition, the ability to control the font size would be nice. Overall, this application is stellar, and while there is some room for improvement, I would have to agree that this is a great way to read older books on the go. Classics is definitely not a mainstream eBook reader, because you cannot add your own books. So, if you're looking for a reader that gives you more flexibility, you might want to try Stanza [iTunes Link].

You can download Classics from the iTunes Store for an introductory price of $2.99. Be sure to take a look at our gallery of screenshots.

A lot of my clients use Yojimbo to securely store their credit card numbers, passwords, and other information. I use it, too, but find it to be a somewhat drab application. On the other hand, Delicious Library is attractive and fun to use, but it isn't really something you'd want to use to store private info. If these two apps mated and had a love child, it would probably look and act a lot like RiftVault.

RiftVault is a new Leopard-only secure vault application from EdgeRift that is currently available in a pre-release version. It looks mahvelous and features 256-bit AES encryption to keep your private stuff from prying eyes. You can store credit card info, frequent flyer account data, passwords, insurance information, or short notes that you don't want to make public. Any document can be dragged into the Safe Deposit Box to be compressed and encrypted. Up to 2 GB of items can be stored in the Safe Deposit Box.

Sound interesting? Download RiftVault for free during the pre-release period, and/or pre-order the release version for $33 -- 33% off of the $49 retail price.

The beta period is over and Delicious Library 2.0 is officially ready to go (we took an early look at version 2 back in March). If you're unfamiliar, Delicious Library is the beautiful personal media database (that's the fancy way of saying "it keeps track of your stuff") that's as fun as it is useful. Use your Mac's iSight camera to scan the UPC on a book, DVD, software, games, etc. and watch it appear on your "shelf." From there, you can track who you've loaned it to, publish your library to the web and a whole lot more.

Version 2.0 includes more than 100 changes, including

• One-click web publishing
• Speedier graphics
• iTunes integration
• Three-click selling

There's plenty more, of course, and you can read the rest here. Delicious Library 2.0 requires Mac OS 10.5 and a single license will cost you $40US.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

In a Memorial Day treat for users, Wil Shipley of Delicious Monster announced via a tweet earlier this evening that a beta of Delicious Library 2 is now available for download and purchase. We've been waiting eagerly for DL2 for quite a while now, along with everyone else.

Interestingly, on first launch of the new beta you're presented with the dialog on the right. Apparently DL2's scrolling and display performance relies on fixes delivered in Mac OS X 10.5.3 -- that is, fixes you can't get yet in an OS build that hasn't shipped. Patience is a virtue, I suppose.

Update: Wil Shipley replies below. The beta test is of the integrated store functionality in DL2; the software itself is not launched yet, so be cautious.

One of the most anticipated applications in recent memory, Delicious Library 2 is finally nearing release. Earlier this week, the guys over at AppleInsider showed off an in-depth sneak peek of the application and its new features and revamped interface.

I have had the opportunity to play with the beta as well, and I must say, I'm impressed. For the last six weeks or so, I have been working on a little something I like to call Project DVD -- wherein I try the various DVD cataloging programs (though most can catalog more than just DVDs) and find the best one to tackle my truly mammoth collection -- and it's great to have DL2 in the mix.

Just from my own experiences, what has impressed me most about the beta -- aside from the various UI changes/eye candy -- is just how much easier it is to add items.

Because I have so many DVDs, it's often faster for me to enter in titles by hand rather than relying on the iSight scanner. No matter how accurate the scanner may or may not be, holding a title up to my laptop is usually going to take longer than just typing in the name (granted, using a USB scanner like Motorola CS104 is a great solution, but at $100 OEM, you really have to weigh the expense to convenience). My biggest problem with Delicious Library (and in fact, almost all of the programs I have tested for Project DVD) has been that adding multiple titles at one time (say, multiple seasons of a TV show) has been either really difficult or impossible.

In the first interview of this new mini-series, Brent Simmons of NewsGator / NetNewsWire shared some of his thoughts on Apple's delay of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard in light of the iPhone. For this second installment, Wil Shipley of Delicious Monster / Delicious Library steps up to the plate on feeling like a new programmer again, a reason to be happy that Leopard was delayed and why the iPhone's release is a great time to work at Delicious Monster. Wil has a great perspective on Apple and their products, and - as anyone who reads his Call Me Fishmeal blog will know - an entertaining way with words. Read on for Wil's responses to my questions after the jump.

It's time yet again for Ask TUAW, our weekly questions and answers column. This week we'll be tackling questions from last week about putting the Trash in the Finder sidebar, problems with Mail, keeping track of Books, and more. As always, please leave your own comments, and ask more questions for next week either in the comments to this post or using the tip form. Now let's turn to this week's questions.

Cocoa Blogs has linked a blog post from Gus Mueller, developer of such apps as VoodooPad, that an upcoming FlySketch 2.0 update will be Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard-only. This adds to a growing list of upcoming app releases such as TextMate 2 and Delicious Library 2 which will only play with Apple's next big cat.

So what does this tell us about 10.5 and its impact on the Mac, both for developers and users? Sounds to me like there are some pretty ground-breaking changes in Leopard since, from what I understand, developers typically try to keep theirs doors as open as possible by maintaining backwards compatibility with at least one previous version of the Mac OS. Of course, this can vary depending on how difficult it is to keep these doors open, as well as whether the developer works out of an office or a living room.

Personally, this boosts my excitement for Leopard. If it changes things as much as developers keep hinting, 10.5 sounds like it'll be a fun ride.

Wil Shipley - founder of Delicious Monster, co-founder of The Omni Group with Ken Case and Tim Wood and perhaps one of the most vocal Mac developers - has revealed some details of Delicious Library 2, a much-anticipated follow up to an app that claims a healthy selection of awards (just check the bottom of the product site). In an interview with Jacqui Cheng of Infinite Loop, Mr. Shipley waxes about his companies, charity, MacHeist controversy and - more specifically to this post - what we can expect in Delicious Library 2, and when.

New in DL2 will be support for "MUCH, MUCH larger" collections (thanks to what I assume will be the use of Apple's CoreData), smart shelves, a much updated and "snazzier, snappier" UI to align itself with Apple's iApps, lots of tiny updates to sprinkle joy in various places, as well as a couple of features he's keeping up his sleeve. As far as when DL2 ships, Wil gets somewhat suspicious with his answer: "Our aim is to ship the day Leopard ships, as we will be Leopard-only. We don't actually know when that is, which adds an extra element of excitement to this release." Hmm... he know DL2 will be Leopard-only, but he doesn't know when the Big Cat ships? I admittedly don't have much more to go on here, but something about that seems fishy. Apple's statement on Leopard, as far as we know, is still 'Spring 2007,' so we'll just have to see what happens at Macworld in January.

I have two passions in life: technology and books. I can't figure out how I didn't know about Bookpedia until yesterday when I stumbled across it. Sure, Delicious Library is the big name in Mac personal media management, but Bookpedia only costs $18 bucks and it pulls info from libraries as well as Amazon (cool!).

It has the iSight UPC scanning, the shelf metaphor, and the lending tracking features, as well as an iPod and HTML exporter. Check it out if you're as much of a book lover as I  am.

My one gripe about all of these book cataloging programs is that they are good for tracking what you own, but I really would rather track what I have read. Maybe that's just me though.