Grape, just released as a beta, is a new take on desktop file management. I've seen several attempts at innovative user interfaces for file management in my day, some better than others, but this is the first one I've been really excited about. In the words of the author -- Stéphane at docklandsoft.com -- "Grape is a visual and spatial way to classify and organize temporary files." I use my desktop as a sort of Inbox, saving all of my working files, PDFs of web pages and other random bits there during the day, and then tagging and bagging the collected mess once or twice a day. It's not a bad system, but I love anything that might make my life simpler and/or more interesting.

Grape takes all of the files on your desktop and puts them into a kind of three-dimensional workspace where you can pan and zoom, group files and perform various functions, including filing them to folders anywhere on your hard drive. You can zoom in and out with your scroll wheel or by holding command-space and dragging a rectangle. You can pan around the space by holding space and dragging. Once you've started organizing, you're able to create boxes and text labels to highlight groups of interest or provide highlighted areas for sorting. You can also Quick Look files, as well as choose the preview image for movies and multi-page PDF files. You can't descend into folders, but if you have a Quick Look plugin for folders, it's really easy to identify previously grouped files without jumping back to the Finder.

At this point, Grape is interesting (and fun), but lacks some much-needed functionality. Among the list of things I'd like to see: more mouse-only navigation, droppable folders, the ability to create functional drop-boxes to send files to specific folders, OpenMeta tagging (or AppleScript access to selected files for apps like Tags) and a more customizable interface (I find the default blue gradient a little overwhelming). It's a great start, though, and has really piqued my interest in more "spatial" file-management interfaces. Check out a video of Grape in action after the jump, and grab the beta here.

There are historic days, people. The App Store went live, and all of a sudden, we're drowning in new things for the iPhone. But it's not just a big deal for iPhone owners -- this is a huge day for society and technology in general. While there have been lots of PDAs, and lots of apps to run on them, there's never been anything like the App Store before -- here's five ways that Apple's platform for iPhone application distribution will change our world.

1. Ubiquitous computing.

Any science fiction writer will tell you that we're already living the future -- we can teleport things, robots are easy to make, and almost anything dreamed of can be done if you have enough money to do it. But a technology really doesn't move from fantasy to reality until it's everywhere, and thanks to the iPhone 3G, computing has become just that. You can't take a laptop around with you all the time (as in, to a fancy restaurant or to the movies) to edit photos or post to your blog, but you can bring the iPhone. It's the ultimate ultramobile platform, and it's now cheap enough to be everywhere, and powerful enough that almost any common computing task can be done.

Four more huge changes after the jump.

The Pixelmator folks have updated their clean and simple picture editing app once again, and there are a host of new features and improvements on board for this one. The crop tool was the first thing that caught my eye -- it's more powerful than ever, as you can crop layer masks, set a rotation point, and constrain proportions with the palette. The zoom and move tools got some usability updates as well. All in all, it's a nice little update, and there's enough stuff in here to call for another try if you weren't into the functions of Pixelmator before.

1.1.3 is a free upgrade for current Pixelmator users. For you non-users, a trial is free from their website, or the full app is available for $60.

TUAW readers may recall that when the new look of the desktop in Mac OS X Leopard was unveiled, the side-placement of the Dock didn't exactly set the world on fire. In fact, almost everyone decried it as horrific, with John Gruber (of Daring Fireball fame) writing "The lighting and "fake 3D sitting on a tray" visual effect look like crap with the Dock on the side." He (and others) couldn't have summed up the Mac community's sentiment better - or suggestions better.

Thankfully, Apple seems to be in a listening mood - are we seeing a return of 'the Apple we know and love' that our very own Mike Schramm talked of last week? - for MacRumors has revealed that the side-located Dock we loathed has been replaced with a 2D, black background Dock with a white border and it looks rather good (at least to me). I'm no fan of the 3D Leopard Dock in general so whilst I'm pleased that Apple has backtracked on one of the most talked-about design points in Leopard, I'm more interested in being able to apply the new look to a bottom-positioned dock. Some of us are never satisfied I guess.

Thanks Sebastiaan!