After a long wait, Squarespace customers finally have an iPhone app of their own. Squarespace is a hosted blogging/CMS service that competes with the likes of WordPress.com and Typepad. Having used all three, I can say that interacting with Squarespace (posting, changing your site's look and feel, etc.) is unlike the others. Instead of a separate control panel/dashboard, Squarespace previews changes in real time on the same screen. It's really nice.

The iPhone app [iTunes link] seems to be an extension of its browser-based sibling. For example, check out the live preview mode pictured at right. You can also manage multiple accounts, post, upload multiple images at once (awesome) view stats and more. The UI looks nice as well.

While bloggers on other platforms have had compatible apps in the App Store for a while now, this is Squarespace's first solution. We're eager to play around with it. Squarespace for iPhone is free and requires a paid Squarespace account.

Around here we all seem to be addicted to GTD applications (especially those that sync with online services). That's why it is only fitting that we would mention a new iPhone application named Outpost. Outpost manages your 37Signals' Basecamp projects on your iPhone.

Basecamp, as you might already know, is 37Signals flagship application for managing clients, projects, tasks, etc. However, with a native application to manage Basecamp projects I can definitely see myself using Basecamp more than I do now.

Outpost should be available on the AppStore in "early to mid August." For more information about Outpost, you can check out their website and development blog.


Thanks, Jim!

According to a recent post over at the Adium blog, Chris Forsythe, the lead project manager, has decided to say goodbye after 3 years in that position with the Adium project. According to the post, Chris managed the Adium website, support network, and forum.

Eric Richie, another member of the Adium team, volunteered for the new position. In the past, Eric wrote the in-application help for Adium and maintains the Adium TicketTaskForce.

Chris is involved with some of the best applications on the Mac, a sampling of them: Growl, Perian, and Saltatory. We at TUAW wish Chris the best of luck in the future!


Thanks Chris!

The Qumana blog editor is a free cross-platform blogging client with support for a variety of blogging platforms including Wordpress, Blogger, MoveableType and others. It offers WYSIWYG editing, offline composing, and a variety of other features. Setting it up to work with a public blog is quite easy, requiring you just to enter the blog's root URL. It will then prompt you for your username and password and you're pretty much set.

Unfortunately, there are two catches. First, it appears to be a java application with all that entails for resource usage and UI inconsistency. Second, it's free because Qumana wants you to use their Q Ads service (which is built into the editor). Q Ads are text advertisements that you can manually add to your blog (by defining keywords) and Qumana will share some of the revenue with you. Fortunately it appears you can use the Qumana editor even without inserting Q Ads.

It's not as Mac-like as MarsEdit by a long shot, but if you'd like to try a free editor that works easily with a variety of blogging platforms then Qumana is worth a look. The Qumana blog editor is a free download from Qumana.

[via MacApper]

MacRadio, the home base for a few Mac-related podcasts, has announced they're going to facelife the entire site, and instead turn it into a hub for all sorts of Mac podcasts-- a "podcast portal for the Mac world," as they say. I sure thought that was the Podcasts tab in iTunes, but maybe that's just me.

Anyway, to kick off the redesign, they're offering a beta, in which you can give feedback and help them build the site the way you want it. There's a FAQ up on what's happening, if you're interested, and they mention that they're looking for people running all OSes and browsers. Oh, and apparently everyone who tests the beta gets a free t-shirt, as well as a chance to win more prizes. Pretty slick. Help MacRadio become better and win stuff!

[ via IMG ]

Our good friends over at DLS just posted some news about a service called iRovr, which purports to be a "unique social experience" made exclusively for the iPhone. Basically, you sign up, and are given a set of email addresses to which you can send content directly from your iPhone (including blogs, photos, videos, and even comments), which is then archived on their pages. It's definitely an interesting concept, and even if you aren't ready to join yet another social networking service (especially since Twitter is already on the iPhone, and Pownce is sure to follow), I actually entertained myself for way longer than I planned to just browsing through the content that's been uploaded.

You have to give iRovr credit for using email hackery, a squeezed design, and probably a heck of a backend just for getting this all working smoothly together as an app that is completely accessed only by the iPhone. I'm sure an app like this is just what Jobsy had in mind when he spoke of the "very sweet solution."

Oh Paul Kafasis, you clever Rogue Amoeba. What with your two-punch post of a teaser and sign-up offer for a new mystery app dubbed "AHT." What could this new app from the makers of Audio Hijack, Fission, Nicecast and Airfoil be? Is AHT simply a code name, or an acronym? Will AHT complement Rogue Amoeba's presence in the audio space, or will it be some new venture into RSS, video or even GTD? No one knows yet, but Paul said they'll be picking their first pool of testers on Wednesday, February 28th, so head on over and toss your name into the hat to test what I'm sure will be an excellent new offering from one of Mac OS X's much-respected 3rd parties.

[Update: Rogue Amoeba has filled their list of testers for now, so the submission form has been closed.]

I have to admit right up front that I'm not as familiar with the Mac dev community as I'd like to be. I don't know a lick about developing, and I get a bit intimidated as I know it's one of those trades that has a completely different set of constraints and connotations to manage; there's nothing like trying to swim in the big kid's pool while still wearing floaties. Though, for the record: that's just an analogy; I don't wear floaties when swimming in real life. I got rid of those months ago.

That said, I'd like to pass along Cocoa Blogs, a new venture from Scott Stevenson, whose name I only know from its mention on a number of Mac developers' blogs I've stumbled across from time to time. As you might glean from the title, Scott waxes on Cocoa, one of Apple's major (and dare I say preferable?) programming environment for Mac OS X, as well as the world of development and its community. He also wrangles a number of Cocoa developer resources and notable blogs for skills both advanced and new.

While much of the language in Scott's code-oriented posts and links might as well be Latin to me (and no, you don't get points for noting that up to 80% of English is Latin-based), this looks like a great new resource for Cocoa developers in all walks of life.

[via Gus Mueller]

For some time now, Apple's hush-hush policy on public communication has been the focus of much debate. The discussion escalated, however, with the debut of the Masked Blogger, an Apple employee blogging under the radar (or directly in the middle of it, depending on your perspective). Today, John Gruber linked a couple of interesting posts on the subject, one from Chuck Von Rospach (a recent ex-Apple employee), and another from Dave Winer. The more interesting of the two is Chuck's post, where he discusses at length Apple's policies on communication, the fact that the company and its employees actually *do* communicate and blog (though without affiliation), and why Apple's lack of a blogging-specific policy doesn't matter in the grander scheme of things.

Chuck's essential point is that Apple's employees do a lot to communicate and interact with the public - they just do it over traditional systems (like email lists) for the purposes of helping and solving problems. Further, 'blogging' is just one more way of communicating (albeit a new and hyped one); it isn't an end-all solution for these purposes.

While I think Chuck makes some great points about the focus of blogging and the importance of considering it as a tool for a company like Apple, I still think the company could use one, especially in light of one of its many facets as being closely involved with creative media (see: iLife, which they even brag about on TV). While blogging doesn't have to become a public focus for the company, it certainly wouldn't be difficult to fire one up, and having a blog or two for anything from pimping new products (see: the Google Blog) to offering an easily accessible forum for discussion couldn't hurt (after all, not everyone likes checking in on forums or having one more email list to organize), and they could capitalize on a popular and buzzing new medium. The blog(s) could be treated with a formal touch (like many company-focused promotional blogs) or have a more personal touch from a company-sanctioned individual, like the Scobelizer. Of course, being powered by iWeb, or having a corporate Photocast (or podcast!) couldn't hurt either.

Ultimately though, I think one of the good points Chuck makes about how well (yet quietly) Apple's employees actually are communicating is the true Achilles' heel of the idea of an Apple blog to begin with: most of the communication efforts of Apple's employees are quiet or under the radar - right where the company wants them to be. Apple, like most of its products, has a very shiny, polished exterior, which is exactly the kind that does not lend itself to opening the holes and flaws that blogging would puncture, no matter how personal or cute they may seem. One only needs to glance at the company's quiet handling of problems like battery recalls and MacBook RSS to see what I mean. Apple may be a purveyor of some of our favorite creative and communication tools, but donning a more personal side by *using* them just doesn't seem to be in the cards.

Fellow ecto users running on Intel Macs - rejoice! While Adriaan has been teasing us with snippets of ecto3 details, he recently posted on his blog that it's taking a bit longer than expected to develop, largely in part because it's a complete re-write from the ground up. With that said, he has announced an Intel build of ecto 2.4.1 (Finder says it's Intel, not Universal), though it is not fully tested, nor will it be supported (hey, he's just one guy).

If you've been using the previous PPC version on your Intel Mac, I am happy to report this Intel build starts up in the blink of an eye, or rather: the bounce of an app. One bounce in the dock on my Core 2 Duo iMac and this new ecto is ready for action.

This new ecto 2.4.1 Intel version can be had from this ecto blog entry, as the standard download link from the site still points to the PPC version.

The Omni Group has hinted at new products and teased us with a handy tool and toy. While 3rd party solutions have existed to turn their OmniOutliner Pro into a mean, lean Getting Things Done machine, the Omni Group has finally spilled the quintessential bean in a recent blog post and confirmed that a true-blue GTD app is in the works, and its name is OmniFocus.

However, I say the Omni gang spilled one bean - and one bean only - because they have twisted the cruel rumor knife ever so slightly by withholding any other details. No features, no clues, no ETA or price range. Not even a blurry icon. Cursed Omni Group! For now, it seems, you have forced us to suffer in your dungeon of anticipation! Our only salvation is your humbling generosity - some day - offering the warm sunlight of more details. Oh despair - thy name is OmniFocus!

It's the general consensus of most Mac users I know that ecto is the blogging client of choice. One thing I find very important about casual blogging is being able to quickly and easily go from viewing content to posting content. This is done in many online blogging environments by javascript bookmarklets, and ecto offers the same thing. Simply click the link in your bookmark bar, and a window pops up ready for a new post. Chris Barna decided to go one better and integrate this functionality directly WordPress by way of a plugin. Once a user has installed he wp-ecto plugin on their site, readers will see, along with any other social bookmarking icons so common on many sites today, a little ecto icon. Pressing this brings up a new post within ecto complete with title and URL already filled in.

Adriaan of Kula Software, developers of such excellent apps as endo and my personal favorite blogging app - ecto, has posted some juicy development details to his blog on the upcoming ecto version 3. One of the biggest changes Adriaan mentions is a new plugin architecture, which should make it much easier for code ninjas to let ecto work with many more APIs. The account manager has also received an overhaul, and users will be able to create accounts without having to go through a wizard. Filtering and searching entries have also been improved and sped up, and a new rich text editor is based on Mac OS X's editable WebKit. Finally, Adriaan is also beefing up template support to "[handle] templates in a more transparent way".

Alas, if your mouth is already watering (like mine), it's going to have to stay that way, as Adriaan hasn't posted any kind of ETA for the new version. On the bright side, he'll be updating his blog with details as development progresses, and you can be assured we'll stay on top of things for you.

Dell, that little computer company that could (and often does) mock Apple, has launched an official blog. one2one, Direction Conversations with Dell is an attempt by the company to open a dialogue with its customers and, I imagine, make the Dell experience a little better.

I'm not a big fan of Dell's machines but I applaud this attempt to interact with their customers, I mean their blog even has comments enabled! How much would you like to bet that we will never see an official corporate blog from Apple, or at least not as long as Steve Jobs is at the helm?

Beyond a doubt, Apple's retail stores have been and still are making headlines of all kinds - from business magazines hailing the stores' sleek design, to consumer reviews giving the stores high marks for their unique and (ideally) helpful Genius Bar feature. However, as some of you may know - not everyone's trip to the genius bar wraps up with a happy ending, and I'm not just talking about the customers; the Geniuses don't always have it so peachy-keen either.

Hence, Ungenius - a blog by "JC" who apparently has some stories to tell of his adventures "aton[ing] for the sins of a multinational corporation during nearly four years as a Mac Genius". JC delves into all sorts of topics surrounding the world of the Genius including QA, the obvious defects that have made headlines as of late, and even some thoughts as to why Class Actions might be bad for consumers.

Whether you've made a shrine for the last Genius who helped you out of a pickle or you're putting the finishing touches on a Genius Voodoo doll as you read this, Ungenius might be an interesting read from the other side of the cheery Apple retail store fence.