It's an increasingly crowded category on the App Store: Social Networking. Like several other apps in this category, Zensify (iTunes link) doesn't just tap into one social networking service. The app is an aggregator, taking multiple sites and rolling them up into one app that will, in theory, make your social networking somehow easier. That's the promise of all these aggregator apps. So how does Zensify do?

First, Zensify supports Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Digg, Delicious, YouTube, 12seconds and Photobucket. Unfortunately, I had only moderate success with signing in to some of these. Flickr takes you to the requisite Flickr-based verification pages, but after going through the process I received a warning dialog that an error had occurred, with only OK as my option to continue -- right before the app froze up completely. Then I tried Digg, but there was only a username field, not a password field. I was able to get Delicious to work, and YouTube (after quitting the app, as there was a bug preventing me from typing in the text area). I didn't try Photobucket or 12seconds, as I'm not big on those.

I should note that I wound up deleting Zensify, then re-installing it, and something interesting happened -- once I had re-logged into Facebook Connect, my previous logins "stuck." I only needed to type in my username on digg and it said everything was logged in. That was a pretty neat trick, and a re-install appears to take care of some of the initial bugs. I'm assured by the folks at Zensify that several other bugs are being crushed for the next release.

While Zensify is pretty in parts, there are functionality issues. These are because, in an effort to do everything, the app winds up a confusing mess at times. Many apps suffer from this, especially social networking apps. Keep reading for my full review.

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.

If a man bills himself as the world's toughest programmer (site may be NSFW, depending on your sensitivity to four-letter or 12-letter words) it's usually a good idea to take notice when he sets his mind to something. Delicious Monster developer Mike Lee has created a campaign to help save the lemur population of Madagascar, by soliciting $100 donations and in return sending the contributor a stuffed lemur, similar to Mike's world-traveling sidekick Thievey.

Your opportunity to do some good, and join the Founding Troop of Club Thievey, closes out at midnight PT tonight. If you were considering a last-minute charitable donation, Mike's cause is a great option -- plus you get a cuddly lemur.

Speaking of charitable donations that expire at midnight: the OLPC Give One-Get One program closes out tonight. For $400, you can send an XO laptop to a needy child and get another one for your local undersized technology consumer. Sure, it doesn't run Mac OS X, but it will blend in nicely with your old clamshell iBook collection.

Scott Stevenson has taken another look at a program I am pretty much drooling over at this point-- Delicious Library 2. Earlier, he walked us through the overview of all the items in your library, and this time, he goes a little more in depth on what the app can tell you about each item that you own.

First off, everything is Quicklook-capable and can be viewed in CoverFlow, which is awesome. You can thumb through your books just with a few keystrokes. You can share your library via .Mac and Bonjour, which means while using Wi-Fi at Barnes and Noble, you can actually get book recommendations from anyone else on the network with you.

Finally, Scott reveals a strange but interesting new feature. Apparently, in its pre-release incarnation, you can also track tools. That's right-- the screenshot above is not Photoshopped (not by us, at least). Scott even suggests there might be other possessions to track, but we'll have to wait for the official release to see just what the Delicious team have cooked up.

Want to show the world the contents of your bookshelves? David C. at Infinite Loop previewed the much-anticipated Delicious Library 2's HTML export feature, which you can see in demo form over at Delicious Monster's site. With lovely sliding panels and gorgeous book covers, the web export looks like it will live up to the graphical standard set by the original Delicious Library.

I'm very much looking forward to DL2, which as previously noted will be Leopard-only. Delicious Library is still the app I launch when I want someone new to the Mac to enjoy the feeling of having their jaw hit the floor.

Worthy of note: the current preview site, which works fine in Safari 3 and also apparently on the iPhone, doesn't behave as expected in Firefox 2 (no detail panels).

Sometimes you want a list of what's hot on the social news sites at a quick glance-- an easy-to-access look at the Zeitgeist, if you will. And for those times, there's POP Takeout, a site Wade M put together and sent to us that offers up a quick list of social news headlines from Digg, Reddit, Del.icio.us, Tailrank, and Newsvine, all listed in a site that's easy to browse and right on your iPhone (or iPod Touch-- I guess we should just start saying "in MobileSafari").

The only complaint I'd have is that each link goes to the social news site's page for the story, and not the actual link for the story itself. I'd use something like POP Takeout because I don't want to visit Digg or Tailrank, and hitting the link and making me click through causes me to do that anyway.

On the other hand, if I worked for Digg, I'd have a serious problem with someone listing my articles and not providing a link through to the site-- it's content theft, more or less. But if Wade could work out a way to keep Digg happy and send me to the news stories with just one click, it'd be a better solution all around.

Call it the First rule of Confectionary Geekery, if you will-- no gadget is allowed to reach icon status until it is immortalized in cake form. This is another happening that didn't show up on our bingo card, but probably should have.

Fortunately, someone's corrected the dire problem of not having an iPhone that is both beautiful, elegant, and edible. They've actually got lots of amazing cakes, including a few purses, a dragster, and even a pom pom. But can the pom pom browse Google maps? Didn't think so.

[via FSJ]

It's been a while since we've mentioned Delibar, the del.icio.us client from Shiny Frog that gives you access to all your bookmarks from the menubar, but a recent v0.9 update brings some noteworthy new features and enhancements. While you could already sort your bookmarks into nested folders based on the tags you apply to each bookmark, this new version now allows you to chose a flat tag list to sort by (meaning: bookmarks are sorted into one folder by the first tag you apply to them). Check out the other goodies in this new version:

• You can now set a global hotkey for popping up Delibar menu
• Reloading bookmark no longer prevent you from using Delibar while loading
• Delibar is a LOT faster
• Holding down ? when looking at a bookmark will reveal its actual URL
  
• Overall graphics improvement, more compact "actions" menu

Delibar is one of my favorite del.icio.us utilities and one of the apps that allowed me to stop bookmarking things in browsers altogether, which has the additional benefit of letting me use any browser I want without worrying about keeping anything in sync. Now that I can call Delibar with a hotkey and browse my del.icio.us bookmarks by typing a few keys in the Delibar list, I wish its developer offered a donation link.

Delibar is (apparently) freeware and available from Shiny Frog's website.

Code Sorcery has released the next update to an old TUAW favorite, the del.icio.us client Pukka. Among the significant changes include a faster start-up, which means that the application can down be set to quit, rather than merely hide, after a successful post. Perhaps most significant in this release however is that Pukka can now post to the Ma.gnolia service via the Mirrord API. In fact, Pukka now allows you to enter the posting API URL manually (above), so it will work with any service that uses the del.icio.us API. Pukka also still gives you access to all your del.icio.us account bookmarks from its Dock icon.

On the downside, the price of Pukka has been raised to $12.95, but as the only multiple account del.icio.us client available I think it's still worth it. A demo is available.

Kenneth Kirksey has posted two AppleScripts on the Yojimbo mailing list for importing your del.icio.us bookmarks into Yojimbo, complete with all your tags. You can get these scripts from the mailing list archives of course, but Kenneth gave me permission to host both of them here on TUAW to make things easier on you readers.

The first script, titled All del.icio.us to Yojimbo, imports all your del.icio.us bookmarks into Yojimbo, bringing along all of your tags to boot (If you're a messy tagger, I highly recommend tidying up your del.icio.us tags before you run this script). Per Kenneth's instructions, you simply need to download the text file we've zipped for you, copy all the code from the file into a Script Editor window, and then edit the "set delAccount" and "set delPassword" lines to add your account details in quotes.

The second script, called Last del.icio.us to Yojimbo, simply imports your most recent del.icio.us bookmark into Yojimbo. Same instructions apply.

Since these scripts make use of Yojimbo 1.3's new tag feature, I'm pretty sure these won't play well with previous versions. Feel free to share your experiences with the scripts here, and be sure to hit up the Yojimbo mailing list if you need more help with them.

I don't know how I missed this post at Hawk Wings a few weeks ago, but I am glad I found it at least sooner or later: Tim Gaden has been keeping a watchful eye on the Yojimbo mailing list, and he caught a set of scripts written by Dylan Damian that can take a link from either Safari or NetNewsWire, bookmark it on del.icio.us with Pukka (which I highly recommend as a paid user) and then archive the link in Yojimbo using the same tags you used on del.icio.us. I completely agree with Tim: after testing these scripts out with NetNewsWire, they work like a charm and have just been added to my toolbelt.

You can score the scripts by checking the Yojimbo mailing list archives (they're online here if you aren't subscribed), or simply by heading over to Tim's post at Hawk Wings, as he is hosting the files himself.

Fire up your favorite audio players ladies and gentlemen, for TUAW Podcast #15 is live and ready for consumption. This time around it was Laurie Duncan, Scott McNulty and I, and I'm delighted to say we have dramatically improved our recording setup to give you a much, much better and cleaner listening experience. Leaving iChat + GarageBand in the dust, we opted for Skype and the fantastic Audio Hijack Pro from Rogue Amoeba, and we sound worlds better, if I may say so myself (though to their credit, Apple seems to be the only one who has mastered two-click audio chat recording, complete with separate channels in GarageBand for each participant). Also, Scott and I were both using Blue Snowballs for our mics, and Laurie's is in the mail.

Moving right along, we dub this The Delicious Cast because it was more of a chat about this brewing topic of The Delicious Generation, a term borne out of a post Paul Kafasis at Rogue Amoeba wrote concerning recent aspects of the Mac community like macZOT, Disco, My Dream App and MacHeist, as well as their relationship to Mac OS X's seemingly wayward UI and the recent discussion amongst developers at C4. Paul and many others have been philosophizing over what all these things mean for the community and the future of Mac OS X's usability, so the three of us decided to weigh in, podcast style. I just noticed, by the way, that Paul issued a follow-up to his original post, in case you're down for some more reading on the topic.

This time around, the podcast weighs in at just over 23MB and 25 minutes. As always, you can grab it via direct link here, our iTunes Store podcast directory or with our dedicated podcast RSS feed. Enjoy, and be sure to drop us some feedback in the comments!

For all the Quicksilver users out there, the del.icio.us plugin has been updated for (what I assume is) the recent change in their API that seems to have afflicted every app that has anything to do with access to the social bookmarking service. As one might guess, the del.icio.us plugin simply allows access to one's del.icio.us bookmarks from directly within Quicksilver, just like browsing the bookmarks of any local browsers. The documentation page I link to says the plugin isn't compatible with Intel-based Macs yet, but I'm pretty sure that's outdated, as it appeared in my MacBook Pro's plugin list quite a while ago and has made my life all the better since.

I wish I had more to say about this update, like it doubles your Mac's performance or solves world hunger, but it mainly fixes login problems by updating to the new del.icio.us API. Delibar, for those scratching your heads, is what I consider the missing link of social bookmarking which actually makes your 'marks useful; it's a menubar item that provides access to all your del.icio.us bookmarks, even storing them in a folder hierarchy (the first tag is the main folder, second tag is a subfolder) and displaying tag bundles you create at the site. It's an indispensable utility in my arsenal, and if you've been having login issues like I have (Quicksilver's del.icio.us plugin can't seem to login anymore either), this 0.8.2 update should fix your issues.

Delibar is donationware and available from Whamoo.