an ode to desktop app experiences part 2
May 19th, 2007 • Apple, Blog, Web, design
Reading Fred Oliveira’s post on desktop experiences made me think about all those little gems we have installed on our computer (or could have) and deserve more attention.
One of those applications on my Mac that I simply adore and is not related to work is Delicious Library. You see, it’s simply fantastic.
Delicious Library lets me organize all my stuff, like books, video-games, videos, comics and I can later browse, sort, and search through all that information in lists or digital shelves. This is the best part, It’s simply amazing to see, for example all my comic covers organized by series in a wooden background. :)
Adding information is also easy since I can use the iSight camera from my Macbook to scan the barcode at the back of the book or just simply search using the ISBN or title, it doesn’t matter because Delicious Library uses the Amazon API to search and give you recommendations based on it’s database. You can even sync the library with the iPod or print a color catalog.
It’s the kind of experience that I find very difficult to mimic on a web application but works flawless and smooth on desktop, there’s a “gratification” as Fred stated that you can’t (yet) get on the web because of responsiveness and other problems.
Fortunately there’s efforts being made to diminish the gap between desktop and web environments, let’s see what Apollo, Silverlight and Firefox 3 will hold for us.
What about you, what’s the desktop app which you can’t live without? What application makes you all happy to boot up the computer or make your life easier. Tell us about it.
