While no meme is going around this year (at least so far), I thought it would be interesting to return to my list and see exactly what applications I said I would purchase and did, and what applications I ended up buying unexpectingly. So, without further ado, here’s this year’s application list.

Last Year’s Predictions

• Adobe CS3 Educational Version – Yes, I managed to snag a copy this year. Got it at a pretty good price too thanks to my university book store.
• Leopard – Of course I purchased Leopard this year. I wish I could have purchased it in May, the original release date, but at least it was released this year.
• Microsoft Office 2007 2008 Education Version – Would have loved to purchased the new Office this year, but Microsoft failed to deliver. Yes, I know I can purchased 2004 now and receive 2008 for the cost of shipping, but I’d rather walk in to an Apple Store and get my copy right then and there.
• TextMate Leopard Edition – Had this been released, I probably would have purchased it. If TextMate does eventually come out with a Leopard-only version, I’m still planning on paying the MacHeist upgrade costs.
• Xtorrent – Yes, I purchased it, and I feel I got my money’s worth.

My 2007 Application Purchases

• Billings – I purchased Billings as soon as I started my freelancing business. While there is a minor bug that I reported to the developers and has been ignored, this is still a solid freelancing management app.
• Connect360 – I’ve had a love/hate relationship with Connect360 this past year. When it works, it’s the best app in town. When it doesn’t, it makes you wish you had Windows Media Center just so Microsoft’s damn propriety standards would ‘work’.
• iFlash – I purchased this application to help me in my required three semesters of Spanish. While I haven’t used it as much as I should, I have nothing bad to say about this small little app.
• iLife ’08 – Loving the new iLife, although I only seem to use iPhoto.
• iShowU – Alright, I admit it. I didn’t purchase iShowU; it was gifted to me by an unnamed company (thanks!).
• Mailplane – Some may say purchasing a wrapper for a web-based application is dumb. I say I love Gmail’s interface, I love taking advantage of desktop email features, and this application makes them coexist. Although, I wish Gmail 2.0 would start refreshing the inbox. I keep replying late to my email!
• OmniFocus – I’m pretty sure I purchased this due to the recommendations flying left and right on Twitter. OmniFocus is up there as one my best purchases of 2007 – and it’s not even out of beta!
• Pzizz – I have used Pzizz every night since I purchased it. If you can’t fall asleep or like power naps, this application is for you.
• Saft – Thanks to Safari 3 finally working like a browser should, I needed this little app to add a few of my favorite features from Firefox.
• Spanning Sync – iCal and Google Calendar have never lived happier.
• SteerMouse – I really wish I didn’t have to purchase this application, but I have nothing bad to say about it. The author has done a great job keeping up to date with OS updates.
• Synk – I nominate this for my worst application purchase of 2007. Not because Synk isn’t good, but it got replaced by Time Machine a few months after my purchase. I knew that would happen, so I honestly can’t complain.
• VisualHub – Purchased for converting videos for 360 use. Although kind of pointless now that the 360 supports H.264/Xvid, I still get some use out of it.
• VMware Fusion – Yes, I purchased Parallels last year, but VMware turned out better and Parallels started charging for updates.

Upcoming Purchases in 2008

• iPhone / iPod touch Applications – While I don’t know what Apple is doing with its upcoming SDK, I do know I’m willing to purchase applications for the platform. Whether it be games from iTunes or add-ons to programs like OmniFocus, I’m ready to fork over money for legitimate 3rd-party applications.
• MacHeist II Bundle – Let me just say this: I love MacHeist. While I hope this year’s bundle contains some really great applications, I know I’ll be purchasing it regardless. Why? I get it for free due to last year’s PayPal payment issues.
• Newsfire 2 – Rumor has it a new Newsfire version is coming, and if it manages to add some nice features, I’ll gladly pay the upgrade price.
• Twitterrific – This is a tough one and I’m still on the fence about it. I like Twitterrific, but I hate the ads. I don’t really think $15 is worth the price of removing the ads when there are other free applications like Snitter (although a great app, Adobe AIR runs like crap).
• Versions – If this app ever manages to release a beta, I think it has a good shot at taking some money from me.

There’s my list, now what have you bought or are planning to buy? I’d love to see this meme pick up some steam again.

Backup

Without a doubt, Time Machine has already altered the way I backup. Last week I picked up a nice Seagate 320GB hard drive for my enclosure. This marks the first time in history I have purchased a dedicated backup drive. While I have backed up in the past using my NAS and Synk, I never devoted an entire drive to backups or even backed up my entire hard drive. Had Time Machine not made this easier, I would still be doing crappy backups.

I am already seeing the benefits of this change. In the process of updating Spanning Sync to the latest Leopard compatible version, Spanning Sync managed to erase months of appointments. Had this happened one week ago I would have been up the creek. Instead, I fired up Time Machine, browsed to my home directory’s Application Support folder, and restored my iCal calendars from a few hours earlier.

Application Launching

Back in Tiger, I used a program called Overflow to speed up my application launching. I loved Overflow because it launched quickly, looked beautiful, and most importantly was functional. Looking over Leopard’s features, I honestly thought Stacks would replace Overflow as my application launcher. Well, that did not happen in Leopard thanks to an unexpected change – Spotlight.

Right after installing Leopard I found the new hotness in Leopard’s Spotlight. Gone are the days of slow searches and irrelevant results. The new Spotlight is faster and functions as an application launcher. Spotlight always lists applications before anything else, so a few letters, enter, and an application launches. While Spotlight has less eye candy than a Stack or Overflow, I am finding it to be more functional.

The Dock

Leading up to the launch of Leopard the Dock was a hot topic. The new 3D interface caused people to debate the Dock‘s location, perspective, and even usefulness. The debates resulted in an optional 2D interface, but I couldn’t care less about that. My true debate ended up over magnification.

I have always been a bottom, no auto hide, magnification user. After Leopard I find myself a bottom, no auto hide, no magnification user. Why the change? For some reason the magnification effect lost its glamor with the 3D dock. Sure, this change has absolutely no effect on my workflow, but I just thought I’d point out my change while others fight over more serious Dock issues.

Minor and Undecided Changes

There are many other aspects of my workflow which have changed with Leopard. Since the remaining changes are fairly insignificant or I’m not sure if I can call them a change yet, I will enter rapid fire mode for my remaining changes.

Mail instead of Gmail? Leopard’s Mail is looking pretty sweet and Gmail’s new IMAP support sure make the change easier. However, I’m not sure if I can break away from Gmail’s unique threading yet.

iCal instead of Google Calendar? As I mentioned earlier, Spanning Sync has not been working the greatest. With the my Jailbroken iPod Touch, I’m finding less of a need to use Google Calendar anyway.

iChat instead of Adium? If it would not be for iChat’s separate Contact Lists, I’d make the switch in a heartbeat. This change is going to take some adjusting to and Adium could easily win me back in a second.

MX Revolution button reconfiguration. I reassigned the buttons thanks to Spaces. New configuration: Side Wheel – Scroll through Spaces, Click Side Wheel – Spaces Overview, First Left Button – Dashboard, Second Left Button – Exposé, Search Button – Exposé Hide.

Finder icon view. Thanks to Leopard’s icon previews and Path Bar, I have made the switch from column view back to icon view.

What Did Leopard Change For You?

I’d love to hear your feedback. Has Leopard had an effect on your workflow? Are you finding the new Leopard applications suitable replacements or are you still looking for more?

Some interesting items to note with the update:

• This is most likely the last point update to Tiger.
• There were 21 days between 10.2.8 and 10.3.
• Tiger was released only 14 days after 10.3.9.
• With iTunes 7.1 last week, Apple beginning to charge orders, and 10.4.9 today, the release of AppleTV appears imminent.

First up, Vista was released on Tuesday. After years of development, the operating system has finally shipped. Hooray! I have a copy sitting on my desk right now, just haven’t had any time to play with it. Maybe this weekend I’ll give it a shot on my (old) Windows box.

If you’re looking forward to the upgrade to Vista, be weary of the upgrade version. Not only will Vista Upgrade not let you do a clean install, it will invalidate your Windows XP activation. Microsoft has really dropped the ball on this one, and I have no clue what they’re thinking. You still own that copy of XP. What happens if you decide that you don’t like Vista and want to revert back to XP? I think Microsoft is going to hear from a number of unhappy customers in the coming months.

Speaking of unhappy customers, Bill Gates didn’t look too happy on The Daily Show. Right after he barely talked about anything interesting, he stormed straight off the set. What was that all about? It appears the original airing didn’t tell the whole story.

In the world of Apple, Apple has shipped both its new AirPort Extreme base station and the 102.11n enabler upgrade. Don’t forget about the new Shuffle colors either. With all these upgrades, let’s hope there will be some news about Leopard and iLife 07. At least give us 10.4.9. I’m desperately waiting for the sleep fix the update is supposed to provide.

Finally, in my personal life, I was able to get my RAZR fixed yesterday. Late last week the front screen died on it, leaving part of the phone dysfunctional. Since my warranty only was valid for 90 days, I didn’t think Verizon would be able to do anything for me. Figuring it was at least worth a shot, I took it to the Verizon store yesterday. After a two hour wait, the Verizon techs replaced the phone for free. Not bad, just wish it wouldn’t have taken so long.

This year I believe Apple will start the show off dealing with multimedia. Apple is once again going to be stepping it up in the multimedia department in order to maintain their dominance. In this category I foresee:

• Wide-screen Video iPod (it has to happen sometime).
• “iTV” with 102.11n and a hard drive for media purchases + buffer for G networks.
• More movie studios signing on to the iTunes Movie Store.
• The option to rent movies, countering the Xbox 360′s offering.

Next, Jobs will shift the focus to what’s on everyone’s mind – Leopard. He’ll finally reveal the hidden features which will be an updated Finder and my earlier prediction of Parallels being integrated into the OS. After giving a full demo of the features of Leopard, he’ll announce a March ship date.

Once Leopard has been discussed, Jobs will come up with some cleaver line to bring the focus back to hardware. It’s then when he’ll announce a new Mac mini with not only upgraded specs, but a new design. After the mini, he’ll go on to announce a midrange tower Mac, dubbed “Mac”. Oh, and let’s not forgot about the updated Cinema displays featuring iSight. He probably won’t mention it here, but it will be in there somewhere.

Finally, Jobs will unleash the famous “One more thing…” line, and amaze us all with the announcement of the iPhone. It will be kick-ass but only work on GSM networks, leaving CDMA customers (like myself) out in the cold. Features will be identical to what Kevin Rose leaked, leaving Kevin Rose once again Apple rumor king.

What do you think Apple will release or announce? I know I can’t wait to find out. Only seven more days to Macworld…

This year is perhaps the first year I have purchased software. Previously application purchases were left up to my parents or (gasp) Usenet. That’s changed a lot this year, and I’ve finally cleaned up my act (for the most part). So, without further ado, here’s the list.

My 2006 Application Purchases

• Assignment Planner – Has been invaluable in keeping track of the many assignments I receive at Penn State.
• AppZapper – I use it all of the time to cleanup applications I have been testing.
• BetterZip – It’s basically WinZip for Mac, but without the unneeded bloat. It has some handy features such as stripping the Mac resources files from created archives.
• Cha-Ching – Didn’t technically buy it, but received it in a MacHeist heist. It’s been perfect for keeping track of my personal finances.
• CSSEdit2 – Used it for my web design class and redesigning cavemonkey50.com. Wouldn’t have been able to work on websites as fast as I did without it.
• Disco – While most people will say there are better free alternatives, I still like Disco. I love the animations, and it really does make burning a million times easier.
• Flickr iPhoto Export – The most convenient way to get my photos from iPhoto into my Flickr account. A little pricey, but it seems to have been worth it.
• MacHeist Bundle – Delicious Library, FotoMagico, iClip, Newsfire, and TextMate – These are all great applications which I didn’t have before MacHeist and have worked their way into my regularly used applications.
• OmniOutliner Pro – Been using it since I got my MacBook. I take all my class notes with it, and its search function makes studying a breeze.
• Parallels – While I love my Mac, I can’t escape Windows at Penn State. I’ll occasionally need to boot up Windows to test a website in IE, or program a C++ program. For those times, Parallels has done the job exceptionally.
• Pukka – Cheap application for bookmarking to Del.icio.us.
• Synergy – I use it almost every second to control iTunes and submit my listened tracks to Last.fm.
• Transmit – No other FTP app stands a chance.

Upcoming Purchases in 2007

• Adobe CS3 Educational – I pretty much require this now with all the web work I do. Looking forward to CS3 being so much faster on an Intel Mac.
• Leopard – This is given. Though, I probably won’t install it until my next semester is over.
• Microsoft Office 2007 Education Version – If Microsoft can get Office 2007 out on Mac this year, I will be buying it.
• TextMate – I love this application so much that I’ll be buying the updated version for Leopard.
• Xtorrent – As soon as Xtorrent is publicly released, I’m buying it. It’s the only Mac torrenting app worth using.

There’s my list, now what have you bought or are planning to buy?

As an Anonymous Coward said on Slashdot:

The constant improvement that this product has seen in its short existence is astounding. When you consider that it costs only $80 and has no competition at this time, it almost seems like they’re working too hard on it.

This got me thinking, could Apple have purchased Parallels? If you at look at the facts, it begins to add up. The Parallels team has been releasing new features like crazy and hasn’t been charging for them. They’ve added features like Boot Camp support, making Parallels compatible with Apple’s offering. The new Coherency mode is approaching what some people have envisioned the next version of Boot Camp to be like. To top it off, 3D acceleration is expected to land in Parallels right around the time that Leopard is shipping.

I might be completely wrong, but to me it looks like something is going on behind the scenes. If Apple has purchased Parallels, I think that explains why the Parallels team has been releasing features out the wazoo without charging for them. This won’t be the first time Apple has included third party software in one of their offerings, so I think this scenario is completely possible.

Part of the problem might be our mindset. It’s easy to think that the Worldwide Developer’s Conference is for consumers. While consumers certainly benefit from the conference, the main focus is developers. If you look at it from that sense, Apple delivered everything developers wanted. They released professional-grade machines and showed off features of Leopard which are important to developers. Leopard features like a new Finder or virtualization technology are things which can be added later with very little effect on developers, and the existing Macs can easily get a Core 2 speed bump with just a simple press release.

The Hardware

Now that we’re in the right mindset, it’s time to talk about what was announced. Apple released some amazing new hardware. The Mac Pros are insane powerhouses, with the Xserves getting a huge speed bump over previous hardware. While I won’t be purchasing a Mac Pro, the prices are perfect. Apple’s standard configuration is perfect for just about anyone’s needs, and it doesn’t break the bank either. What’s even better is the price when you downgrade some components. If you change the dual 2.5 GHz processors to dual 2.0 GHz processors and only get a 160 GB hard drive, combined with the student discount, it’s only $1950. That’s not bad at all considering a slower MacBook Pro is right around that price.

Finally, I’m very impressed with Apple’s build-to-order options on their new machines. Apple has always stuck with pretty much standard configurations across their product line since there wasn’t very many options with the PowerPC chip. Now that Apple is on the x86 platform, they have a more room for flexibility, which is showing through in the amount of configurable options on the new machines. I’m looking forward to seeing what other options Apple will provide for their other machines in the future.

Leopard

While nothing too groundbreaking was announced with Leopard, I’m still very exited. First of all, I can’t wait for Time Machine. I don’t backup enough, and when I do backup, I don’t have a great method. I’m dragging files to an external drive or CD, just like Steve Jobs mentioned. Having a Subversion-like solution for OS X will just be amazing. There have been times where I have accidentally overwritten files, so selective restoring will be perfect for me. There has also been times where I’ve wanted to do a complete restore, so that functionality of Time Machine will rock also. Apple seems to have created the perfect backup solution for anyone with external storage.

The other major feature that Apple has announced is Spaces. I’m not too excited about Spaces at all. I’ve always found multiple desktops confusing, so it’s a feature I probably won’t be using. However, Apple does seem to have a couple of great ways to try and prevent it from getting confusing. Spaces exposé seems like a great way to easily see where everything is, and if you’re really lost, clicking on the application’s dock icon is perfectly for jumping to the “space” which contains that application. Maybe Apple’s approach will finally get me to use multiple desktops, but for now, I’m not jumping for joy.

Finally, hearing about updates to Mail, iCal, Spotlight, Dashboard, iChat, Front Row, and Boot Camp is certainly getting me excited. I’ve tried Apple’s Mail in the past, and never could switch to it. This upcoming version looks like it will finally bring me onboard. In regards to iCal, that’s another application which I haven’t really touched. Depending on how well it integrates with Mail, I might find myself using that application also.

Advanced searching and application launching with Spotlight is something that should have been there from the beginning, so it will be a welcome addition. The new ways to create widgets are looking great for Dashboard, especially how easy it will be for anyone to create a widget. The new iChat also sounds great, especially sporting its new Unified interface. From the previews of it, it looks like it will finally have a combined buddy list for different services, a welcome addition. Finally, while we don’t know what’s coming for Front Row and Boot Camp, just hearing that they’re going to be updated is music to my ears.

Conclusions

While this year’s WWDC Keynote was a disappointment for many people following the rumor sites, if you were trying to stick with reality, I think it was perfect. The new professional-grade hardware is blowing the competition away at a cheaper price, and Leopard’s new features are already ahead of Vista. Things are only going to get better from here.

Apple has laid the frameworks for a great operating system, and when they report on Leopard at Macworld in January, I’m sure they’re going to have some more great features and enhancements to tell us about.

Since this is the start of a new year, this month’s header also reflects that. I think this year is going to be the year of the Mac, but only if Apple wants it to be. The reason I say that is if Apple doesn’t change a thing on how they sell their computers, nothing will change for them. However, if Apple takes advantage of their opportunities they can achieve a greater desktop market share.

Basically Apple has two ways to get a greater market share. With the upcoming Intel Macs (possibly this month at Macworld), Apple has an opportunity to lower the price on their computers. Apple will now be using “regular” computer parts, so they will have more options to cut costs in a similar fashion to companies such as Gateway and Dell. Price has always been one of the factors that has kept me away from Macs, so a lower priced computer would definitely be a stronger reason for people (including myself) to make the switch.

Apple’s second opportunity is a stretch, but I have a feeling it is going to happen. I have a feeling that sometime this year we will see a boxed version of OS X for any desktop computer. This solution would easily propel Apple to the top of the desktop market share. Right now the majority of Windows users are constantly suffering from virus, spyware, etc. If they could switch to a better OS while keeping their existing computer parts, I’m sure they would. My own parents have expressed their interest in a Mac if they could just keep the existing machine they have already invested money into. This seems to be a common trend among Windows users. If Apple would sell a reasonably cheap version of OS X (under $200) I think Apple would find a lot of people switching to their OS. I know this is going to be a hard adjustment for Apple since they have always been a hardware company, but admit it Apple; at this point in time your OS is better than your hardware.

Regardless of what happens, this is going to be a very interesting year for Apple. With the iPod effect, the upcoming Intel transition, Leopard (10.5) later in the year, and Microsoft’s upcoming failed Vista launch, tides may be changing in the desktop arena soon. I look forward to seeing what 2006 will bring to the year of the Mac.