I’ve been using Delicious Library since it was released. The new version has been in development for a long time. It won an Apple Design Award at WWDC in 2007. I didn’t think this was right. Applications should be available to win an award.
I really liked Delicious Library 1 and the interface that it presented. I liked the flow of the eye from left to right in the window. Indeed this was used as an example of good Mac OS X application design. It was however a bit slow.
Various snippets of information that have come out about Delicious Library 2 have outlined how it would require Mac OS X 10.5 and it would use lots of the technologies that Leopard delivers. Well it’s out now. What’s it like? In my opinion its a step backward from the previous version. The new one is certainly snappier but they have changed the Interface and moved the info section from the right of the window to below the shelf view. The whole concept of the flow of the eye from left to right has been broken. On my MacBook Air with its small screen the new version is largely unusable. I’m really, really disappointed. You can’t even double click on an item in the library and get a separate window to view detail information. Plus there are bugs, such as: it shows links to Amazon as Amazon (null) in the Item menu and the Context menus. I expect this should be Amazon (United Kingdom) in my case. I store my iTunes Library when using my MacBook Air on an external disk with an Alias to the iTunes folder in my Music folder. It doesn’t seem to like this and the iTunes import didn’t work. I’ve been waiting for this for ages to replace the slow v1. I’m afraid the new version isn’t for me.
Instead I’ve bought the Bruji bundle of their 4 ‘pedia apps to store my book, DVD, Game and Music info. Those apps imported my info from Delicious Library with no problems. They are fast on the MacBook Air. They give me a better view of the data on the Air display than Delicious Library 2 did and the CDpedia app imports my iTunes music info. One downside is that there are 4 apps instead of one. I’ve created a small Applescript app to start all 4 at once and have stuck that in the Dock with a nice icon showing a storage box. So a single click gives me access to all the apps.
The bundle cost me 3 times what the Delicious Library upgrade would have. I think it was worth it. If Delicious Library 2 wins another Apple Design Award this year it’ll be a travesty.