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Thanks to my new PSP, I don’t think I’ll ever finish this column. If you own Sony’s new gaming device, you understand why; it’s that addictive. A few days ago, I sold three of my game consoles just so I could purchase a PlayStation Portable. I don’t believe in gadget overkill, so I try to keep my shelves lean. As a general rule, I dislike Sony’s empire; it is all about creating unnecessarily proprietary formats for no reason other than to force users to stay within its brand. I don’t swallow that tripe, and you shouldn’t either. However, Sony broke the mold with the PSP, making everything else seem antiquated in the blink of a cursor.
I was willing to trade in my GameCube, PS2, Nintendo DS, and a handful of games for a single handheld experience. Why bother sticking with systems that seemed to be only collecting dust? Seldom do I find myself sitting in front of the television for any reason, so I’ve never been too hip on being tethered to a TV. The DS was a wonderful diversion, but I found myself unimpressed, bored rather, with its dated graphics engine. The PSP (and its growing set of titles) has been a breath of fresh air, drawing me into pixel seclusion at any given moment.
Too bad I can’t say the same about the Windows platform, eh?
Software for Windows is generally uninspired, generically cloned, and overwhelmingly wrought with lackluster (read: lousy) user interfaces. There’s too much coal and not enough diamonds within the sphere of downloads. The greatest pieces of software are plagued by unintelligent design, and very few rise to the level of ubiquity. Windows users don’t have a strong sense of belonging; there’s no user community rallying around the platform. We use the computer, certainly, or is the computer using us?
A few months ago, Apple made a move to win over the minds, hearts, and fingers of the world’s most curious users. Since iPod mania has stretched well beyond the confines of OS X, getting geeks to spend another $500 or so on a completely different experience was wise. It’s not likely to attract a noticeable amount of folks, but enough to make a difference in mindshare. I already see it happening. The “coolest” software today seems only to have been developed for OS X. Prove me wrong, CPU readers.
One application that typifies the creative elegance that you can find on systems outside of Windows is Comic Life from Plasq (plasq.com). Be forewarned: It’s likely to drive even the most die-hard Windows user to switch to OS X. It runs well, looks amazing, and does something so incredibly unique you’ll find yourself wanting to take more digital pictures just to make another comic strip out of ’em. Yes, Comic Life turns your images into comics, and anybody can use it, as there’s virtually no learning curve. Plasq is planning on developing a Win32 binary but is hard-pressed for an able developer at the moment (no surprise). That hasn’t led me to keep it a secret, though; you need to know what you’re missing because you’re missing a lot.
With Apple’s release of Tiger, widgets--desktop applets that each serve one purpose--have jumped to the forefront of everybody’s imagination. Why? Because they look slicker than snot! Windows users might argue that Stardock (stardock.com) has had DesktopX for years. That’s true, but 99% of its existing widgets look absolutely horrendous. At that point, what’s the point? Again, we come back to the concept that Windows software developers rarely develop any kind of pleasant UI. There may be hope with Kapsules (kapsules.shellscape.org), although it suffers from a lack of useable widgets. Konfabulator (www.konfabulator.com) has an OS X and Windows version of its rendering engine with an extensive collection of sweet-smelling widgets, but each one sucks up an insane amount of system resources (making the utility completely unusable for an extended period of time). At least it’s cross-platform.
Getting back to the PSP, I can only find one computer-based utility worth registering and using regularly. It’s PSPWare (www.nullriver.com/index/products/pspware). It’s not from Sony, and it only runs on OS X. It also plans on porting its fantastic front-end to Windows eventually. Wait a second. Wasn’t the shoe on the other foot just a few years ago? All the cool developers have moved to OS X, it seems. Hell must’ve frozen over? 
You can dialogue with Chris at chris@cpumag.com. |
