SaS: Software as a Soul
It has been said people don’t build strong bonds with their software, that people relate to physical stuff, the hardware, and not the code making all that glass, aluminum & plastic come to life. However, I beg to greatly differ.
Yes, it’s true: it’s a lot easier to fall in love (so to speak) with a physical object, such as your new DSLR, your new smartphone, or your new laptop. You tend to imagine how things will be with your new kit, and inspire yourself at the sort of things you’ll be able to do with your new device. Then, time lapses, and the bond eventually becomes much stronger, having shared a lot of moments and made unforgettable memories next to your (now not so new) hardware. Time continues to lapse (or not), and something happens (emotional or otherwise), and you lose faith on what was once your source of inspiration.
Why emotional or otherwise? Well, because if you attach your new piece of kit to a memory, and that memory flips from being something as sweet as honey to something as painful as a stab right through your heart, then it stops being something you want to be next to, because it becomes a reminder of a past you don’t want to be reminded of. But the loss of inspiration can be outside emotional boundaries, too - maybe you just bought something new (an iPad 2, a D7000) and shortly after, you find out there’s something brand new that gives you a run for your own money; had you waited just a tiny little bit more, you might’ve gotten yourself a Retina Display equipped iPad 2 or a better DSLR (D7100 / D600 where are you???). Now? You’re busted. Someone else will get the prize.
However, like all things in life, there’s always that little spark, that little thing that can bring you back to life. Emotionally, all it takes is just one new positive memory to get you back on track, and otherwise, all it takes is something new - a new functionality - to spark once again your dreaming capabilities and bring your old piece of kit back to life.
In my case, I felt a bit haunted by the new Retina Display MacBook Pro: for the same money I bought my 17” MacBook Pro, I would’ve gotten a Retina Display (which I appreciate a lot due to my extended periods of time looking at the screen) with reduced glare, better graphics, battery life, AND SSD!! I got over it, though, and I’ll leave that for later (I promise, I will cover the subject), but the thing that sparked that little dream back into my big and now in extinction laptop was this “little” piece of software.
As always, Tapbots first teased & kept on teasing about their latest project, and although it looked in good shape from the pictures, I never thought they’d release it so soon, and I’d bet a lot I wasn’t the only one, but they did, and I’m terribly glad they did.
We’ve spoken about Tapbots before, and I couldn’t be happier about their incursion into the Mac scene: as I’ve repeated a million times, for me, currently the best twitter client available is MetroTwit, but it’s exclusive for Windows, so we’ve got to look in the Mac camp,and Twitter for Mac isn’t what it used to be. It now feels terribly dumbed down for me (have I said this before? Sorry if I’m repeating myself about this), and TweetDeck, the closest thing to MetroTwit I’ve managed to find this side of the PC pond, doesn’t “fulfill me”; I love the similar multi-column layout, but somehow I feel it misses many things, and I can’t completely embrace it. Tweetbot for the Mac may not have the multi-column layout I enjoy seeing on my screen, but it does allow me to work and look at my twitter stream at the same time (when my work’s browser related), and somehow, it’s sparked a feeling of “new” to everything I do with my Mac: it can be browsing, coding, or anything else that can come to your mind, but now I count with Tweetbot to the left side of my desktop as shown in this post’s cover picture (shot by me with large-exposure technique using a D80 on the kit lens), and my whole Mac experience has been refreshed.
Speaking about the app itself, I can highly recommend it. It’s everything I wanted it to be, and it’s only in Alpha stages right now (version 0.6.2 if you want me to be precise). I love the little touches like the yellow and black stripped ribbon at the bottom-left corner, the timeline animations, the pie being filled as a screenshot is downloaded, and more. It’s not perfect right now: lagging animations; weird glitches; a weird “new Tweet” pop-up that doesn’t always work; excessive use of my Sandy Bridge cores, but it does its job well, and I’m glad Tapbots took this new path with Tweetbot for Mac’s development.
Of course, this being Tapbots, there’ll be more talk about Tweetbot for Mac in the future. You can count on it ;)
You can get Tweetbot for Mac here.
