RogueAmoeba
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Rogue Amoeba releases free Ringtone Maker
Today brings a lovely treat from Rogue Amoeba, the makers of Audio Hijack Pro and Fission. They've posted MakeiPhoneRingtone, a free utility that converts any AAC file into an iTunes 7.4.27.4.1-compatible Ringtone. Drop the file onto its window and a second or two later, it appears in iTunes as a new ringtone. No file renaming, no special tricks. It just worked. I synced it over to my iPhone without any snags. Of course, Rogue Amoeba hopes that you'll use its Fission editor to make those ringtones. If you're like me and prefer non-music-ringtones, its Audio Hijack Pro may be a better choice for recording sounds like a knock on the door or the most annoying ringtone ever made.
TUAW Tip: Hiding the cursor when zoomed
RogueAmoeba just linked to Mark Johns' easy little app called Cursorceror. He loves the Ctrl/scroll wheel trick, just as I do (holding Ctrl and using the scroll wheel allows you to zoom in on any part of your desktop-- especially useful for watching Flash movies fullscreen very quickly), and he wanted to get the cursor out of the way quickly, so he wrote Cursorceror to attach hiding the cursor to a hotkey-- make it appear and disappear at will.The only problem is that he didn't have to do all of that. Turns out that when you're zoomed in (in most applications, including the major browsers), hitting any key at all will automatically hide the cursor for you. So if all you want to do is watch Flash videos fullscreen, just zoom in, tap a key, and watch your videos cursor-free.Johns' wittily-named app didn't completely go to waste though-- while hiding the cursor is easy most of the time, the keystrokes you hit will still be received by whatever program has focus, and so handing off the task to Cursorceror will keep you from making any mistakes while keying. Also, not all programs will apparently let the keystrokes through (I couldn't get the cursor to hide in iTunes or GraphicConverter in my quick tests), so Cursorceror will come in handly if you want instant hiding no matter what app has focus. It will also hide the cursor after a set time limit, which, as far as I know, OS X won't normally do.
TUAW Interview series with Paul Kafasis: The Leopard delay - does it change anything?
The interview series with developers on Apple's delay of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard has gone really well, with great responses from Brent Simmons and Wil Shipley already offering insight into the mind and perspective of a developer. Next up to the plate is Paul Kafasis of Rogue Amoeba, makers of such apps as Fission, AirFoil and Audio Hijack Pro. I never realized that Paul apparently does most of his coding from his beach-side manor (I kid, of course), but I nevertheless was thankful that he took the time out of his day to offer his take on Leopard's delay, backwards compatibility and whether Apple should open up the Apple TV and iPhone to 3rd party goodness. Paul offers some great thoughts on all this and more, along with some choice advise for budding developers. Read on for my interview with Paul Kafasis on whether Leopard's delay changes anything for the state of Apple.
Apple TV works with standard square TVs
Paul Kafasis, CEO of Rogue Amoeba, confirms what I suspected all along: Apple TV does work with regular old TVs that have component ins. This is despite Apple's warnings that one must have a widescreen HDTV in order to take advantage of the Apple TV. I assume Apple did this to avoid confusion, and to promote the best possible Apple TV experience, but this is good news to those of you who are interested in Apple TV but don't want to plunk down the money for a new high falutin TV.
Rogue Amoeba offers teaser and sign-up to test new mystery app
Oh Paul Kafasis, you clever Rogue Amoeba. What with your two-punch post of a teaser and sign-up offer for a new mystery app dubbed "AHT." What could this new app from the makers of Audio Hijack, Fission, Nicecast and Airfoil be? Is AHT simply a code name, or an acronym? Will AHT complement Rogue Amoeba's presence in the audio space, or will it be some new venture into RSS, video or even GTD? No one knows yet, but Paul said they'll be picking their first pool of testers on Wednesday, February 28th, so head on over and toss your name into the hat to test what I'm sure will be an excellent new offering from one of Mac OS X's much-respected 3rd parties.[Update: Rogue Amoeba has filled their list of testers for now, so the submission form has been closed.]
LineIn Audio Play-Through Utility
The positive reaction that greeted our recent post on Rogue Amoeba's free SoundSource menubar selector leads me to think that some of you might also be interested in another cool freebie from the same company. LineIn is a simple little utility, but if you need what it does, it's wonderful. It allows soft playthough for any device hooked up to an input on your Mac. That is, if you have a source hooked up to your line-in or mic jack, and you run LineIn, whatever is coming in on that jack will be played out through your standard output. Here's how I use it: my main monitor is a nice Dell widescreen with multiple inputs, which allows for picture-in-picture. I have a TV tuner hooked up to a spare input so that I can watch live TV in a small window in the corner of the main display. I hooked the audio out from the tuner to my Mac's line-in jack, and with a click of the "Pass Thru" button LineIn lets me hear the TV audio. Like I said, what it does is simple, but it does it very well.Like SoundSource, LineIn is a free download from Rogue Amoeba's Freebies Page.
SoundSource: Menubar Source Selector
Rogue Amoeba just announced the release of version 1.2 of their SoundSource menubar utility. They say that it "has been recoded from the ground up for better performance, and now also features an option to open the Audio MIDI Setup application." SoundSource sits in your menubar and allows you to easily change "your audio input and output sources with a single click" instead of going through the Sound Preference Pane in your System Preferences. If you have to switch sources on a regular basis (e.g. between different microphones, line-in sources, etc. while audio editing or podcasting) then this can be a really handy tool. Frankly the screenshot (right) is not terribly exciting on my machine since I don't have multiple sources to choose from, but nonetheless, you get the idea.SoundSource a free download from Rogue Amoeba's Freebies Page.
Rogue Amoeba's Paul Kafasis at Infinite Loop
According to Paul Kafasis of Rogue Amoeba, about the same time as he sat down with our very own David Chartier for TUAW Podcast #18, he also gave an interesting interview to the good folks over at Ars Tehnica's Infinite Loop. They talk about Rogue Amoeba's focus on audio, the controversy our own Laurie Duncan helped to start over what Paul dubbed The Delicious Generation, and more. So if you haven't already, first go listen to the podcast then check out the interview and you'll have more than met your recommended daily allowance of cool Mac audio developer news.
TUAW Podcast #18: Macworld interview with Brent Simmons and Paul Kafasis
On Friday of last week at Macworld 07, Brent Simmons (of NewsGator/ NetNewsWire/ MarsEdit fame) and Paul Kafasis (of Rogue Amoeba/Audio Hijack/Airfoil fame) were kind enough to unite their powers and sit down with me for an interview. For just over 20 minutes we discussed Macworld, the iPhone, the state of Mac OS X, being a developer, whether competition or web services are slowing them down and a whole lot more. The interview turned out great, but the audio needed a little cleanup. My XtremeMac MicroMemo usually does a good recording job with my iPod, but we did the interview in the large press room hall at Macworld so it picked up some background noise. It sounds pretty good now (thanks Mike!), and it should be a good listen for anyone interested in a perspective on the state of Apple and their products from two influential 3rd party developers.This TUAW Podcast #18 weighs in at just under 21MB, and can be had from this direct link, our iTunes Store Podcast directory or our own podcast RSS feed. Enjoy.P.S. - On a related note, our TUAW podcast is now listed in the digg podcast directory. Why not head over and show some love by digging our podcast and your favorite individual episodes?
Rogue Amoeba begins "Should I Exhibit At Macworld?" blogging series
Paul Kafasis of Rogue Amoeba has kicked off a new series at their company blog titled Should I Exhibit At Macworld?, breaking down the finer yet lesser-known details of how much it really costs software developers to exhibit at Macworld. This first post examines the various significant and hidden costs of appearing at the Apple event to end all Apple events, including: travel, cab fair, internet access, pressing trial CDs and, of course, the big whopper: the actual booth or kiosk itself. Some of these costs might sound like pocket change to some, but Paul tallies everything up and - considering what the Moscone Center charges for some of these things ($1095 for 4 days of internet access on the floor makes even the $12/day I paid in the hotel look appetizing) - offers a good checklist that can act as a guiding light to some, or a ton-o'-bricks reality check for others. Stay tuned for the other three parts of this series, as Paul foreshadows where he'll take it with this first post.
Audio Hijack Pro, Fission updated
Rogue Amoeba updated two of their audio apps yesterday. Audio Hijack Pro is now at version 2.7.1 while Fission was bumped to 1.1.1. Each app gets improved AAC compatibility with the iPod Shuffle, while Audio Hijack Pro now works better with a RadioShark. Some other minor bugs were killed off as well.Both updates are free to registered users.
Fission 1.1
Rogue Amoeba today announced the immediate availability of Fission 1.1, an update to their new audio editor. I have used Fission a few times, and I must say that this app is beautiful (dare I say delicious?). 1.1 adds the following features/fixes: Native WAV support Normalize command (to normalize audio) Looped playback Bug fixes Fission is a Univeral Binary that costs $32.
TUAW Podcast #15: The Delicious Cast
Fire up your favorite audio players ladies and gentlemen, for TUAW Podcast #15 is live and ready for consumption. This time around it was Laurie Duncan, Scott McNulty and I, and I'm delighted to say we have dramatically improved our recording setup to give you a much, much better and cleaner listening experience. Leaving iChat + GarageBand in the dust, we opted for Skype and the fantastic Audio Hijack Pro from Rogue Amoeba, and we sound worlds better, if I may say so myself (though to their credit, Apple seems to be the only one who has mastered two-click audio chat recording, complete with separate channels in GarageBand for each participant). Also, Scott and I were both using Blue Snowballs for our mics, and Laurie's is in the mail.Moving right along, we dub this The Delicious Cast because it was more of a chat about this brewing topic of The Delicious Generation, a term borne out of a post Paul Kafasis at Rogue Amoeba wrote concerning recent aspects of the Mac community like macZOT, Disco, My Dream App and MacHeist, as well as their relationship to Mac OS X's seemingly wayward UI and the recent discussion amongst developers at C4. Paul and many others have been philosophizing over what all these things mean for the community and the future of Mac OS X's usability, so the three of us decided to weigh in, podcast style. I just noticed, by the way, that Paul issued a follow-up to his original post, in case you're down for some more reading on the topic.This time around, the podcast weighs in at just over 23MB and 25 minutes. As always, you can grab it via direct link here, our iTunes Store podcast directory or with our dedicated podcast RSS feed. Enjoy, and be sure to drop us some feedback in the comments!
Fission 1.0
Rogue Amoeba, masters of Mac audio, has unleashed a brand new product onto the Mac populace: Fission. Fission is a very easy to use audio editor that lets you do a number of things to supported audio files (MP3, AAC, Apple Lossless and AIFF).Fission makes is a breeze to edit out unwanted audio (like all those 'ums' that sneak into podcasts) or split one audio file into multiple files, without any loss in fidelity. You can even use this to make MP3 ringtones for your cell phone.There is a free trial while the full version will cost you $32 (though owners of Audio Hijack Pro can get it for $18).
Audio Hijack Pro 2.7
Rogue Amoeba released Audio Hijack Pro 2.7 today making it a podcaster's dream. This already indispensable application has just gotten better with the addition of the 'MegaMix.' This feature (enabled by default if you are recording an iChat conversation) records incoming and outgoing audio from an application thereby making it very easy to record everyone in on an iChat conference call with one app (this also works in Skype and Gizmo).Read all about the changes here, and take a visual tour at Rogue Amoeba's blog.Audio Hijack Pro costs $32.
How to ask development questions 101
If you are a budding developer, there are a few different ways to seek help from your peers. Whether you send an email off to your hero developer or jump into a chat room, it's not just what you ask, but how you ask the question that can make all the difference. Mike Ash, a programmer for Rogue Amoeba (purveyors of Airfoil, Audio Hijack and Nicecast), has written a 10-point article of sorts offering advice on how to ask your coding questions so you can get the right answers. While I am in no way a code ninja of any sorts, I can see that many of Mike's points center on bringing clarity to the questions you ask so those taking time to help you understand the question, instead of having to spend most of their time trying to glean the proper question out of you.Mike's Getting Answers should be an insightful read for any developers who are (or perhaps: should be) seeking help on how to get help with their projects.[via Daring Fireball]
Fission
Rogue Amoeba is looking for beta testers for their new application: Fission. What's Fission? According to this post on the Rogue Amoeba blog which describes Fission as an audio editor that cuts and trims audio files without re-encoding.If you are interested in beta testing follow the directions on the blog and perhaps you will be amongst the lucky few.
Airfoil, Audio Hijack Pro can now "Minimize to Menu Bar"
Airfoil and Audio Hijack Pro, the slick Mac OS X audio broadcasting and recording (respectively) software from Rogue Amoeba, have just been updated with a handy new feature: minimize to menubar. It's a new preference that (you guessed it) will allow these apps to minimize into the menubar, with some features still accessible without having the entire app open on your desktop. Rogue Amoeba has provided a demonstration video to show off this small but functional new feature.
Airfoil for Windows
Rogue Amoeba, a leading indie Mac developer, has decided to enter the fast paced world of building Windows applications. Yes, folks, you read that correctly. Rogue Amoeba has ported Airfoil, a neat little application that allows you to stream audio other than iTunes to an Airport Express, to Windows.I have no idea how many Windows users have Airport Expresses, but more power to Rogue Amoeba. At the moment the Windows app is in a public beta, but before long it'll cost ya $25.
