TUAW first look and giveaway: Courier simplifies Mac media sharing
Sharing your files, photos, movies, and images with others through online services can sometimes be a hassle for Mac users. For some of us, it's possible to get all of the various interconnections between services set up in such a way that one tweet sends a photo to Facebook, Flickr, and a variety of other services. But for a surprising number of Mac users, it just isn't that easy.
Realmac Software is in the business of making things easy. They're the folks who make website design easy with RapidWeaver, and they've just come out with a tool to make media sharing as easy as putting a stamp on an envelope. Courier (US$19.95 introductory price) is designed so that anyone, even your Mom, can easily upload photos, movies, and the like to a pile of services.
A download of Courier is available for a limited trial, and you can make an in-app purchase of the app if you like it. We're going to be giving away five copies of Courier to TUAW readers, so read up on how the app works and then enter the giveaway. Check out the gallery below for a few screenshots, and then read on for a look at this Mac application.
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Like most Realmac apps, Courier is fairly stylish. The icon is a small courier bag with the letters RMS (Realmac Software) on it, and launching the application displays a wood shelf similar to that seen in iBooks and Delicious Library. On that shelf is an envelope. At this time you select either a realistic international airmail envelope or a Realmac manila envelope; I'm sure someone will probably develop other envelope themes for the app, as you can download the Theme SDK for free. Courier's features require Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and a 64-bit capable Mac.
When you tap the traditional pencil-like edit icon below the envelope, a pane of stamps appears. There are stamps for Amazon S3, Ember, Facebook, Flickr, FTP, Vimeo, and YouTube. I can see where Courier could easily be the most simple FTP client ever, and you could set up anyone to upload images to an FTP server. You add stamps for the various destinations to the envelope, authorize the services the first time (give your user name and password for the service), optionally give the envelope a name, and then the fun begins.
To send photos, movies, or other files to various sites, you simply drag and drop them on the envelope and then press the Deliver button. The app displays a small map that shows the location you're sending from and the location of the destination server, and it displays a dotted line that is progressively filled in with red as the file upload is underway.
These maps are saved as a history of your uploads to various services, so you see exactly which files you sent on a particular day. I didn't find Courier to be particularly fast, but it is certainly easy to use. As a Courier user, you can create any number of envelopes, each set up to deliver files to specific locations or groups of locations. If your favorite service isn't supported at this time, just wait. Realmac will have a plug-in SDK available soon so you can create your own "stamp" for a specific destination. In addition to the default destinations described above, there are CloudApp and TwitPic stamps available for download.
That ease of use is what Realmac Software was aiming for, and they are definitely on target with Courier. If you'd like to be one of five TUAW readers to get a free license for Courier, then leave us a comment telling us what file you'd like to send to a specific service (i.e., a picture of yourself to Flickr) and that will enter you into the giveaway. Here are the details:
Open to legal US residents of the 50 United States, the District of Columbia, and Canada (excluding Quebec) who are 18 and older.
To enter, leave a comment telling us what file you'd like to send to a specific online service.
The comment must be left before midnight on Friday, September 10, 2010, 11:59PM Eastern Daylight Time.
You may enter only once.
Five winners will be selected. All will receive one software code for Courier, valued at $24.99
Good luck!
