Kickoff
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Kickoff for Mac adds planning to group chat
Imagine iChat, Messages or IRC merged with your favorite to-do system like Things, Clear or Taskpaper. You get Kickoff. Now available in a public beta, this OS X Mountain Lion app helps groups coordinate and plan together. It's superficially similar to the 37 Signals web chat tool Campfire, but in convenient app form. The app offers strong team features including separate message threads for tasks, a main chat "room" and easy file sharing. Just drag a file into the chat and it easily replaces email distribution. Even better, the conversations and chat threads are preserved when you leave, so you can scroll back and pick up where you left off, catching up with whatever tasks, discussions and updates have been covered. I do worry, a little, that among chatty teams (and trust me, the TUAW team is full of chat), the amount of back and forth may distract from catching key info. Being able to move important matters from the primary discussion to actual to-do tasks helps mitigate that worry. Overall, I was very impressed with my initial testing. I think Kickoff is definitely a product to keep an eye on. Here's the Kickoff promotional video.
New product announcement cancelled? (updated)
According to one of our tipsters, the "kickoff webcast" that Christina mentioned over the weekend has been either delayed or cancelled. A link distributed to webcast participants is, according to the tipster, no longer working. The webcast was scheduled for 10 a.m. Pacific time. What does this mean for the rumored "Brick"? It's difficult to say. Apple does tend to make product announcements on Tuesdays, but I suppose there's no reason why Apple couldn't deliver the webcast anytime between today and the product's scheduled launch date. Also, it could be that our tipster is just suffering network problems. If you know more about the webcast, please tip us! Your anonymity is our guarantee. Thanks, Matt! Update: Another anonymous tipster wrote in to tell us that the webcast did proceed as scheduled, but did not discuss new products (only things like metrics for the next quarter, and marketing strategies for Black Friday in the United States). The tipster said the password for the webcast was changed a day or two ago, which was probably why Tipster Matt couldn't connect. Thanks, Apple Reseller!
