If there’s one app that every Mac user knows about, it’s Delicious Library. This is the first ‘wow’ app that you come across (at least in the pre-Core Animation days), that kind of sold you on to the Mac platform. To those who don’t know what Delicious Library is, I’m surprised. Here’s a brief bio of the app anyway.
Delicious Library for the Mac
Even in this digital age, we still have offline media. It’s inevitable that you own a bunch of DVDs, books, and other such valuables. Delicious Library is sort of a digital catalogue of your offline media. With version 2.0, Delicious brought in support for cataloguing hardware tools, gadgets, toys, and video games (among a host of other features). The user interface also took a facelift, with better organisation of items.
The thing that makes it special is the stupendously easy way to add items to your catalogue. Simply hold the barcode in front of your iSight and it will match that to an item in the Amazon database, and pull all the required info from the cloud. You can also enter the ISBN number, title, or any other helpful keyword to pull down that info.
Once you’ve got everything organised, your friend pops in wanting to borrow that Lord of the Rings Box Set. Simply drag that from your library to his name in the sidebar, and you’ve assigned it to him. You can even set a reminder to let you know when it’s been too long. And finally, Delicious Library generates beautiful web galleries with all your media, which can be published to your FTP server or direct to your MobileMe account. This is a feature well done.
Now I personally don’t use Delicious Library on my Mac, considering that I have just 2 DVDs and have lost all my toys when I was 12, but I can imagine the huge number of people who would find it useful. Delicious Library costs $40 for a license, and is well worth it if you have the goods to fill up that library.
Delicious Library for iPhone
For the longest time Shipley has been talking about an iPhone app, which finally released a few days ago. Delicious Library for iPhone a free app, and is meant to be an extension to Desktop version.
After a quick sync up, the version is ready to display all your possessions. The library on the iPhone is totally read-only, as you can’t do even the slightest of edits (not even add a rating). From a user interface point of view it couldn’t have been done better. A nice wooden finish throughout the interface, with each item displayed card very much alike a library card.
To me the most interesting bit is that you can see what media is present in your iTunes library. This is really helpful if you’re trying to remember what movies you’ve got in iTunes, or want to know if you already have songs by this particular artist. After all, you can’t carry your entire iTunes library on your iPhone. And neither last nor least, by the very nature of this being an iPhone app, the ‘loan’ feature becomes totally useful. You meet your friend, and you know he has a bunch of your discs. This time you know exactly what stuff he has of yours, and the proof is in the iPhone! There’s even a picture of the offender you can point at.
The app is a must have for users of the desktop version. It’s free, and it works. For those who aren’t using the desktop version, maybe this might tickle your interests.
That said, it’s not what I had hoped for. The iPhone app is an excellent extension sure, but I was hoping for something more. Imagine walking around your house, barcoding books and discs, rating items by the touch, and then syncing it back to your Mac. That kind of convenience will never be offered by a Mac, which would have made a full blown iPhone app perfect. Ah a geek can dream now can’t he!
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Apple won’t allow access to the camera APIs. That’s why they can’t make the iPhone version scan stuff. I’d like to see a manual option for adding stuff tho, on the iPhone.
Also, a way to be able to adjust the dimensions of the artwork field to match my scans would be nice. I’ve got a lot of old books that don’t match standard dimensions today, and trying to fiddle with the media type isn’t always satisfactory.
Other than that, these apps are great, and rock solid. Sync works like a charm, and it is great to have that info at yard sales, second hand book stores, etc., when looking at potential purchases.
Oh that’s awesome! Thanks for the link.
the link doesn’t work to the itunes store! did they take it down? I’ve been looking around the internet to find out what happened and I don’t understand.
Delicious Monster was forced to take down their iPhone app by Amazon (just google it). It’s no longer available on the store. (Lucky for those of us who downloaded it before that though).