Kaleidoscope is a new file comparison utility. As you’d expect from Sofa, the interface is pretty. It seems oriented towards designers, with some nifty ways of comparing images. It also has some good ways of comparing text files, but it doesn’t support editing or even applying changes. There’s an interesting tabbed interface so that you can see multiple pairs of files at once—rather than in sequence, as with some other tools. It doesn’t do folder comparisons like BBEdit or Changes. Overall, I think it’s prettier but less useful than Changes, with the same basic drawback: it isn’t quite integrated enough to fit into my workflow. I want more than the ability to set it as an external git diff tool.
Lately, I’ve been using GitX for viewing and accepting/rejecting diffs and BBEdit for deeper comparisons and editing. GitX is great for comparing against the HEAD and staging, but it doesn’t make it easy enough to get at previous versions of a given file or tree. And with BBEdit you’re totally on your own. Hopefully, one of these days BBEdit will get first-class Git support or I’ll have time to make some code contributions to GitX.
Kaleidoscope
My Frame was first accepted and then rejected from the App Store:
A month ago I wrote a blog post about how Apple were not actually evil, because I was getting sick of all the media hype and bashing that was going on. Little did I know that a month later that blog post would come back and smack me in the face. Just yesterday the company that I work for (Groundhog Software) got a phone call from Apple, telling us that our photo frame application for the iPad My Frame was to be removed from the Apple App Store. They refused to be pinned down to an exact reason, simply stating that they were doing a cull of any applications that presented widgets to the user. All the guy on the phone would say is how much he liked our application, and how sorry he was, but there was nothing he could do. All we got out of him was that Apple no longer liked ‘widgets’ and wanted all widget apps removed. They refused to say what (if anything) we could remove from our application, or even who we could discuss this with.
I wouldn’t even describe it as a widget app. It’s not trying to bypass the App Store or the iPad home screen. It seems like a nice collection of features. But regardless, this is ridiculous behavior on Apple’s part.
As of this writing, My Frame is still available. So, assuming this isn’t a marketing stunt—and I have no reason to believe that it is—you still have a chance to buy it if it looks useful to you.
Update (2010-06-03): It’s gone from the App Store.
