The End of Delicious Library
Amazon has shut off the feed that allowed Delicious Library to look up items, unfortunately limiting the app to what users already have (or enter manually).
I wasn’t contacted about this.
I’ve pulled it from the Mac App Store and shut down the website so nobody accidentally buys a non-functional app.
Previously:
- Amazon Revokes Delicious Library API Access
- Elegy for the Native Mac App
- Disco, FlexTime, and the HIG
- Delicious Library
Update (2024-11-27): John Gruber (Mastodon):
20 years go by and there’s some inevitable nostalgia looking back at any art form. But man, Delicious Library exemplified an era of indie app development that, sadly, is largely over. And make no bones about it: Delicious Library was a creative work of art.
Update (2024-12-02): See also: John Siracusa in 2004 (via John Gruber, Mastodon).
What drew me to the Mac initially was its industrial design. My uncle had an iMac G4, the floating screen, the swivelling arm – the one that looked like a lamp – and I thought it was a beautiful piece of art. What kept me on the Mac though was the software, the software from third party independent ‘indie’ developers.
These apps were made by small teams, individuals even, hand-crafted with a focus on the the beauty and the little details.
[…]
I had proof that it was possible. That realisation, that it was possible to build apps like this for a living while also focussing on beautiful design, user experience and customer delight was what motivated me in my own way to start building apps. Making a living selling software online could be done, and Delicious Library had shown the way and provided the inspiration. First with Fontcase and then Sketch, both of which I’m proud to say have won an Apple design award as Mac-assed Mac apps.
Update (2024-12-10): See also: Slashdot.
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This was an early Mac OS X app purchase for me back in 2004 (20 years ago this month according to Quicken). I remember the first time I used Folder Actions was to automate the process of exporting the library to my Palm Pilot.
I stopped using it several years ago but can't now remember why; these days I just keep my libraries in a spreadsheet on iCloud. No pictures, but it lets me look up what I already own while shopping.
I just don't have physical media anymore. I have a box with some bluerays somewhere, but that's about it.
Also, how many of the people who used to make these kinds of apps back in the day just work for Apple now, or have left the Mac software market altogether?
Coming from Windows in 2006, Delicious Library was one of the first applications I saw, and it was the quintessential glass of fresh water to a person coming from the desert. Sad to see it go, and I'm so happy to see Wikipedia even has a page for it.
Sad to see Delicious Library go completely dark. :-C I don't remember when I started using it but it wasn't long after it was first published and I have continued using it up until this week when I realized it no longer pulled info from Amazon. I loved this app. End of an era.
Wonder is they could reliably screen scape CamelCamelCamel or similar?
Always drives me crazy when things shut down for technical reasons, but then I start wondering if that’s THE reason or, apologies for the camel quotient here, simply the last straw for a passion that’s run out.
@Ruffin He’s been at Apple for a while, but regardless I can certainly understand not wanting to switch it to use scraping.
This is not the first time Amazon has revoked API access. (I remember this personally because it impacted my use of Delicious Library 3, but this blog was — no surprise — one of the best sources for a synopsis of what happened.) Since it was already in maintenance mode since 2021 due to Shipley’s employment at Apple, I’m not surprised that he just decided it wasn’t worth it to argue with Amazon or try to find an alternate catalog-lookup method or source. If there had been a good alternative, he probably would have implemented it in 2017 already.
I’m guessing that most of the people who would be likely to purchase it had already purchased it in the past anyway, and fewer of us have physical books. I’ve still got a library of about 700 books, cataloged through DL3, and a few hundred more “ghost books” that I had in the past and had traded or sold back to used book stores, but I’ve bought comparatively few paper books over the last 10 years or so. Lack of space and better software and availability of ebooks pushed me to only buy a physical copy of books I really love. I think my last update to my DL3 library was around Christmas last year when I bought several books that I loved when I was in my early teens — that I couldn’t find in digital form — for my kids to read. So even someone like me, who is probably a far outlier for buying *real* books, hasn’t really had much use for or engagement with the app lately.
> I’ve... shut down the website so nobody accidentally buys a non-functional app.
That also shuts down the ability for anyone who's already registered to download the program again if they need to.
@Ruffin
It's not worth it anymore. 20 years ago, it might have been.
20 years ago, you'd have to deal with the fact that it's non trivial to scrape and Amazon can change its website easily to break scraping. And they can sue you, but back then they probably wouldn't.
Today, that's not the only risk since Apple makes it difficult to distribute an app without notarization difficult: customers have to go through especially convoluted steps to run it... and they might even remove the ability entirely in the future. Even notarized apps are difficult to distribute outside the AppStore. Witness the download fixer.
This chokehold Apple has arrogated itself means that Amazon could avoid the cost of going to court, and simply complain to Apple about "illegal" scraping, and I would expect Apple to withdraw an indie's notarization to avoid trouble with Amazon.
So what's the point? Wil already figured out working as an indie wasn't as valuable to him as having a stable job at Apple building what he's told. Why risk it?
