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18 Mar 2006
Client Analysis progress
By now I looked at 31 MicroContent Clients, which I checked against a 87-point checklist. The top three Clients are still the Clients created by Apple: iTunes, AddressBook and iPhoto. At place 5 the first non-Apple Client appears: MacGourmet.
The question is why the Clients appear at a top place. It depends a bit on the complexity of the MicroContent, Clients that offer flexibility and MicroWeb features score higher. It is especially important when a Client can pull in MicroContent from other places: attached devices, the local network or from internet. Also the import and export possibilities help the score. One should be able to get the information from many places and format. And one should be able to publish to many places and in many formats. And finally a Client should be a good MacOSX citizen and support as many infra-structural components of the operating system as possible.
I do not expect that other Clients will show me new items for the checklist, but I will keep following the MicroContent Client scene. The checklist I have compiled at the moment provides a good overview of the features of MicroContent Clients.
The top eleven Clients are:
- 63 points - iTunes;
- 52 points - AddressBook;
- 50 points - iPhoto;
- 48 points - iCal;
- 47 points - MacGourmet;
- 46 points - WebnoteHappy, Booxter;
- 45 points - NetNewsWire;
- 40 points - DeliciousLibrary, Endo, Yoyimbo;
Note that each new release of a Client might add new features that move a Client up. This is thus just a snapshot of the situation.