I love my software as children, and while I have unconditional love for Acquisition, in 2007 it started showing jealous tendencies as I showered attention on the new kids Xtorrent and Inquisitor.

However, now that the kids are walking, I’m able to spend more time on Acquisition and I genuinely think its best years are ahead. Acquisition 2 is a major new release of the software, many months in the coming. Almost every aspect of the Acquisition user experience has been refined and rethought, with a brand-new search list with folders, a newly designed downloads view and query results view, an improved media player and metadata browser, and higher performance searching and downloading.

Acquisition 2 is hands-down the best Acquisition ever, and looking back at the five years since I started this project, it’s astonishing how far its come. I just hope Xtorrent doesn’t become envious of its handsome elder brother.

Please note: Acquisition 2 is considered a major upgrade, and registrations from previous versions will not work. Qualifying users (those with lifetime upgrade options or who purchased at certain times in the past) have already been sent new activation codes for Acquisition 2. If you qualify and have not received a code, you obviously should contact the developer.

As I mentioned previously, there are some obscure issues with Leopard that have become apparent. In my continuing effort to ensure the best user experience for all Mac users, I’m releasing Xtorrent 1.1 (v53) today to address these issues. This release also has some non-Leopard improvements, so it is recommended for all Xtorrent users.

Last up on the docket is Acquisition, though there are more wide-ranging changes planned, so it may not emerge for a day or two.

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So far, Leopard is proving to be a quite reasonable upgrade in terms of not breaking existing software. However, as the days pass, a few issues are making themselves apparent. One problem I’ve encountered is that text shadows do not render consistently between 10.4 and 10.5, meaning that additional work is required to make things look the same between the two systems. I might post more on this later, because I’m reasonably convinced that it’s either a bug or a very strange design decision.

Another problem is that the new “set access for specific services and applications” firewall settings is creating issues by unexpectedly modifying the binary code of apps (by forcing a code signature on the unsuspecting binary). This has created issues for NewsFire as well as other third-party apps. Thus, during these early days I would advise using this setting with caution.

That said, these issues are certainly not insurmountable, and so today I’m releasing NewsFire 1.4 (v70) as a first pass attempt to refine the user experience on Leopard for the rare user experiencing issues. Similar updates for Xtorrent and Acquisition will be coming along in the next few days (though, as I’ve said, everything should work quite well for the average user).

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It’s been quite unclear for many months what the status of Inquisitor would be upon the arrival of Mac OS X Leopard. The official word was that extensions like Inquisitor would be banned from the system, and while workarounds began to quickly appear on the scene, a more solid footing was always hoped for. Now that Leopard has shipped, the picture is more clear.

The short story is this… Inquisitor works. The shipping Leopard did not completely remove extensions, it simply has imposed stronger security conditions on them. Because of the new conditions, Inquisitor installations carried over from Mac OS X Tiger will not work. Any Leopard users will need to download and run the newly packaged Inquisitor 3.0 (v49) installer that has been rebuilt to accommodate the new Leopard environment, and after that Inquisitor should work just fine.

So, for now we should be all set. That said, I don’t doubt that Apple will create more headaches for us the next time around.

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