So long, Ant.

I downloaded iTunes 4.9 earlier today, but I'm finally playing with it now. I just discovered that it will, in fact, play videoblogs. This is awesome.

I've had a few complaints about Ant ever since I started using it. First, those stinking drawers. My screen resolution is set to 1024x768, and the drawer that shows all downloaded files extends off the bottom of the screen so I can't resize it. Also, there are no groups (as in NetNewsWire Lite) to clump similar vlogs together and save the subscription list from becoming entirely too long. And I don't see any easy way to Get Info on a particular subscription (to view, say, the URL for a feed).

I've tried iPodderX a few times, but I just don't like it. It tries too hard to be too much, and it runs butt slow on my computer. The only plus that iPodderX has that no other app does is that it can use the Mac's speech to read a text blog and put it in an MP3. I've never used that feature, even though I think it's really cool.

I want an app that just opens, downloads the files I want, plays them, saves them in an easy to locate directory, offers to move the file to the trash when I tell it to delete, and quits when I'm done with it (without that annoying fade out that iPodderX uses). Also, I'd like my podcasts to sync easily with iTunes.

So here comes iTunes 4.9. It has the best interface I've seen so far. It only takes about three clicks (at the most) to get a podcasted file to my iPod playlist. Also, it will strip the audio portion of a vlog entry and put it in an MP3 file that I can listen to on my iPod. I don't know how often I'll use that feature, but it's cool that it's there.

I can finally abandon all other podcasting/videoblog clients because iTunes 4.9 is everything I've been waiting for. Thank you, Apple.