MacHeist is currently offering a special version of EventBox to visitors, so I decided I’d pick up a copy and try it out. One important thing to note is that this version is locked, it’s free so long as you don’t update it, once you update it starts a 14 day free trial, after which time you have to buy a license ($20 normally, $15 while it’s in beta).
My first impressions are pretty positive, it’s a clean straightforward interface, and it works well for what it does. So, what is EventBox anyway? It’s aim is to be a desktop interface to your social networks. Basically it reaches into your accounts through APIs and pulls down content for you. Right now it works with Twitter, Facebook, Google Reader, Reddit, Flickr, and acts as a standalone RSS Reader (in addition to syncing with Google Reader). In the future it will support del.icio.us, Last.fm, and Orkut, and hopefully more.
It’s very easy to use, on launch you select what services you want to use, then you select each of those services in the sidebar, authenticate yourself and you’re on your merry way. I guess the best way to simply describe how it works is a simplified email client with multiple accounts, each account being a different service. You can select an individual service and view the activity only from that one, or go to “Recent” or “Unread” to view actions from all your services.
One of the most appealing aspects is the HUD (heads-up display) that shows your recent activity across all services. In the preferences you can opt to treat this as the “main window” which means that upon launching the application or clicking the dock icon, this will appear instead of the regular interface. From the HUD you can select an action and if that service enables you to post something (Facebook or Twiter status message for example) an input box will appear at the bottom.
Unfortunately there are a few drawbacks. One is specific to my version, when MacHeist got their special copy, there was a Twitter bug that has since been fixed that screws up the date/time, and updating will put me on the 14 day trial, and eventually means I have to purchase a license to keep using it. I haven’t yet decided on whether or not I want to keep using EventBox, that’ll require some more use on my part and more features on their part, but right now it’s looking good for them.
Another drawback is with Facebook integration, you can only view recent photos and status updates. No notifications, events, messages, wall posts, etc… those are a very, very important part of the Facebook experience, and EventBox cannot hope to replace the browser without those features. I don’t know if they just haven’t put those in yet or if the Facebook API limits what developers have access to, so I can’t call them out on this completely yet.
One last drawback is the limited number of services supported. True, it is a beta version and this should be expected, and I don’t condemn them for this one either, but I’ll be watching over the next few weeks/months at what they do add to the application, and I really do hope that it’s more than just what they listed on their website.
Overall, EventBox shows a lot of promise and can be an invaluable application in the future.