Hi-Yo, Yosemite!

Looks like OS X 10.10 Yosemite will see an official release sometime next week (at the earliest) now that Apple has announced a Special Event for October 16.

Perhaps you've noticed that over the past few of months I've been updating some of the more popular scripts and applets for Yosemite compatibility. Updating stuff for the latest OS has become an annual ordeal. I spend most of the Summer and Fall updating old stuff for compatibility, and then the next six months working on feature upgrades and new scripts. And then another WWDC arrives, and the cycle continues.

As a result, not everything gets the attention it deserves. So if there's a script or app you use that needs to be updated for Yosemite, let me know. I've got a pretty long list, but I'd prefer to prioritize based on popular usage.

Many of the Yosemite-ready scripts are dropping support for pre-10.8 OSes. Frankly, keeping scripts working over five operating systems (10.6-10.10) and two processor platforms and making them work great for everybody is not fair to the majority of users who want modern features without compromise (nevermind the support issues). In many cases, older versions of the scripts will still be available. (Although, if you can get off of 10.7 I really believe you'll be doing yourself a favor. It's my least favorite OS ever.)

And then there's iTunes 12. For the most part, and with the exception of UI changes and the like, iTunes 12's scripting infrastructure is pretty much the same. I do worry that as new features are added cloud-wise some of iTunes' AppleScript goodness will fall to the wayside (eg: shuffle, song repeat, gapless, playlist window, updatePodcast, and so on). But accessing playlists, tracks, files and tags in general is still pretty healthy. Apple even introduced a new iTunes Library framework with Mavericks. So things are looking pretty good in that department for the foreseeable future. And as I often say, I don't care what iTunes used to do or what would be good if it could do; I just care about what it does now.

And "now" arrives next week. Hi-yo!