Dave Winer reviews Apple's new RSS Publishing/Browsing software.
He gives the new stuff kudos, but grumbles about the lack of the nearly universal 
icon that points to the RSS news feed in XML format. Yeah, it's a bummer. Apple has moved too far away from their once famous ideal of using the same user interface across all applications. When Apple invented OSX, which appealed to programmers willing to create diverse software, one of the first things they did was dump Bruce Tognazzini, their evangelist of 'user interface consistancy'.
Apple has built itself with a small niche market, centered around people who like to make things using a computer. Macs are favored by digital photographers and home music producers. But far more internet shoppers, students, office workers, gamblers, emailers and porn fans prefer the PC's interface. That's fine with me, I have an eMac and a Powerbook at home, and fight with a Dell (or something) at work.
Unfortunately, programs that are used in conjunction with each other, such as Nikon Capture and Photoshop, have radically different interfaces, where compatability with PCs is more important than compatability with each other. But connecting diverse software is RSS's main job, right?
Stuff I'd like to see, for example, is a way to 'wire' iCal to Radio to blog into the future. There are ways to do this now, but none that I know of are commercially supported nor easy. RSS should be able to do this (and especially, if I understand it, when combined with XML/RPC built in.) Apple's new software sounds like it's in the right direction.
But does Apple even know what a blog is?
Train, train.
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