Tribeworks “visionary” Patrick Soquet has had his nose to the grindstone in anticipation of Mac OS X, readying the iShell source code for “Carbon” compatibility with the new operating system, according to a TribeWorks newsletter.
“With new enterprise opportunities for multimedia developers emerging, this could be one of the biggest events of the year and Tribeworks is positioned to pass these opportunities on to its community of iShell developers,” the newsletter said.
Tribeworks provides next-generation multimedia services, tools and solutions. Their best known product is iShell, a QuickTime-native multimedia authoring suite that enables the creation of customized media players that launch from a Web site. The latest version, 2.0, was released last October and has over 500 new features, including better Internet support, smart caching features (providing “smoother” experiences for end users), and a visual debugger that developers “love,” Tribeworks Director of Communications Rachel McKosby told MacCentral.
iShell 2’s new ability to create highly customized streaming media players is in addition to its established capabilities in CD/DVD-ROM, connected disc and Web site publishing that can be authored and played on Mac and Windows/NT systems. iShell 2 players can be of any arbitrary shape, can contain holes, and are draggable with the ability to play in the foreground or the background.
iShell requires, on the Mac platform, a Power Mac, Mac OS 8.6 or higher, 32 MB of available RAM, a minimum of 10 MB of free hard disk space, and QuickTime 4 or higher.
iShell is available as a free download from the Tribeworks Web site. Tribeworks Full Memberships, which are held by many multimedia designers and developers, are US$2,000 per year, or through an initiation fee of $500 and monthly payments of $150. Annual renewal fees are $1000, or $100 per month. Full Tribeworks Members receive high-end technical support, discounts on third-party products, instant online access to other top multimedia developers, and iShell’s Software Developer’s Kit (SDK). For more info send email to iShell2@tribeworks.com.