David Wantanabe has announced that a preview of his torrenting program, Xtorrent 2, is now available. If you purchased Xtorrent Pro with lifetime upgrades, it will be a free upgrade when it’s released. While it says preview, it’s still a beta for all intents and purposes.

“Xtorrent 2 is now available as a public preview from the Xtorrent 2 preview web site. This has been extensively tested over the last two weeks by private testers (many thanks!) and is in good shape for wider testing.”

Wantanabe announced some of the new features in an earlier blog post on his site.

“Xtorrent 2 features a brand new torrent engine named Xcore. This engine has been designed exclusively for Mac OS X and written in 100 percent Cocoa. The result is a lightweight, powerful, and very stable download engine that supports torrent extensions such as encrypted message streams. I made the choice to use the very latest in Cocoa technologies, hence Mac OS X Leopard is now a requirement. Xtorrent 2 opens up the search feature. In Xtorrent 1.x, search was a closed box over which the user had no control. Xtorrent 2 changes this by letting the user opt in or out of specific search providers, and even extend it by adding their own.”

The search feature would come in handy for looking for various Linux distros you’re having a hard time finding. You can download the preview here, with the usual disclaimers about downloading beta software and making sure that while you may be downloading content with it that may make a nun blush, you’re observing all applicable trademarks, copyrights, and destination charges.

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I had to fight a little reluctance, and remove my Transmission icon from my dock so it wouldn’t see my betrayal, but I managed to download and install the new beta. I have to admit, µTorrent’s icon is very appealing. Score one for the newcomer. It also opened very quickly, revealing a minimal, Mac-friendly, attractive user interface. So this is what temptation feels like.

With the proper ports forwarded in my firewall, and running one after the other, not simultaneously, I found download speeds to be roughly the same in both applications on my test file, a (legally) free audio book of Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer. Both feature individual file prioritization, speed limits, peer information, and ratio monitoring and automatic stopping of seeding at customizable ratios. After I performed my brief test, I had to ask myself: would µTorrent unseat Transmission as my go-to torrent client?

There are a few reasons why it won’t. First, I really like Transmission’s automatic resizing of the application window to fit active torrents. It may be a minor feature, but I’m nuts for it. Can’t go back. Second, the Transmission icon can be badged with upload and download rate, while µTorrent’s cannot. That at-a-glance access to rate information saves me a lot of time in obsessive application window switching. Finally, Transmission supports remote control, groups, speed limit scheduling, and has an auto-add function for a folder you specify. That’s a lot of “finalies”, I realize, but I don’t want to overdo it with the feature listing. It’s probably the product of having been an actively developed app for far longer than µTorrent has, but Transmission still wins nonetheless.  Recent Windows-switchers will have a familiar face to greet them when they cross over though, and that’s always a good thing.

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For a release that just “fixed bugs,” I find it difficut to believe that the motivation behind the SMS (if it was from Apple) is not more related to a security issue than Apple’s desire to ensure iPhone users are well-informed.

Apple also released a MacBook Air update (full disclosure: this one I did not install as I do not own an Air) which fixes issues with video playback and processor core idling. Apple makes note that third-party software that modifies processor operating characteristics such as frequency and voltage is not supported and should be removed before installing this update.

However, Apple is not the only one gettin’ busy with the late-summer updates:

• Adium 1.3 – So, while this technically was released on Monday, August 25th, I could not let this slip away for a whole week. The Adium team did a phenomenal job in the betas and 1.3 sports Facebook chat support, enhanced MSN support (including personal messages), a much improved “contacts” interface with excellent Address Book support and significantly enhanced searching. A definite must-install.
• NewsLife – 1.2.1 – I gave NewsLife (yet another RSS reader) a try this week, since I’m a sucker for shiny, new toys. It did not import the OPML groups from NetNewsWire, but does support grouping of feeds. Mouse tracking in the article list window kept working even with the Preferences dialog having focus (bug? feature?). It’s a clean, simple app that is charging ~$15.00USD for something you can get for free in many other ways, but it may have a visual & functional style that appeals to you. Requires OS X 10.4 or 10.5, PPC/Intel
• NetNewsWire – 3.1.7b4 – Speaking of RSS readers, NNW fixed an issue with a startup crash and some proxy compatibility problems and tweaked some UI color indicators for clippings and unread items counts. One of the more interesting updates, though, is the inclusion of an AppleScript command to evaluate the JavaScript for the current page. Most users will probably not find that useful, but it was a feature asked for and provided by NNW users. Gotta love the community! NNW is free and requires OS X 10.4 or 10.5; PPC/Intel
• AppleScript, Interface Builder & Xcode Project Spotlight Importers – Whether you like or loathe Apple’s built-in filesystem search interface, you have to give a nod to the Google Toolbox folks for helping out budding Mac developers by creating some handy importers. The AppleScript Importer imports source and description from AppleScript .scpt and .scptd files, the Interface Builder Importer imports custom class names, bindings, outlets, actions and localizable strings from .xib and .nib files and the Xcode Project Importer imports file names and project comments from .xcodeproj files. (I’d appreciate comments from Apple developers who have real projects and sources they can toss at these as my tests worked, but I hardly have an extensive personal library). Free, but check the web page for compatibility.
• Transmission – 1.33 – This most excellent torrent client for the Mac (and other platforms) fixes a security issue as well as some other bugs. You probably missed this if you are an infrequent user, but as school season is upon us, you may want to ensure you keep this app as up-to-date as possible. Not that I’m suggesting you kids are sharing files as opposed to attending classes. It’s all for Linux distributions. Gotta get those Linux distributions… Transmission is free (open source, actually), OS X 10.4/10.5 & Universal.

Let me & other TAB readers know what you’ve been checkin’ out by posting a note in the comments!

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