As phatmonkey commented on Evan’s post (so swiftly that s/he posted that comment before I had even opened up the New Post window!), Google just extended the student application deadline for Google Summer of Code by one week.

The new deadline is 2008-04-07. If you want to be a student in GSoC this year, you need to have your application in by that date.

Remember, you can apply with any idea you want—you aren’t limited to our list of ideas. We encourage original ideas that we never thought of.

The deadline for Google Summer of Code proposals is today at 1700 Pacific (12:00 AM UTC 1 April, 2008). This is a great opportunity for students to get involved in open source through a paid summer internship sponsored by Google. Do you want to know more?

We released Adium 1.2.4 today. This is a minor release including improvements to several IM services (AIM direct connect, Yahoo! file transfer, Google Talk buddy icons, ICQ status notes, and MSN contact visibility), as well as crash fixes, visual improvements, and the long-requested ability to make the contact list completely transparent. The full change list is, as always, available on our support wiki.

In addition to the CNET award that Adium was nominated for, I was also contacted by about.com’s IM guru to tell us that they were now accepting nominations for the 2008 IM Best Awards.

He writes:

One of the most frequently asked questions I get as guide to Instant Messaging at About.com just so happens to be “Which Instant Messenger is the Best?”

Well, this year, I have decided to allow the readers to answer for themselves through our 2008 IM Best Awards, delivering top honors to all our favorite instant messengers, new developments and the developers themselves.

Now through noon EST, on Friday, March 28, 2008, we are accepting nominations for this honor in all the following categories:

*Best Instant Messenger Experience, measuring overall user experience;
*Most Improved Instant Messenger, based on back-to-back client releases;
*Best Mac Instant Messenger, based on overall user experience;
*Best Third-Party IM
*Best IM Feature
*and Best IM Developer(s) of the Year.

Winners in each category will be given featured Essentials placement for one year on http://im.about.com, in addition to all the bragging rights among the IM community.

If you’d like to show us some love drop Brandon an email and tell him what you think!

Once again, Adium has been invited to participate in Google Summer of Code. We’ll be accepting applications from talented student programmers to work on a variety of interesting projects; Students can either pick an idea from our list or propose an idea of their own (creativity is encouraged!).

For those unfamiliar with Summer of Code, each summer Google sponsors hundreds of open source organizations to mentor students as they work for a summer on a project associated with their organization of choice. Students receive $4,500 USD, a T-shirt, a prestigious item to put on their resumé, and a huge learning opportunity in exchange for 3 months of working on fun open source projects. If that sounds like a great deal to you, get your application(s) in!

In prior years we’ve had successful student projects improving XMPP support, accessibility, group chat, contact list organization, AppleScript, Bonjour IM, and tabbed chatting. In fact, a large percentage of the improvements in Adium 1.1 and 1.2 are the direct result of student work as part of Summer of Code.

Adium is a finalist in the CNET 2008 Webware 100 Awards in the communications category. Voting doesn’t require any registration so just takes a moment; please consider casting a vote for your favorite duck-themed instant messaging client!

It seems that The Mac Nose has outed our very own Colin Barrett as a wizard! I always thought there was something different about that guy…  And now we know the truth.

Big thanks to The Mac Nose (whoever he is…) for bringing this matter to our attention.

You can read the full story here.

Today, Apple released the iPhone SDK. And, as we expected, we’re already being asked whether we intend to write a version of Adium for the iPhone.

The short answer is “yes, but…”.

Developing for the iPhone is similar in many respects to development for Mac OS X. Some of the same frameworks, such as Core Audio, are present. But a lot of them aren’t. For example:

• QuickTime (which we use to play sounds) is missing entirely. There’s a new Core Audio API to play sounds, but it’s Leopard-only, and we don’t know whether it’s available on the iPhone.
• The Application Kit (on which our interface is built) is replaced with UIKit.
• The iPhone probably does not have Apple Events nor Open Scripting Architecture. In other words, no AppleScript.
• Animation works a bit differently, and is dramatically different from how animation currently works in Adium on Mac OS X.

The hardware poses challenges as well. The iPhone has less memory than Adium tends to use, and has a significantly slower processor (and only one of them). Also, maintaining a network connection over WiFi uses a significant amount of battery, which could pose a problem for long-term use.

So porting Adium to the iPhone will certainly be a lot of work. Large portions, if not almost everything, will need to be completely rewritten or scrapped. Other parts will survive, but undergo extensive changes. This is a lot of work.

Currently, Adium’s base system requirement is Tiger (Mac OS X 10.4). Some of the iPhone’s features, such as Core Animation, were introduced in Leopard (10.5). Therefore, it’s likely that we won’t start work on Adium for iPhone until sometime after Adium for Mac requires Leopard.

Also, keep in mind that we’ll want to release that version of Adium for Mac and have it proven by users (that means you) before we go applying that knowledge to Adium for the iPhone. You wouldn’t want us to port an unstable version, would you? ☺

So, in summary: We want to do it, but it will be a lot of work. We want to put it off for a little bit so that it can be done with less effort and won’t interfere with other development priorities. We don’t know how long we’ll put it off and we don’t know how long it will take once we start.

AOL announced Open AIM 2.0 today, and we’ve had a number of people ask what this means for Adium. I spoke with Michael Hall of instantmessagingplanet.com earlier today; AOL Opens AIM Some More has an explanation of Open AIM and some of my comments on the topic.

Chris Forsythe, aka The_Tick , is retiring from the position of Adium Project Manager after 3 years of hard work in that capacity and several years before that of deep involvement in the Adium community. As Project Manager, Chris helped ensure that the diverse assets of the community – web site, support network, forums, etc. – ran smoothly and aided in directing the project itself. On behalf of the team and all who have benefited from his dedicated efforts, I’d like to thank Chris heartily 🙂

Eric Richie , who wrote the in-application help for Adium and heads the Ticket Task Force, has volunteered to step up into the position and is the new Adium Project Manager. 🙂