iPhone development continues despite a lack of SDK. Masayuki Akamatsu has updated his native iPhone OSC client aka.iphone to 2.1, and includes plethora of screen/input configurations to suit your mobile performance needs. The update should suit typical VJ and Dj applications with its range of GUI sliders, knobs, button grids, etc.

If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, be sure and check out aka.iphone. Very cool stuff. Yes, sorry, another Apple oriented update. Shoot me.

[Ed.: Note you will want Max/MSP/Jitter to work with this app, though I think it should work with Windows, too; I just lack a machine that can test it. Be sure to see also Masayuki's complete Max collection, which now covers everything from Wii remotes to 3D SpaceNavigator controllers, Apple Remotes, and even the motion sensor in the MacBook Pro. Completely brilliant. And needless to say, even if you don't want to hop on AT&T's mobile network, this gives you options with iPod Touch, too, even if you can't play Phase on that. -PK]

Surprise! The one application with which I’ve had the most success on my Vista turns out to be Max/MSP/Jitter, the niche, Mac-first multimedia application built by a small handful of developers. Without so much as a single update, Jitter is running perfectly on Vista, running on an NVIDIA GeForce Go 7600 card on an Alienware m5550. (Next stop: upgrading my home-built Shuttle XPC SFF machine.)

The good news about this, especially in light of the generally mixed results in gaming, is that Jitter is a deeply OpenGL-dependent application. And for Windows users who have tired of glitches and stutters when showing OpenGL in a window on XP, you’ll love Vista. Thanks to GPU-bound graphics, windows animate smoothly, as on OS X. All I do notice is a slight delay when switching to full-screen, but these not-yet-released NVIDIA mobile drivers have been exhibiting little glitches each time the UAC (User Account Control) dialog appears. Otherwise, I’ve had good experience with this, and tellingly switching back from full-screen mode to pointless GPU eye candy like Flip 3D doesn’t cause a single problem. Vista could wind up being a great OS for running your home-built Max patches after all.

One major caveat that should keep Jitter users from rushing to upgrade, though: PACE copy protection isn’t officially supported yet, meaning you may have issues authorizing your copy of Max on Vista. I expect an update will come soon based on what I’ve heard from Cycling ‘74 and PACE. So, stay tuned; I’ll be sure to post more detailed Jitter results and information on the update once it becomes available.

Anyone else using Vista aside from me? More reports? I’m too scared to try Processing + Java; different Processing versions combined with different Java runtimes have been enough of a moving target as-is.