My Favorite Mac Apps

Though Windows has its share of killer apps, the Mac has some of that too. True, the selection is a bit more limited, but like the PS3, the selection is also a bit more refined, unique and, for the most part, ten times better than its Windows counterpart.

I will (try) not (to) include any apps that you can find on both platforms, but if the difference between the versions are compelling enough, I might have to consider. Additionally, I will not include any Apple software as it will only lengthen the list unnecessarily.

This is not a top 10 list, this is more of a list of apps I simply use everyday without fail.

Blogo
This app that I'm using to type this post right now? This is Blogo.

With a distinct interface, auto-notifications on Twitter (every new published post creates a new tweet that announces its existence) and wide support for several blogging services (not to mention a full-screen editor!), this blog editor lets you concentrate more on what you're trying to say, rather than worrying if the browser will destroy the obra maestra you've been working for 2 hours.

The app does have its share of irritations, as my Twitter account can attest: it can run slow, it can randomly close down, and picture management can be a bitch. For the most part, however, it does work fine.

The price tag is hefty, though... Seriously, 25 bucks?

Tweetie
While people swear by Twitterrific, Tweetdeck, or whatever they get their hands on, I personally think Tweetie is the best of the bunch (but on the level of the iPhone, I think Twitterfon is the best).

One day I was looking for a great Mac app that would supplement my Twitter addiction, and it just so happened that this app just oversaw release. I loved the iPhone-esque simplicity of it, I immediately downloaded it and I never looked back.

It works damn near flawlessly, it is extremely fast and snappy, and accessing features like "conversation view" is a snap. It also does well when you have several accounts, and you can even import picture and video from within the app! Very, very good.

You can get it for free (with ads) or for 20 dollars without ads. I say, save the 20 bucks and just get it free. The ads, quite frankly, are actually very well-placed. They're not intrusive at all, and they're far and few between. Hell, they're even a great way to discover great Mac software.

XNJB
This app is not the prettiest thing out there, but it sure is useful for people who want to sync a non-iPod device with iTunes.

Since Apple is stubbornly not supporting third-party devices (at least officially) on iTunes, the only option people who prefer Walkmans, Zens, or whatnot can only access their players as if they were a USB drive. But if that doesn't work out, it means that your device is a so-called "PlaysForSure" device which only works on Windows Media Player. Since we're on the subject of Mac apps, this is the solution to the problem.

This app reads whether you have a PlaysForSure device connected, and then the device will act as if it was connected to Windows Media Player. It could even charge and everything!

Basically, XNJB accesses only the iTunes library (which I'm sure you're using), so you can just move your non-DRM iTunes music into your Creative Zens, Walkmans, or whatever else you're using.

Just make sure the music files aren't in AAC format. Oh, and Zune isn't supported because Microsoft went all proprietary on it. The explanation behind the Zune not working is a bit technical though, so I won't delve into that. Hell, do you even own a Zune?

Times
Not everyone uses RSS, but it's there if you want to. A more motivational way to use them lies in the Times app.

The app looks a bit like a newspaper, and the headlines from the RSS feeds you put there will remind you of, well, a newspaper minus the ads.

It's extremely customizable, and you can even use a "shelf" to keep your favorite news stories.

When you open a headline, it will elegantly unfold to show the whole article (if possible), and if you feel like sharing it, you can send it to Twitter, or e-mail it.

If you like keeping track of the world in an unconventional way, Times is the RSS app for you. It must be worth noting that it costs THIRTY dollars though.

Speed Download
A lot of download apps promise download acceleration, but the promise Yazsoft provides with Speed Download is actually true. When you compare two downloads from a browser and from Speed Download, Speed Download is, I'm not kidding, indisputably much faster. Rarely does an app of this kind appear, and I'm glad I found it.

Jam-packed with tons and tons of features in a relatively small package of 18MB, Speed Download is actually well-worth the 25 dollar price tag especially if you're able to utilize its overflowing feature set.

But the best thing about this app is that it's reliable, and I have yet to experience and sudden crashes or exits. The developers are quick to address compatibility issues (so expect constant updates), and perhaps this is what keeps the app so stable and fast, not to mention powerful. It is simply indispensable.

Things
Things is my go-to app for my task list. The logic of the app is a bit hard to understand at first, but watching Cultured Code's screencast certainly helps.

It's nearly the same app as the one first introduced on the iPhone, but it packs more features and conveniently enough, syncs with the app. It has a simple interface that's easy to use and you can set your own hotkey in case you feel like adding a task you want to do later.

Another good thing about this app, however, is the really tight integration it has with iCal so it not only syncs with the iPhone app, it will also sync to your iPhone's calendar. If you don't have an iPhone, but you use iSync to sync data, Things also lets you sync through there, through the Calendar. Hell, the integration is so tight, I didn't even notice that my W995 got the tasks I made until an alarm came off. Very neat.

It has won several design awards, which is probably why it's pretty damn expensive though. Come on, 50 dollars is a bit eye-gouging.

The Unarchiver
What 7-Zip is to Windows, is what Unarchiver is to the Mac. It's probably the archive extractor with the most file support, and the best part is that it's free.

It melds in with the operating system, so you never notice it until you actually extract something. It's near flawless, and it's very capable. Truly, just download it now and spare yourself from having to contend with several other apps for opening those archives.

Ringer
Probably the easiest way to make free iPhone ringtones, Ringer is an app that was most likely made under the influence of the simplicity of iPhone apps. It's lightweight, it's easy to use, and it works.

You can simply drag-and-drop any music or movie file onto the huge black part and an editor will appear. If you want to use your iTunes library, it's already on the left side of the app.

It's insanely simple, as you can see. True, you can use GarageBand since it's already included with the purchase of a Mac, but do you really want to have to contend with a more complex way to make ringtones... when you can use the simpler way?

You can download it for free, but it will have a watermark. No watermark = $15. If it's worth it is up to you.

Delicious Library 2
I've covered this app in a standalone post a few months ago, and it's very good for inventory purposes.

The genius of the app comes with the awesome fact that it can accurately identify a DVD, book, video game, audio CD, software, gadgets and even clothing by scanning its barcode through the built-in iSight camera. Granted, it doesn't always work, and that's because the program works through Amazon's database of stuff.

Didn't I mention it was beautiful as well?

While the complementary iPhone app has disappeared because Amazon is a douchebag, at least Delicious Library still supports syncing for those who actually got the app (like me).

Yahoo! Messenger
It's disappointing that Apple only has relatively limited support in the built-in iChat as it supports several other services that are obscure in the Philippines. It looks amazing for video chats. While you can force iChat to support Yahoo! and MSN IM, Yahoo! has its own chat program anyway, and it's a radical departure from the Windows version.

It loads faster, it has most of the features of the Windows version, and it has tabbed chat windows. Read that last part 3 times.

Sad part is that it doesn't offer the more "Fun" features like IMVironments or Audibles or easy Photo sharing, but I rarely use them anyway. Still, I miss Doodle. Another fail is that it doesn't offer the option to change nicknames. I've never gotten to change all those 2 year old immature nicknames because I'm too lazy to open my Windows PC.

True, you can use other IM programs for Windows to achieve tabbed windows, and then some, but it's actually quite rare that the Mac version is much better usability-wise. Scores even more points for bringing Growl-like alerts even without Growl.

Growl
Growl is a lightweight app that after downloading, lies in the System Preferences.

What it does is provide subtle updates from apps that support it, whether it be a new tweet, or a status change from a buddy. It's useful, and there are a lot of apps that support it.

I love how non-obtrusive it is. True, it's basic, which is why it's free. Any more excuses?

TubeTV
The icon may not be attractive, but the actual program sure is pretty damn good.

This insanely good program reliably downloaded YouTube (and other video sites') videos and automatically converted them to iPod (or Apple TV, or iPhone) format with just one click. It's very simple, it's very useful, and I love it.

Unfortunately, it doesn't even download properly from YouTube anymore, so I've gone to iTubeX Ultimate which isn't free and automatic like TubeTV. Mactubes is a free alternative which has a great YouTube search browser, but not very reliable with downloading. TubeTV, if it worked, is still the best for me.

These 12 apps should be enough to get you on a download (and maybe spending) spree. If you're on a new Mac, then I hope this preliminary guide can serve you well in your quest to find great apps that'll replace some of those Windows apps you used to have.

iPhone nano? (plus, App Store reviews)

I am a regular visitor to MacRumors.com and it just seems as if the rumors just won't die down. Several iPhone case-makers have endlessly given hints to an iPhone nano form factor, and some of them are even semi-credible.

XSKN is responsible for the pic above, and they got the iPhone 3G and iPod nano designs right before they were even released, so the rumor gets a bit of credibility.

I, however, just can't seem to sway myself to believe that it is true.

Apple has been known to focus on a product's usability as well as innovation, and I just can't seem to see how an iPhone nano would be usable, innovative or much less practical. You see, if you make the screen smaller, chances are the user-friendliness of the device goes with it unless you're Thumbellina. I mean, it makes no sense.

Additionally, Apple still has some persisting issues with bugs and missing basic features that they'll have to fix, so releasing yet another iPhone wouldn't address the problem at all. It would worsen it. Why? Apps. Developers will have to theoretically remake their existing apps just so the screen size can fit what is purportedly the iPhone nano. Oh, and video would suck too.

So perhaps you can argue that the iPod nano is the best-selling iPod and they want to replicate the feat. You know what? That won't happen. Screen size is not exactly an issue on the iPod nano because it's primarily for MUSIC, and that it is operated by the click wheel, not a touch screen.

Seriously, the iPhone is already small enough. Pray that the rumors aren't true. (I may get hypocritical if the product really gets announced, but then again, Phil Shiller's gonna be the one talking and not Steve Jobs.)

Since we're talking about iPhone anyway, I might as well sneak in some app reviews.

Tap Tap Revenge

Developer: Tapulous

FREE

After you buy that heck of an expensive iPod touch or iPhone, you'd probably consider making an iTunes account on your computer to get some free (or paid) games onto the machine. If you do, you should consider getting the free game Tap Tap Revenge, that is if you're drawn into rhythm games.

There's free downloadable content every week!

The interface is clean, the graphics are nice, and the gameplay is utterly simple: press the bottom of the screen when an orb gets to it. Obviously since this is a rhythm game, those orbs correspond to the rhythm of the song, but the thing about it is that you don't really get which part of the song the orbs are corresponding to. Sometimes, the orbs follow the beat of the bass, sometimes it's the vocals, and sometimes it's something else. That makes for variety, but that also doesn't make up for focus.

Plus, the tapping area is sometimes unresponsive, and sometimes, it's not clear whether you've actually tapped the orb, so you have to check the score whether it has decreased or increased, but that would have to distract you from the real game, so you'll have to ignore and hope you hit the tapping area right.

Still, it's free, and unbelievably so, because of three extra features: Downloadable content, local multiplayer and online play.

From obscure electronic songs to the likes of Katy Perry, there's something different to download every week. You cannot download from the computer, but the feature increases replay value immensely. For free.

Speaking of replay value, you can also compete for the top spot in the online score leaderboards.

To play online, you have to download the specific song that's about to play next.

Additionally, you can play online against other Tap Tap Revenge players the world over (and there's constantly a person online) but the problem is, I can't play online because, probably, of my slow Internet connection. You see, the game has to download the song that's gonna be played next, but my Internet connection is not fast enough to download the whole song before the existing people finish the song they're currently playing. What's annoying is that the game also has to download existing songs in your library, though.

So since I can't access the online play, I can only access the 2 player mode for my competitive fix. It works well, with the occasional lag, and how it does it is quite innovative to be honest. Since the iPhone/iPod touch responds to several fingers, it is possible for 2 people to simultaneously tap the screen and see who gets more points.

Overall, Tap Tap Revenge is of good quality. It could sometimes get annoying since the responsiveness is far from perfect (not to mention occasionally laggy) but with free downloadable content and online play and local multiplayer? It's shocking how this thing is free!

Rating: 8.5/10

Tap Tap Dance

Developer: Tapulous

$4.99

You can't wait for Tap Tap Revenge to be updated with the spankin' new engine? Well, you can pay for a "preview" of it with this game.

But perhaps it's not fair for Tapulous to charge for a stripped version of the free Tap Tap Revenge, I mean, it has no downloadable content and online. You can't blame them, however, because there's something called "licensing", and it's not for free. If they don't go through that process, the game would have to be stripped off the App Store due to copyright infringement. Now, they want to get a profit so they can license more songs so we can download them for free.

With that out of the way, let's focus on what sets Tap Tap Dance apart from Tap Tap Revenge.

Just one of the boss battles in Tap tap Dance.

Aside from revamped graphics (and shiny effects that respond to every correct tap), there are new gameplay twists that make Tap Tap Revenge look boring in comparison. One is that it's now obvious as to whether you pressed the tapping area properly or not, while another is that you have to unlock songs one by one and reach the "boss battle". Additionally, a new level of challenge has been added to the point where "Hard" in Tap Tap Revenge is literally "Easy" in Tap Tap Dance. That's not saying much about Tap Tap Revenge's difficulty, because that game is really easy on "Hard", but it says a lot about the increased difficulty of Tap Tap Dance, especially with the addition of simultaneous orb pressing (ie, two or three orbs you have to press at once) and orb holding (ie, if a note is held long in a song, you have to hold the corresponding orb long too).

That's not to say that everything else is perfect. I have to mention again, the absence of downloadable content and online play, and then the freaking lag! This is especially apparent in boss battles, making them harder to press and easier to lose. I don't mind the disco theme because the songs are pretty enjoyable. Do I hear Daft Punk's "Technologic"?

I don't know if you find Tap Tap Dance to be worthy of your hard-earned cash especially since the gameplay mechanics will be ported over to the free and better Tap Tap Revenge, but hey, it's still nice to play.

Rating: 7.5/10

Guitar Rock Tour

Developer: Gameloft

$9.99

See a screenshot for this and you'll instantly say "Guitar Hero rip-off", and it might as well be. However, seeing as there's quite a bit of a lack of rhythm games that center on the Rock genre on the App Store (which is kind of surprising seeing the saturated home console rhythm games market), this is, for now, the nearest you can get to a similar experience on iPhone/iPod touch.

Unlike Tap Tap Revenge, this game actually features real humans, although they're one-dimensional and have no personality whatsoever. Still, this is a rhythm game so the story isn't exactly a first priority.

This game follows the usual garage band turned successful rock act premise, so I wouldn't really bother reading the text that follows prior to, and after finishing the fixed number of songs you have to complete to progress to the next locale. If you still want a sampling of that "well-written" dialogue, then be my guest.

With this dialogue, I'd choke on my egg sandwich too.

Gameplay-wise, the game is responsive and easy to play. You just press the 4 fret buttons (or if you're playing drums, 2 fret buttons and cymbals) and be done with it. Of course, like Guitar Hero or Rock Band, there's a score multiplier, note streak and bla bla bla, and then there's the game's own version of Star Power of which you activate through a "lever" on the right side. While in Guitar Hero, your score will be doubled, you can use "Pyro Power" to eliminate the existing notes on the screen AND double the score in Guitar Rock Tour. And like in Guitar Hero, you have to press a series of notes that are of the same color to fill a bar that allows you to activate said feature.

The score gets doubled to 8 times the default score (usually) when you activated Star Power.

But in a rhythm game, the songs always matter, and it has a pretty conventional setlist, nothing really special (with a few bad eggs here and there). I'll give you a bad egg: "Girlfriend", the Avril Lavigne one.

Most of the songs notably come from Guitar Hero II. And like that game, the songs are cover versions.

So if you want your Guitar Hero fix on-the-go, this is the game to buy. It's a shame that it's without downloadable content, online play or local multiplayer, but at least it's more stable than Tap Tap Revenge.

Rating: 8.5/10

Dr. Awesome: Microsurgeon

Developer: ngmoco:)

$0.99

The title suggests a mediocre game, but it's actually pretty good.

It features a cast of anime characters who represent several doctors. And while their over the top poses remind me of the Phoenix Wright series, there's not as much personality.

The gameplay is simple: tilt the iPhone to cut the cell wall. When it's small enough, the viruses that lie inside will give up and die. You are pretty much a ball, and if a virus touches you or the trail you make, you're dead.

Let's cure the people we know!

The gimmick here is that the game uses your Address Book and makes them your patients' names. There is some amusing dialogue that springs from this fact (eg, "Doctor, isn't [name from Address Book] your acquaintance?"), but the same line repeats often as the patients pile up so I don't think this gimmick wasn't exploited enough for you to actually care.

You have to cut that border as much as you can to win.

Surprisingly, the game is actually kind of addicting, and it gives you a reason to go back because the game goes by in real time. What I mean by this is that the patients have a time limit of 24 hours. If you ignore the game for 24 hours, they die, or as the game puts it, "expires". Additionally, there are achievements that you can unlock, for all the achievement-junkies out there.

I don't really see any cons to this game, but there's actually nothing else special about this game. It's good, and it's pretty cheap, so I guess you can give it a whirl.

Rating: 8/10

MacWorld '08: There's indeed something in the air... and I want it.

MacWorld has always been an unpredictable event that all techies regardless of operating system, anticipate. Well, it was surely worth the wait, even though the hype the iPhone got will be left unmatched maybe forever. But hey, at least the rumors are mostly true this time around, the company finally gets things right with their flops and well, you're probably gonna be shocked about what Steve Jobs' fourth thing. I was.

The First Thing

Apple's new operating system Leopard has this extraordinarily convenient and user-friendly

automatic backup program called Time Machine. Just connect your hard drive by Firewire and if you've got all the options right, then you'll be ready to ignore your Mac when you're not gonna use it. However, in a wireless world, back-up is also going there right now in the form of Time Capsule. It's an accessory for Leopard and Time Machine, and it uses Wi-Fi 802.11N, the most advanced, so you can hook up and back-up wirelessly to as many Macs possible. Kinda like a server, only significantly less expensive. It will be available in 500 gigabyte and 1 terabyte capacities at just $299 and $499 respectively. If the execution is right because there wasn't a live demo in the keynote, the product will be a hit among Mac users because it will definitely be a life-saver. And a wireless one at that.

The Second Thing

Apple has penetrated 20% of the smartphone market in its first few months after release. Well, it seems that in the 4 million iPhones they have sold in just 200 days, they're making it better for free. They're adding no, not GPS, but something really close, and it's inside a revamped Google Maps. It's called Locations. Well, because of what was an explanation about triangulation mumbo-jumbo and Wi-fi hotspots, Apple together with Google and some Wireless Networking Company, have made a faux GPS possible so you can locate yourself and locate some places near to you and teach you which direction you should go. I don't see myself using this because Google Maps doesn't have a street map of the Philippines unfortunately.

If Leopard gave you the ability to create widgets from web pages, it's here too, and you can resize, zoom in, and save any web page you like so a web page icon can be generated on the home screen. It's a bit like Bookmarks anyway, and I also don't see myself using that one as well.

You still can't put your own backgrounds, but you can drag and drop home screen icons up to 9 pages. Maybe I should add a sarcastic "Weee!" to that, but hey, if you want to have a more convenient way of sorting out apps in the home screen, it's a great feature then. Hell, you can even remove icons from the dock. What used to be 4 icons could also be three icons, or maybe you can put something else there, or something like that.

One very significant upgrade Apple finally made without waiting a new generation (of iPhones) is Multiple SMS sending. Yes, finally, it's there now. You'll know how it works. Only thing missing is 3G... and maybe MMS, too.

The new iPods have this feature and so will the iPhone. It will support video chapters, subtitles and alternate languages. For the music part, Lyrics display for both iPhone and iPod touch. I don't really have much to say about this, but I do prefer watching videos with subtitles. I don't know why...

Plus, people have been nagging about the iPod touch not having e-mail or something. Well, Apple finally delivers along with a few uninteresting widgets like Weather or Stocks. And it even costs $20 for the upgrade... though you can just a buy a Touch from a new shipment to get all these so you can save a few bucks.

The Third Thing

iTunes, Apple's trademark music program, has reached record sales of the 4 Billionth song, 20 million songs sold on Christmas Day and 125 million TV shows and 7 Million movies sold. Now, they have decided to put a largely requested feature called Movie Rentals. You know what it means, you rent a movie, you return it after a few days, you pay less than the DVD, etc. This feature... I STILL don't see myself using. One, we don't have a domestic iTunes store for crying out loud, and two... well, just that reason...

New movies will be released a month after the DVD, and they will cost a dollar more than titles already in the iTunes catalogue a long time ago and you gotta play the rented movie before 30 days and you gotta watch it before the day passes. So if you watch just 30 minutes of a movie a day, then say bye-bye to the rest of the movie because, in my understanding, once you play it, you gotta finish it before the 24 hour mark. And after the first playing, you can still play it again, and again, and again until you get sick of it before the day passes. You can sync it to your iPod to continue watching, though.

This concept then led Jobs to introduce a new Apple TV. They failed the first time, he concedes, but this time, he really wants to sell. Well, the product's actually looking solid and seems like a great companion to iTunes. You can plug it in your widescreen HDTV, you can watch YouTube, you can listen to Music, but you gotta sync your computer via iTunes to the device to actually get going, or buy a song or video in iTunes Store in your computer, then sync it.

Well, this time, those kinks are gone. You can access the whole catalogue of iTunes right in the device so you won't have to turn on the computer, you can view photostreams from Flickr and to a much, much lesser extent, Apple's .Mac service, and you also get HD movie rentals that have surround sound built-in. They cost a dollar higher than the standard rental, but if you have an HDTV, I think it's currently a great way to experience it. And if you have an Apple TV already (which I doubt), you get it all free in an upgrade. Boy does Jobs know how to extend a product's life! And good thing that he doesn't boldly proclaim about Blu-ray this and Blu-ray that just because his company's siding with the camp. It's also a much better thing that he knows that downloadable HD content will rule out in the end...

After that announcement, he invited the 20th Century Fox CEO to the stage. He talked about partnerships, philosophies, the DVD war and lastly, something more interesting- the ability to get a digital version of a movie into your computer, fast and free into iTunes. All you need of course is an original DVD copy of future Fox releases because the first one to employ that is a certain "Family Guy" DVD which spoofs Star Wars, creator Seth McFarlene's favorite saga. Hopefully, it will work on copied original DVD discs (as in yung mga exact copy ng mga orig sa pirated) so that magiging mas sulit ang mga ito :p.

The Fourth Thing: There's something in the air.

Steve's held the cliffhanger long enough, and now it's time to break it. They say that the MacBook, the innovative notebook as cited by reviewers, became the industry standard along with its older more professional brother the MacBook Pro. While they may be speed demons and have great software and hardware out of the box, a few people have actually requested that Apple restore its ultraportable Powerbook line. Well, maybe this new product is closest to that. So yes, the thing that's in the air is a laptop, and that laptop, err, notebook, is aptly named, the MacBook Air: The thinnest laptop in the world.

Apple has pushed portable to the extreme at just a featherweight 3 pounds, an ultra thin LED powered monitor and an almost equally thin system unit. It may sound as if Apple sacrificed the mousepad, the keyboard and the screen. But nope, they're all full-sized and the black keyboard, is also even backlit. The effect after that is pretty cool and hell, is it not something to love? It's also pretty jam-packed with 80GB hard drive standard (the same one used in the iPods), 2GB RAM standard (you can definitely run Vista at lightning speed), Bluetooth, Wi-Fi 802.11 N, the trademark MagSafe power adapter, a flip down hatch for 1 USB port, 1 Mini-DVI port and a headphone jack. It's quite surprising to see that there's not even a FireWire in an Apple! And if you don't have wireless Internet at home, then it's gonna cost you a peripheral (so you're better off going MacBook instead if that's the case), plus, there's not even a slot-loading drive! Where can I put my CD's? How do I watch DVD's?! HOW DO I INSTALL DAMN SOFTWARE?! Well, Apple made the case a bit less morbid with "Remote Drive". You install special software compatible for both Macs and Windows and the data is sent via Wi-Fi so that the MacBook Air can read it. If, like the Time Capsule, the process is excruciatingly simple, then it will also be a great idea and addition albeit kinda cumbersome as well. If you're more of a road warrior, then you're better off buying the $99 external SuperDrive. It's USB-powered mind you so if you're gonna install hardware and you need a software disc, patay.

Apple also introduces the technology that powers their beautiful touch screens into the trackpad so that you can control your windows, images, etc. by using one, two, or three fingers! No need for keyboard, nor external mouse. And if you're wondering about battery life, it's 5 hours with Wi-fi connected. Speed is also not compromised, because it also comes with 1.6GhZ Intel Core 2 Duo standard with the option to choose to bump up the speed up a notch to 1.8GhZ. All that in $1800. Talk about value for money.

A Greener Apple

The MacBook Air is also an eco-laptop because it doesn't have mercury, it's the first non-arsenic glass they've used for a screen, it's also made of recycled aluminum and the packaging is 50% smaller and the LED powered backlight is extremely energy-efficient as well. So if you think this isn't a milestone for Apple hardware to come, then what will?