Simple, Works, Nice UI, Good OSX App behavior

With the advent of crazy (and sometimes silly) UI experiments and the lack of Apple clear message regarding the HIG (hello, OS X Lion?), and with all this minimalistic approach to most UIs (iOS, hello?) where you can’t really tell what a button is from a label… I found Parcel a very nicely designed app. Yes, the UI is rather simple and doesn’t contain anything fancy beyond what’s needed, but it’s very funcional. I only need to track 1-2 packages every now and then, so I don’t need the subscription, yet I am tempted to buy it if anything, to support the Author. Let’s be realistic, you looked for this (type of) app because it’s a pain to go through all the Emails, Links, Websites to track stuff (and keep refreshing them); your lazyness (as well as mine) found the perfect solution. Copy the tracking number, open the app, press command + N to add a new parcel and the app reads the clipboard and creates it for you, type a description (if you want), press enter and you’re set. Can’t get much easier than that.

I have UPS/Fedex/USPS mobile notifications (meaning I get an SMS when the status changes for stuff that is identified for me and my address) so I don’t really use the Menu Bar icon nor the built-in notifications, but I still rely on this tiny app to see a unified UI for all my deliveries.

I can imagine if you handle parcels for a living or as an integral part of your business, you would greatly benefit from this app and it’s super cheap yearly membership. Put it this way, if instead of FREE, this app costed 9.99, you’d be paying for the cost of FIVE years of this service, so why not rather subscribe and just pay 1.99 every year. It’s just two dollars, a year. You can probably collect enough coins walking down the street to pay for this, you have one year, so get going.

Any Cons?
Minor things, but I’d like to be able to scroll up/down with the arrow keys (like Mail) or J and K (like vi), since it’s a UISplitView with a Master/Detail type of thing, it would make sense.
Maybe double clicking a delivery should open on website (but there’s a shortcut, cmd+shift+T). The problem is that I can’t select other parcels by using the keyboard, so my hand already moved to the mouse, now I have to go back to the keyboard to use the shortcut (or use the menu…). All minor details that may make usage even easier.

Integrated seach while typing would be a nice addition as well. You start typing and the list only shows matching results. (dreaming here!)

Anyway, why are you reading this, just get it and try it. ;)

Gryzor about Parcel - Delivery Tracking