Growl

It’s interesting to me that so many of the applications I’ve looked at so far have Growl support for notification display. For example:

• Adium uses Growl for IM notifications.
• Speed Download uses Growl to inform me that downloads have started and finished.
• MacJournal sends Growl notifications when a background blog update has completed.
• iGTD pops up a Growl notification to inform me that a to-do entry entered via Quicksilver has made it to iGTD.
• Google Notifier informs me of new mail using Growl.
• Google Reader Notifier informs me of new RSS entries using Growl.
• LicenseKeeper informs me of import and export operation completion using Growl.

…and the list goes on. Ubiquitous, isn’t it?

Growl really has no equivalent in Windows; I suppose the balloon messages used by tray icons are the closest analog, but it’s a stretch.

This application is to me another example of the synergy, consistency, and exceptional UI that seems to permeate the experience on the Mac.

Frank De Graeve, the host of the Neat Little Mac Apps podcast, has done a very informative review of Growl, so I’ll not bore you with details here; listen to Frank’s podcast to discover the wonder that is Growl.

Growl is GPLed open-source.