Goodbye Caterpillar, Hello Kate
by Eric March on May 6, 2008 at 7:09 pm
It may interest you to know that the Application Formerly Known as Caterpillar™ will henceforth be known as Kate. Kate still isn’t a cheap date, but she has a more attractive name at least. The change evidently came about as a result of Caterpillar — the heavy construction equipment company — asking RIP Dev to change it, as it infringes upon their trademark. Now, some of you may know that it is not a infringement to use the same name as an existing product, service or company if your product, service or company is in a completely different line of work. (i.e. Ferrari (the car company) and Ferrari (the catering company) can co-exist because they’re two completely separate industries.) Knowing that, you may be wondering what the heck Caterpillar (the construction company) has to do with Caterpillar (the iPone and Touch application). Turns out that Caterpillar’s bulldozers have their own operating system, which is also called Caterpillar, and that puts Caterpillar (the iPhone and Touch application) squarely in the middle of infringement territory. Of course, you can hardly blame RiP Dev for not knowing this. Did you know bulldozers had operating systems? I certainly didn’t. Nevertheless, RiP Dev decided to peacefully acquiesce to Caterpillar’s requests and have renamed their application Kate.
The name Kate resembles a Russian female name Katya, which is a signature name for many Russians (and RiP Dev, having Russian roots, wholeheartedly thinks you will like the new name).
In addition to the change of name, Kate also sports bunch of new features and fixes:
EQ (new component):
• New component: three-band equalizer for the iPod application — you are no longer limited by the default EQ presets.
µCalendar:
• Added an option to enable or disable birthdays from the contacts list (as Outlook duplicates them).
• All-day events for the next day are now properly displayed as the next day.
Privacy: • Added the night mode setting to disable incoming calls and SMS messages sounds during the specified interval.
Reminder:
• Reminder no longer produces notifications during a phone call.
Whoa — wait, what? Did…did he just say EQ? Equalizer? Custom equalizer? Why yes, yes he did! Those who know me know that I’ve been after a customizable EQ for the iPod since the 4th gen (when I got my first iPod) and I have lamented the fact that Apple still haven’t rectified this obviously simple yet incredibly important issue. And now RiP Dev have gone and done it. Sadly, I’m not too interested in forking out $45 just for an EQ (and the reminder, which is the only other feature I’d ever use, and maybe Uninstall, because it’s handy, but that’s about it — and I do not believe in software subscriptions if you can’t use the software after your subscription lapses) so I’m going to miss out.
Nevertheless, if you want some of Kate, you can grab her … package … from RiP Dev’s own repo at http://repository.ripdev.com.
(Source: Apple iPhone School)
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May 6th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
I’ve become a real purist these days. Used to love fiddling with EQ but after reading up a lot on it, I leave it off now. It saves battery allegedly, but also doesn’t overprocess the sound. And I’ve not missed it at all actually.
Also turned off the sound enhancer in iTunes as it was causing horrendous distortion on parts of Nine Inch Nails “Ghosts”. (You can hear it in the first track. With the enhancer on it’s horrendous.)
May 6th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
My main problem with the iPhone and Touch is that it doesn’t have the best audio processor to begin with. Even without any fiddling with EQ settings, heavy bass tends to melt, and highs can sound a bit hollow. Setting the EQ can help round out the sound a bit more. The problem with the iPhone and Touch is that none of its bundled EQ presets are perfect. It’s either too boomy, not boomy enough, or there’s too much middle, or the highs aren’t crisp enough… that’s why I’ve wanted a customizable EQ. Then I can set a proper balance.
If I could settle for the crappy iPod headphones like most people do I probably wouldn’t care, but I’m an audiophile. I like my Shures, and I want to do them a little more justice than the presets can offer.
May 7th, 2008 at 7:59 am
DO NOT INSTALL KATE ON YOUR UNLOCKED IPHONE. SEE FOR YOURSELF HOW SEVERAL OTHERS HAVE LOST FUNCTIONALITY OF THE TOUCH SCREEN (MYSELF INCLUDED) WITH THIS PIECE OF MALWARE.
GOOGLE “KATE IPHONE” AND YOU’LL SEE WHAT I MEAN.
May 7th, 2008 at 10:53 am
Stupid name change, kate is kde’s text application. Way to go!
May 13th, 2008 at 11:15 am
CC Wells is right. I JUST installed this bitch and boom! i can’t even freakin call anyone! I’m in the medical field and i NEED to have my phone working….so there goes my patients! Thanks RiP Dev. Any help would be appreciated.
May 25th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
Instalei Kate e inicialmente travou tudinho exceto a area de trabalho.
Quando seguro e os icones fican vibrando não aparece o x para excluir!
O que faço, toda ajuda será muito bem vinda.
Obrigado,
Thiago
June 8th, 2008 at 1:37 am
so… ow do you uninstall kate?? I’ve been trying but can’t
August 5th, 2008 at 7:24 am
[...] 5, 2008 at 7:23 am It seems the folks at RIP-Dev (you know, the folks who caused a stir with their Kate (formerly Caterpillar) application?) have pretty much taken over development of Installer from [...]