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Often, the appearance of progress can be revealed as an illusion. Virtually all things change over time, but do they all change for the better? For all their continuing success and the latter-day refinement of their craft, did the Beatles ever really improve on "Please Please Me" and "She Loves You"? Does that new remote control you just unwrapped, with four times as many buttons as your old one, really make your home-theater setup easier to use?
Roxio's new Toast with Jam product takes two mainstays of Macintosh CD recording and presents them as a single product. The Jam component sees its first significant upgrade in two years (it jumps from version 2.6 to 5.0). Does it represent progress? There are indeed very real and significant changes in the new amalgam. And, happily, most of those turn out to be improvements.
pass the toast, please
When you hit the big "Record" button on Jam's interface, Toast launches for the actual recording process; Jam itself no longer offers built-in recording functionality. In practice, the process is remarkably seamless (for the most part), and my iMac DV (with 64MB RAM) didn't miss a beat even though two applications were open during the burning process rather than just one. However, that process now takes longer than it did with the older, standalone versions of Jam.
When the user hits "Record" button, Jam immediately begins constructing a disc image for Toast to burma multiminute process that was not necessary in Jam before. When that's finished, Toast pops up to ask the user for a recordable disc and a choice of write speed. Then the burning begins.
The time added to the recording process may mean little if the various features Toast offers are attractive to you. Toast Titanium offers a wide array of CD and DVD burning capabilities, and several impressive integrated tools, including CD Spin Doctor (most of the functions of which, actually, are also built into the bundled Peak LE-VST). As a user who typically works only with audio and CD, though, I found little to miss in the earlier, standalone Jams, and at first I saw the added time as a liability. But I soon changed my mind as balancing factors came into view.
rebooting not...