Iconbox vs. Pixadex Round 1 - January 18, 2004
The Iconfactory's Pixadex and Chickenbyte's IconBox were released within months of each other, and are icon organizers with an iPhoto inspired interface. While you might not be able to even tell them apart at first glance, a closer look reveals differences in the user interface, collection of features, and even price. Which application is best for you? In Round 1 of this insider, MacThemes takes an in-depth look with a Pixadex versus IconBox comparison review. Round 2, coming later this week, will provide interviews with the two developers.
Features
Let's face it, IconBox and Pixadex are both catered to an extremely niche market: Mac OS X users with so many icons that an organizer is needed. Furthermore, both developers decided early on to base their applications on the innovative iPhoto interface. Because both IconBox and Pixadex are such niche products built on the same user interface, many features are shared. Both applications offer album organization of your icons, a search feature, and web archive integration. The similarities don't end there. Logical features such as user editable (and pre loaded) keywords and a "drop" function to paste icons are also shared. Both applications can import and recognize the iContainer icon set format. The list goes on, but generally, each application shares common features that one would expect from an iPhoto for icons.
While the differences seem pretty scarce in terms of features, IconBox and Pixadex each offer its own features. Many are useless (a button to open Candybar in Pixadex?) but others are highly welcomed. IconBox offers "deep folder" importing, which means you could import your entire icon folder with one click. Pixadex offers a less powerful version of this feature, as it only searches one folder deep for icons. Another useful IconBox exclusive feature is its ability to filter icon imports by prefixes and suffixes, which means that you can have the application exclude readme's, web links, and invisible files automatically. Finally, IconBox allows reordering of your icons within albums, while Pixadex does not.
However, Pixadex has a few tricks up its sleeves. For one, the application has an integration with Candybar that IconBox does not have, understandable as Candybar is also by the IconFactory. Icons with "Candybar markers" can be individually sent to Candybar from Pixadex with one click. Generally, any "made for Candybar" iContainer set you download from the IconFactory supports this feature. In addition, Pixadex has a better implement search function, as searching updates as you type, rather than IconBox's search on enter. However, this feature could also be implemented. On a 600mhz iBook G3, Pixadex's searches were jerky and flashed with a giant progress wheel as I typed in each character. While this jerkiness is to be expected with a computer of those specifications, I found the progress wheel to be quite distracting, and would rather prefer Pixadex to just update the search results at a slower rate. In addition, Pixadex offers much more intuitive drag and drop compatibility with iContainers. When an iContainer is dropped into Pixadex, an album is automatically created and the icons imported. This went a long way when I was downloading icon sets and importing them in batches.
So which application has a better and more useful set of unique features? While IconBox offers its own useful features such as icon reordering, import filters, and deep folder importing, the latter two are ruled largely irrelevant by the newer iContainer standard. For that reason, Pixadex's faster searching and better iContainer integration gives it a slight edge.
Ease of Use
Because Pixadex and IconBox are so similar in their interface and features, I have to go into nit pick mode. As previously mentioned, Pixadex's better iContainer integration goes a long way when you're importing many icons. In addition, Pixadex's interface is more compact than IconBox's. (This is really getting into the details, folks.) Pixadex's more efficient use of space is possible because of three key reasons. First, IconBox devotes an entire row for the search field, something I find rather strange. (Why not stick it in the toolbar?) Second, Pixadex forgoes the standard toolbar and instead sticks most button functions into a space below the albums list, something I think was a smart decision. In my opinion, it is better to take away some vertical space from the album list rather than the whole interface. Finally, Pixadex's icon information and drop well are stored in separate windows, while IconBox keeps them in a drawer, which takes up precious screen real estate. I found that I could comfortably view more icons at a time with Pixadex than IconBox, and found Pixadex's information window easier to use, as it is based on the finder "get info" layout which brings instant familiarity and the option to hide certain fields easily.
Are there any other differences? I found Pixadex's contextual menu in the icon view to be very useful. To say, export an icon as a png file, you must select an icon and navigate through a few layers of the menubar in IconBox, while you can just right click an icon and select export with Pixadex. This is one small feature that is truly useful, and sorely needed in IconBox. Finally, another little area of differences is the icon magnification selector in both apps. While Pixadex offers sticky points for standard icon sizes (hold shift and the slider skips to set sizes), IconBox offers instant feedback on the icon size you have selected. Both executions are welcomed, and while I prefer the security of standard icon sizes, OS X's beautiful quartz scaling really makes my point irrelevant.
In ease of use, Pixadex is the clear winner here, though again by a very small margin. Pixadex's better iContainer integration, more compact interface, and contextual menu makes the application decidedly easier to use. However, some users may prefer IconBox's information drawer over Pixadex's multiple windows.
Price
So far, it's clear that Pixadex and IconBox are very similar applications, and do their jobs admirably. Both are polished apps, and both cover just about anything you could want from an icon organizer. However, Pixadex has slightly edged out IconBox in both features and ease of use... but don't jump for your credit card just yet. There's one last difference, and that is the price. IconBox is $13, while Pixadex is $19, and this six dollar difference could mean a lot or very little, depending on what you're looking for. While in my opinion, Pixadex is a slightly more polished application, the differences are very subtle and many would probably be picked up only by a someone looking for differences. (A reviewer.) Basically, for most people, I doubt Pixadex's few perks are worth 6 dollars. Winner of this category? IconBox.
To sum it up...
Again, let me emphasize that Chickenbyte's IconBox and Pixadex are both high quality products. Both applications do everything you could want from an application whose purpose is to organize your icons. Furthermore, IconBox and Pixadex are not only competent, but very similar in user interface design. However, the differences are there. Pixadex offers more complete iContainer integration than IconBox, an instant search, and a more compact interface, while IconBox offers a few of its own perks, but most ruled irrelevant by the new iContainer format that has become the package of choice for many icon authors.
And the Best Application award goes to....
Congratulations to both Chickenbyte and the IconFactory for these quality and polished applications; competition is truly a good thing. While I think that Pixadex is the better application, there are those who would dispute the six dollar price difference for such a small difference in function and ease of use. Furthermore, both applications are supported by reputable and active developers, so a purchase of either would be a worthy investment. Because of this, I urge readers to try the two apps out for themselves, and post your own user experience!
Comments
Posted by MacDog at January 19, 2004 08:22 AM | Edit | Delete
IconBox lost my loyalty when Pixadex was first released because it was so darn slow, that when Pixadex was released it could have been total cr@p as long as it ran faster than IconBox. While IconBox has had a huge speed improvement, I just couldn't get past that original impression.
Posted by Comie Prevette at January 19, 2004 12:38 PM | Edit | Delete
I bought Pixadex and I love it. I tried IconBox and was just disappointed. Pixadex is just fabulous. The only feature it needs is the ability to sort/arrange icons within albums by the normal attributes such as date modified/imported, name, etc. And maybe a rating system. But Pixadex is worth every cent.
Posted by Phillip Ryu at January 19, 2004 12:56 PM | Edit | Delete
Thumbs up to the rating system idea, that's a very logical feature that I'd also love to see in either of these applications.
Posted by swiz at January 19, 2004 01:20 PM | Edit | Delete
I chose iConbox initially for the lower price and it does a great job if what I want it to. I dont spend that long in the app anyhow so price was really more of a deciding factor for me than anything. Im VERY happy with iconbox.
Posted by Ernest Liu at January 19, 2004 02:47 PM | Edit | Delete
Regarding the icons for each application, I think Pixadex has a better one =)
Posted by Gedeon Maheux at January 19, 2004 04:25 PM | Edit | Delete
One correction: Pixadex does indeed have a "Deep folder import" feature like that of IconBox. Select "Import>Folder of icons" from the File menu and simply check the "Include icons in subfolders" checkbox to import them all into the application. :-)
Posted by mongoose at January 19, 2004 04:29 PM | Edit | Delete
iconbox has the sexiest icon though :D
Posted by Tobsen at January 21, 2004 03:15 PM | Edit | Delete
You can set an icon as iChat picture via context menu in pixadex :) No conversion needed
Posted by Phillip Ryu at January 21, 2004 10:05 PM | Edit | Delete
I believe IconBox also has a send to iChat function :)
Posted by sembazuru at February 12, 2004 12:24 AM | Edit | Delete
Umm... So where's round 2?
Posted by Phillip Ryu at February 16, 2004 12:01 PM | Edit | Delete
Round 2 is planned for this week.