Praat is an application with which phoneticians can analyze, synthesize, and manipulate speech, and can create high-quality images for their articles and doctoral theses.
From http://savethevowels.org/praat/:
"'Using Praat for Linguistic Research' by Will Styler is a practical guidebook and information package designed to help you use the Praat phonetics software package more effectively in Phonetic or Phonological research."
The 60+ page guidebook is available free at the above website, or by using this URL:
http://savethevowels.org/praat/UsingPraatforLinguisticResearchLatest.pdf
It's simply outstanding to have such functional, useful, and versatile software not only offered for free, but continually updated, year after year after year. Kudos to Paul and David for their tireless hard work.
As for the icon, I've been using Praat for over a decade, and I've never had a problem with it, and would miss it if it were changed significantly!
I give Praat 5 stars for it's unmatched ability to make me come back to this page every time there's a new version, just to see if anyone's posted anything amusing about the icon.
I've never come across another piece of Mac software that manages to do this so effectively! The developers have truly achieved something unique here.
I don't like the icon for Garage Band.app so I changed it to a piano instead of a guitar.
For Fetch.app I use my little Boston Terrier's face. How hard is it to change the icon for a Mac user?
And how important, if the app is great as this one is?
I've come to believe that the monstrous icon of this app is in fact a subtle marketing ploy. There is no such thing as bad publicity in the world of business, and this icon has created a lot of attention for this product. Users who have no use for such a program have no doubt downloaded it anyway to show it to their friends. Clever advertising, I say.
I would like to nominate this app for worst icon in the history of icons on the Mac. I've seen worse for Windows, but nothing as bad as this on the Mac.
Congrats, I think.
Developers, you are awesome. You have been continually upgrading for many years now and it keeps getting better and better. You have never asked for any financial aid, offering it free. I can't understand how anyone can continually criticize the icon when they are offering nothing financially nor technically to the application. I wish you both health, blessing, and encouragement.
I know.. why is the issue of this icon so important.. I mean appearance does not matter AT ALL.. EVER... only functionalities.. look at the iPhone 4.. works great, great reception/antenna problem, yet the appearance/design is crap and compleeeeeeeetely random lol
Be honest people.. you all care about appearance or you would most likely not even be on MAC...
The World would be a better place if humans were more honest (honesty is also an aesthetics ideal.. the ancient Greek gave a damn about all this .. how low can you go Humanity.. XXIst century looks like rock-bottom in this department)...
And yes this icon su cks Paul the Octopus eight times rather than one.
I have no idea what this software does, but I have enjoyed the Icon debate for several years now! I think its funny how people complain so much about a free program's icon!
i myself absolutely love the icon to the hilt! it looks very very close to my wife's best side -- almost an exact duplicate of certain nether regions. my only real problem with the icon is that after only fifteen minutes at the most of working with this program, i find myself using every square inch of our king-sized bed with her for a very very long time in an animalistic fashion. while i'm certain i am not exactly using the program as intended by the developers, sometimes certain mac software has unforeseen beneFITS. i mean who would have figured Praat has produced 4 children, two of which i proudly named paul and dave. hats off to the developers and i thank you both in the worst way.