Wednesday, July 29, 2009

On August 15th Amazon will kill all previous versions of Fetch Art

Amazon is changing how applications can interact with their Web Services.

On August 15th 2009 Amazon will make changes to how calls are made to get album art. This change is big and will completely break any software that is not updated to the new calls. This of course, includes all previously released versions of Fetch Art including the latest release version 2.1.

I am working on a new version to address these issues. Amazon has posted some information on how to use the new calls. Unfortunately they are not supporting AppleScript (the language Fetch Art is written in.)

I am working on some changes to Fetch Art that will allow it to work with Amazon after the 15th of August, however, these are not small changes.

Keep checking back here for updates. My goal is to have a new version available by August 15th when Amazon will disable the old calls. Due to my work schedule and the short amount of time, I may not make this deadline.

Also, Amazon is slowly rolling out these changes leading up to the 15th, so you can assume the current version of Fetch Art will start having more and more issues, until it finally stops working on the 15th. Amazon has said during the following dates and times, Fetch Art may not function:

  • First Round: One in five unsigned requests (selected randomly) will be rejected.
    • In all regions (NA, EU, and JP) starting Monday, August 3rd 2009, 6 PM GMT/UTC for 24 hours (that is 11 AM PDT and 3 AM JST).
  • Second Round: all unsigned requests will be rejected at these times:
    • Europe (UK, DE, FR): Monday, August 10th 2009 from 2 PM to 4 PM GMT/UTC
    • North America (US and CA): Monday, August 10th 2009 from 11 AM to 1 PM PDT (6 PM to 8 PM GMT/UTC)
    • Japan (JP): Tuesday, August 11th 2009, 10 AM to 12 Noon JST (1 AM to 3 AM GMT/UTC