Everyone's favorite P2P TV application has finally made it to version 1.0, and although it's still a 'Beta 1.0 version' it brings a lot of improvements along with the eye-candy UI we've all been waiting for.

Yes, the totally modified user interface is the first thing that pops out in your eye after you install the client. The menus now have a more refined, Web 2.0-like aspect and the sharp edges have disappeared, making place for larger icons and fonts. I'd generally describe the new interface as more fluid than the previous one, but the innovations don't stop here.

One important thing I've noticed about version 1.0 is the fact that you can drag and drop thumbnails of different programs in the “Explore Programs” section to create personal channels. Although once you hold your mouse over the thumbnail you also get the “Add to my Channels” option (but only after you've previewed the content of that channel), I personally find it more convenient to just drag and drop without previewing.

The “Invite Friends” option has now been integrated into the widget menu, along with the “Blog This” and “User Profile” feature, although it still doesn't display how many invitations you have left (I've sent 136, according to the “Invites Status”, and it would've been nice to have a counter for the remaining invites. Or are they infinite?...).

Now you can share shows with friends, either within Joost itself using chat or by sending Joost Links by mail or putting them on your blog or website.

The Joost team also said that with the new version the P2P application has become more tolerant of poor network performance and will attempt to retry and restart streams that have become stalled. I have made a few tests with Joost Meter, a software that I had installed on my office computer since the early stages of beta-testing and from the screenshot you can see that Joost's bandwidth usage in stand-by doesn't surpass the 250 Kbytes value. With it active, the bandwidth usage suddenly increased to more than 4 Megabytes but eventually settled to around 450 Kbytes or even less.

For people running Windows Vista the installation of the client requires administrator privileges because Joost 1.0's installer no longer uses a stub loader to run the app and this removes the requirement for compatibility dlls to be loaded.

The equivalent for Mac OSX is also available but no word yet on how much it'll take for the development team to come up with a Linux-compatible Joost.