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Technology (Apple) Technology

Getting Rich Writing Mac Software 136

Posted by Hemos from the why-indeed dept.
Udo Schmitz writes "Look at this as kind of a followup to an article from yesterday, which was weak and boring although the author had a point. Enter Wil Shipley of Omni Group and Delicious Monster fame. At WWDC 2005 he gave a talk (PDF) about why he develops software for the Mac, when "all the other kids" are programming for Windows. Choice quote: "Windows users only ever use three apps: Word, IE (for e-mail), and iTunes"."
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Getting Rich Writing Mac Software More

Getting Rich Writing Mac Software

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  • Oh, come on now... (Score:5, Funny)

    by plazman30 ( 531348 ) on Monday July 04, 2005 @08:12AM (#12978717) Homepage
    We all know Windows users make heavy use of Gator, Internet Search Bar, Precision Time, SQL Slammer, Code Red, Nimda, and a lot of other cool programs they may not even know they have!

    I just wish Windows users would stop sharing all this great software with the rest of us!

  • HTML version of the talk (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 04, 2005 @08:12AM (#12978725)
    courtesy of Google Cache [66.102.7.104]

    • Re:HTML version of the talk (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Make sure to ctrl-a to actually be able to read the text.
      I guess the pdf had a black background or something.
      Actually, let me just copy/paste this:

      This is a really long line since apparently filler at the end of the textarea isn't counted toward the average characters per line, and you know, it really sucks that legitimate users have to do crap like this to post a real post (stupid bullet point powerpoint presentations - even if it isn't really powerpoint this time around - and is the line long enough alre
    • The accompanying audio (.M4A) [wilshipley.com] I forgot to link to in the blurb.
    • besides not being able to see the ride, you miss the hilarity of the

      "Work for The Man, or for yourself
      You gots to decide"

      slide.

      I laughed my ass off. That was the best.

  • More of a how-to... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jmp_nyc ( 895404 ) * on Monday July 04, 2005 @08:21AM (#12978762)
    This article ends up being more of a guide for how to start and build a company, and how to be a software engineer.

    Anyone who can't figure out that you should seek advice from an accountant and lawyer to protect against getting audited or sued probably shouldn't be running a company.

    Anyone who can't figure out that you shouldn't reinvent the wheel when coding, or that you should get rid of those pesky O(N^2) algorithms probably shouldn't be overseeing a software development venture.

    The rest of the talk seems to present like a substitute for the sort of things I would imagine should be taught in business schools, but probably isn't.
    -JMP

    • The rest of the talk seems to present like a substitute for the sort of things I would imagine should be taught in business schools, but probably isn't.

      It's not. Business schools don't prepare you to be an entrepreneur. Neither do computer science schools. I'm not sure anything does. Yes, there are programs like Shad Valley [www.shad.ca] that can help point you in the right direction, but in the end it's your inner drive to succeed that will get you there or not.

      Eric

    • Re:More of a how-to... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      As a business school grad (CPA, BS in Finance), I can tell you, none of what he said was taught in business school. Not even at the MBA level (I worked for an MBA program for 2 yrs, in the classroom). It is not taught there, because most 'good' business schools (mine was top 10) are funded by... wait for it... large corporations for research and for MBA student tuition. Therefore, anything that does not prepare you to be a golf-playing, back-slapping, networking, non-boat-rocking PHB is not going to make it
  • Games.

    AOL Instant messenger (which is getting tobe the most effective virus distribution mechanism after Outlook Express).

    Windows Media Player.

    Games.

    Nero (because Microsoft doesn't have a media burning framework).

    Games.

    DVD Express (because Microsoft doesn't have a DVD player).

    Did I mention games?

    NASA World Wind and Google Earth are cool right now (except that they're really games).

    Oh yeh, games.

    Basically, you have programs that ship with Mac OS X anyway but Windows needs them to patch the OS, and games. There's some of that on the Mac, too... Shapeshifter, Codetek Virtual Desktop, and so on. But those don't port to Windows real well.

    Games? A year from now, we'll be seeing Windows games getting ported to the Mac.

    Yeh, I can see his point. I don't think I'm entirely convinced, but I get it.

    • So your point is... (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      So your point is "Windows: great if you develop games, but if you develop anything else, go with Mac", right? :-)
    • Nero (because Microsoft doesn't have a media burning framework).

      Yes, they do. As illustrated in this example [microsoft.com]

      DVD Express (because Microsoft doesn't have a DVD player).

      Yes, it does: Windows Media Player. However, it requires a third-party MPEG-2 codec [microsoft.com], which are freely available.

      At any rate, Shipley's comment was so glib and cavalier, it's hardly worth taking seriously.
      • However, it requires a third-party MPEG-2 codec, which are freely available.

        None of the codecs on the page you linked to are free.
      • MPEG-2 unfortunately is only free as in eyepatch.
      • Nero (because Microsoft doesn't have a media burning framework).
        Yes, they do. As illustrated in this example [microsoft.com]

        I'm a 2-year Mac user and a 10 year pissed off Windows user before that. I never got XP to burn a CD out of the box. They hint at the ability to do so but without the likes of Adaptec, Nero, or iTunes I could never do it.

        DVD Express (because Microsoft doesn't have a DVD player).
        Yes, it does: Windows Media Player. However, it requires a third-party MPEG-2 codec [microsoft.
        • XP is (finally) a stable windows OS. But as someone who has worked with both Apple & Microsoft since well before Lisa/Mac and Windows - the clear winner the past few years is OSX.

          Macs are damn stable little machines. The bundle is excellent and the support system is beyond excellent. The .Mac integration surpasses any comparable package for general use.

          In my experience, the costs are higher up-front with Apple, but the stability and product life are much greater than Microsoft's products. Of cours
        • Windows XP Pro will let you burn data discs in a drag-and-drop way very similar to Finder. XP Home has that feature removed, but still has the capability to burn discs with other applications.

          To burn iso images to a disc you'll need third party burning software like this [alexfeinman.com].
      • OK, Microsoft doesn't have a complete media burning framework or a complete DVD player. Point is, most of the software I've bought for Windows is stuff to plaster over problems in Windows itself.

        Shipley's comment was so glib and cavalier, it's hardly worth taking seriously.

        So, what software have you bought for Windows?
        • well ive used AVG (free version), spybot (also free), and zonealarm for a firewall (thats free to), as well as firefox (last time i checked its free) to ensure a clean windows boxen...and the only problem ive had was a tracking cookie i got from a toyota website that was IE only when i decided to "build a car" (which i had to use IE to get btw)...

          that should plaster over any problems in xp...

          as far as software i bought... um... games...

          and there is no need to buy any sort of dvd player app when there is
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • The article is about getting rich writing software. While I agree that he left games off the list of things people do in Windows, it'll be hard to argue that writing games for Windows is profittable.
    • AIM - iChat and AdiumX both support it

      Windows Media Player - Available for OS X, but so is mPlayer, Xine, and VLC

      Nero - Disk Utility will both master and burn regular images, Finder and iTunes have some quick and easy functionality as well. There's software available to handle other formats like nrg.

      DVD Express - Not sure what this is, you say DVD player, I say DVD Player for OS X. On the off chance it does mastering, iDVD and iMovie.

      NASA World Wind and Google Earth - Geek toys, will get ported to Linux
    • Games? A year from now, we'll be seeing Windows games getting ported to the Mac.

      Actually there is less incentive for porting games to x86 Macs than PowerPC Macs. Basically x86 Mac shares the same problem as Linux, emulation is viable. With PowerPC emulation was not a viable alternative, you had to emulate the API and the CPU. Emulating the CPU is a monstrous performance killer. With an x86 Mac CPU emulation is not necessary, VirtualPC and presumably Wine may run a Windows game at near native speed.

      If
      • Basically x86 Mac shares the same problem as Linux, emulation is viable.

        Not for games. Not for high end games, anyway. Why? DirectX. Once you've done the work to support OpenGL as well as DirectX, you've done most of the work for a Mac port anyway... and you can probably toss off an SDL version for Linux as well...
        Ryan Gordon, Epic Games: From a game development (rather, a game porting) viewpoint, this will be a huge win once we get the majority of users over to these systems, both in terms of developer expertise and end-user performance. Most games we deal with are already running on Windows/x86, and were optimized with the x86 in mind, so "porting" these Mac games is turning off the byte swapping and turning back on the SSE codepaths. Not having to write anymore Altivec code is a GOOD THING for everyone involved. All my bitching about having 30 windows developers and one me are a non-issue in terms of optimization.

        I could probably get, say, ut2004 up and running on an x86 Mac within...well, the time it takes to change a few lines in a Makefile and recompile the game, and I'd have optimizations suddenly enabled that were never previously feasible to put into the Mac version.

    • Games.
      Games.
      Games.
      Did I mention games?
      Oh yeh, games.

      Too bad you don't read Wil's blog. It sounds like the person you describe is a 15-year-old boy.

      In Wil's discussion on piracy he says

      Here's the deal: 15-year-old boys with no money pirate software. The harder you make it to crack the software, the more elite they'll feel when they do it, so the harder they'll work to publicize their feat.

      But, and let me stress this point, IF YOUR BUSINESS MODEL IS TO SELL SOFTWARE TO 15-YEAR-OLD BOYS, YOU ARE SCREWE

      • I'm 43 and I've done all of these things in the past year or so.

        I burn CDs and DVDs to transfer data between computers.

        I use AIM to keep in touch with colleagues.

        I've heard of Google Earth but haven't tried it yet.

        I think Wil is right in that Mac users tend to like the companies that develop for us, and we tend to buy software at a much higher rate than Windows users. I, for example, have purchased a copy of OmniWeb and use it daily. Omni, for those who don't know, was Wil Shipley's former company.

        I'

        • companies that develop for us

          I, for example, have purchased a copy of OmniWeb

          I'm a very loyal Mac user

          All of this is why you're not in the category of people who use only Word, IE and iTunes. Wil's original point, was that Mac users use their computers, and Windows users merely put up with them.

          I know several Mac and Linux users who do all those things, but only a very few windows users who do.

      • Too bad you don't read Wil's blog. It sounds like the person you describe is a 15-year-old boy.

        Some of the people I'm thinking of have more than 15 years seniority where I work. They're not going to see the low side of 35 again, let alone 15. What do they do on Windows when they're not at work? Play games. Or they AIM me for help with their Windows boxes, if they've figured out my AIM handle. That's most of the software you can sell for Windows: games or stuff to fix Windows better.

        IF YOUR BUSINESS MOD
      • I'm 34 and I've been doing these things for years. In what teenage-only world do you live?

        Many of the kids I know don't much any of these things either, they just sit at their PlayStation, XBox, you name it and mindlessly play games all day long...

  • About buying Mac software (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 04, 2005 @08:48AM (#12978882)
    I'm a 21 year Mac user, I buy all of my software to support the developers who code for our platform.

    It was hard during the "dark years" while baboons ran Apple, but now it's getting so much better so fast it's not even silly.

    You may say "games", I have bought 20 games this year alone at $50 or more a pop for my DP PowerMac G5

    Why do you say? Why not a cheap PC instead?

    Well first of all I'm older, my reflexes are not as good anymore to take on these kids online. I need a machine to do my work in peace and security and enjoying my mid-life crises with a occasional diversion into 3D games is a pleasant diversion.

    Heck gaming is all going to X-Boxes and Playstations, they are cheaper and appeal to a mass audience.

    Mac software has to be GOOD software, because well we are not as numerous as the common windows, so it really has to fill a need and a want well for a large percentage of us to buy.

    Crappie office store programs need not apply.

    The decision to shift to Intel processors is opening a lot of eyes, for us Mac users and developers of Wintel software to tap our rather lucrative pursestrings, with Apple giving away WebObjects (a $50,000) program that makes Java applications and runs Apple and Dells webstores etc. is a tremendous incentive.

    All I can say is Steve Jobs has had many years to figure out what he could have done if he remained at Apple, now the has his second chance and who knows what to expect.

    We need a revolution, change is good, innovation is good and the new Apple is gearing up to change the world once again.

    Hello again!

    • reading slashdot when you've just woken up (Score:4, Funny)

      by SuperBanana ( 662181 ) on Monday July 04, 2005 @11:57AM (#12979904)
      I'm a 21 year Mac user, I buy all of my software to support the developers who code for our platform.
      [snip]
      You may say "games", I have bought 20 games this year alone at $50 or more a pop for my DP PowerMac G5
      [snip]
      I need a machine to do my work in peace and security and enjoying my mid-life crises with a occasional diversion into 3D games is a pleasant diversion.

      I did a doubletake here...I read your first sentence as "I'm a 21 year OLD Mac user".

      First I was pissed you could afford a dual processor G5 and spend $1k a year on games ("damn kids these days, mummy&daddy buy them everything"), but then I realized you weren't going live past 40, and couldn't decide between feeling sorry for you, or saying "ha-ha!" like that bulley on the Simpsons. Then "he thinks 21 is mid-life?" popped into my head, and finally, "Oh. 21 year user of Macintoshes. Mid life crisis. Ah."

      I need to read Slashdot more often, after just waking up. It makes reading it far more interesting and entertaining.

    • Re:About buying Mac software (Score:5, Insightful)

      by corporatemutantninja ( 533295 ) on Monday July 04, 2005 @12:30PM (#12980066)
      Ditto: I work on my Mac; I play games on my Xbox.
    • I started reading Inside Macintosh in '83 and programming the Mac in '84 as well. I have also worked extensively on the dark side. Two things about this shift to x86:

      It changes almost nothing for developers or users. The reasons to target or use Macs were the same before the x86 announcement and after. For users: They rarely even know what kind of CPU is in the box let alone care. For developers: assembly language is rarely used, byte swapping is only a minor annoyance, the real problem is technological
      • Well, I've been programming the Mac as long as you, and in one of my particular niches your "assembly language is rarely used, byte swapping is only a minor annoyance" statement is incorrect.

        That niche is, surprise, porting Windows games. Specifically, the Paradox games, Celtic Kings, etc. for Virtual Programming, vpltd.com.

        On the one hand, the switch makes that job easier by far, since I'll just have to port the DirectX APIs to get it running on Mactel, then have a working reference to sort out the fiddl
        • Well, I've been programming the Mac as long as you, and in one of my particular niches your "assembly language is rarely used, byte swapping is only a minor annoyance" statement is incorrect. That niche is, surprise, porting Windows games. Specifically, the Paradox games, Celtic Kings, etc. for Virtual Programming, vpltd.com.

          Sorry, but "been there, done that", and I disagree. I also have experience with cross-platform game development and this includes porting PC titles that were never written with port
    • You may say "games", I have bought 20 games this year alone at $50 or more a pop for my DP PowerMac G5

      what games?

      I can't even name 20 computer games I enjoyed playing enough to buy in history. I think I may have only bought 20 in my life. What 20 games have come out for the mac that are worth buying the last year?!

      I mean, the only games that come to mind is the new unreal tournament (2004? I think?) and, maybe WoW or Warcraft3...

      The only computer games I still play are Quake1, Quake3 and Starcraft. And

  • I only target platforms... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by el_womble ( 779715 ) on Monday July 04, 2005 @10:16AM (#12979271) Homepage

    ... because I have too. Isn't targeting OSs becoming a bit tired? For the most part, the OS should be transparent to the developer as should the hardware. The only time this shouldn't be true is when the program requires to talk to the hardware or OS directly - which for most apps is never.

    The other problem is GUI - different OS, different ideology, different GUI. If Qt have proven nothing else, they have proven that this can be a problem of the past.

    What I would love to see is XCode and Cocoa compiling for Linux, Wintel and Sun. They don't even have to release XCode for different platforms, just open up the API so that you can write once compile anywhere. This will fill a huge gap in the market - high performance, cross platform desktop software development. Is it possible? Well yes. I'm not sure how easy core data et al. would be to port, but GNUStep seems to have the rest covered.

    Will this mean that less apps are built for Mac? No. Surely it would mean that more apps are writen for Mac, as developers don't have to worry about missing out on the Wintel market, just because they targeted Mac.

    Will Apple loose market share? Unlikely. Sure there is a chance that people will see less of a need to switch. But the three major OSs all have different strengths. Linux provides the best-of-the-best in terms of customization. Its not for me, but I can understand the appeal - it just needs pro apps. Macs offer a good spectrum of usability, but suck at server stuff, and some people just don't like Aqua. Windows is what everybody is comfortable with - and thats worth more than a lot of us will ever understand.

    Apple might think that keeping technologies like Core* and Aqua proprietary gives them the edge but I don't see how. Mac end users are interested in getting there work done, and unless they're developers, they don't care how. Mac users notice expose, the dock, dashboard and spotlight. Thats how they differentiate between platforms. Getting more developers on to XCode can only be a good thing as it means more apps, and less switchers saying - I hate Mac because it doesn't have app X. It could also be good for Linux, closed source might be the anti-christ, but its difficult to fight the good fight with 2% market share - and there is nothing stopping you from realsing your spanking Cocoa app under the BSD or even GPL.

    • You mean, like GNUstep [gnustep.org] and Project Center [gnustep.org]?
    • Xcode uses gcc to do the compiling, so if you can cross-compile for Solaris with gcc, you could use the Xcode IDE with a few tweaks.
      • XCode is only interesting if you code for Cocoa. Otherwise stick with your IDE of choice (or vi, emacs, etc).

        Coding for Cocoa for Sun is kind of hard at the moment, although Sun did support OpenStep about 10 years ago...

    • Re:I only target platforms... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by TheRaven64 ( 641858 ) on Monday July 04, 2005 @02:52PM (#12980796) Journal
      The other problem is GUI - different OS, different ideology, different GUI. If Qt have proven nothing else, they have proven that this can be a problem of the past.

      Yes, they have proven that cross platform GUIs suck. Have you ever used a Qt app on the Mac? Unless careful porting has been done, they suck. Apps close when you close the last window, focus rules aren't native, the text field has different shortcut keys to every single other app you use, meaning you can't select an entire word or line without having to think - oh, and spell checking doesn't work. Neither does copy and paste / drag and drop. Oh and services don't work either. Want to type a formula, hit a key combination and have it automatically evaluated? I can do that on every non-Qt OS X app, but not on Qt one.

    • I don't know that there's an app for WinTel that doesn't have an equivalent app for Macs, maybe not the same software from the same company, but from someone else then.

      Mac end users are interested in getting there work done, and unless they're developers, they don't care how.

      If they are Mac users today it's either because they want to be or because their job requires it, ie their shop uses Macs. You bring up a good point about Macs though, they simply work! Though I've use almost exclusively Windoze

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Apple can only benefit from having more apps. Having an IDE that can compile to more than one platform is very different to having binaries that run on every platform. Developers would be free to target the platforms they want. For example Apple could release the iApps for Linux but not Windows, but it would probably make more sense to use them as carrots for switchers - opening the API would free them to make these business decisions with much lower impacts, knowing that if it suddenly made business sense

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
          • I had this idea that if they open-sourced Cocoa, for non-commercial use only on non-MacOS platforms then they could kill off all the nightmareish APIs on top of X, build a legion of OS-X developers, while not giving developers a way to make money releasing software for Linux/Windows without releasing for MacOS.

            What do you think?
            • Comment removed based on user account deletion
              • More developers? Of course the cost of maintaining Cocoa on Linux may be too great for the reward. If Cocoa were open-sourced on Linux maybe the open-source developers would bear the cost, but that's probably unlikely. More likely would be Apple just releasing the libraries as binaries on certain distributions.
                Whether or not the benefit of new developers (and perhaps users) would be worth it is certainly debatable and would take a long time to pay off. Same as with the donations Apple did to schools to g
            • Open Source for non commercial use only would NEVER be an aproved OSI licence. Thats what I think.

  • The luck factor... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by andy55 ( 743992 ) on Monday July 04, 2005 @10:27AM (#12979342) Homepage

    As a founder of a Mac OS (and Windows) shareware company for a couple years now (trying to live the self-employed dream), I definitely agree strongly with most of what this guy says... Where I think he shoots himself in the foot is how he talks about his money/car a little too often (it's a little uncouth to make a remark about your money or success more than once, even if its in jest--that's just leadership 101).

    Anyway, my other comment was that he doesn't hit on the fact that being a successful startup takes a good chunk of luck as well. You have to be in the right place, at the right time, and usually know the right person(s). He does a lot of hardworking and visionary entrepreneurs that haven't been as successful a disservice when he acts/assumes that luck isn't a major factor. If you look at the infancy stages of most major success stories, there were usually at least a couple "lucky" events that happened in a row.

    Just my two cents...

    andy
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion


      • Here's a little tip: go and check out Delicious Library, and then check out the apps that Wil was involved with at Omni, and see if you still think he was just lucky.

        I never said he got to where he was because he was lucky. What I said is that many hardworking an innovative entrepreneurs don't succeed because they are unlucky or get screwed (whatever you want to call it).

        May I make the suggestion that you should try to listen what people mean rather than what they say.

  • The real reson. . . (Score:5, Informative)

    by Bastian ( 66383 ) on Monday July 04, 2005 @11:31AM (#12979754)
    Is that the Windows market is oversaturated. I'm going to suggest that the number of commercial software developers a platform can support is related logrithmically to its user base. Given how massive the Wintel platform's market share is, there is just no room for a small shareware developer looking to break into the market.

    Just do a Tucows or Download.com search for _anything_. You'll find about 30 other apps, many of them freeware. And frequently a couple of them will be huge well-established behemoths. Omni would have been insane to make OmniGraffle a Windows-only program with Visio already there. Go do the same searches on the Apple secion of VersionTracker, and you won't find nearly as much stuff, and frequently a bunch of it will have only half the features you want.

    And the games market for Macs is so tiny that you can write almost anything and bet that you will get at least some following. There's a Mac-only MMORPG that, technology-wise, is far far behind anything else on the market, but it still manages to keep a loyal community even in the face of games like World of Warcraft.

    (Of course, that's probably because there also seem to be a lot of cheapskate, half-assed Mac gamers like me who were unsure about paying $50 for the game PLUS $10-15/mo subscription (My Sirius radio cost less than that!) when we know there's a good chance we would get bored and quit 3 or 4 months into it when that price including startup costs still works out to $30 or so a month. And when we saw that the minimum specs were way above what we had sitting on our desks, that was the nail in the coffin. The shaky, half-assed attempt to get back on topic moral: If you write Mac games, make sure they will run on well-mildewed hardware. On average, Mac users let their computers age much longer than PC users do (I've heard twice as long quoted a few times), and there are not many among them who are the kind to buy a new computer just to be able to play the latest game. If we really cared about games anywhere near that much, we never would have ditched Windows in the first place.)

    • Given how massive the Wintel platform's market share is, there is just no room for a small shareware developer looking to break into the market.

      Personally I prefer to have choices. As for breaking into the market, I think it is possible to break into the WinTel market but it takes more than just programming ability. Find a "need" or want that isn't being satisfied or offer a low price then get the word out. That's the hard part, getting the word out. For instance something I've been thinking about f

      • There are plenty of companies that have tried to come out with something comparable to Photoshop, but at a much lower price. Two things are working against them - first, they have a hard time breaking into the low cost photo editing realm because they have to compete with the name recognition of Photoshop CS, and, increasingly, the cheapness of the GIMP (which I have noticed seems to be breaking into the mainstream).

        But, for the part that you want, which is to be just as featureful as Photoshop, the big r
      • I think you proved his point.

        There are several quite good photography programs that aren't Photoshop or gimp, and cost less than $600.

        PaintShop Pro is under $150 and is quite high quality. Not to mention the lite version of photoshop, which, while not as nice as its big brother, can still do some good stuff in the hands of a pro.

        And those two are owned by big name companies with marketing budgets.

        So there's two - I'm sure there's a bunch more. But everyone just buys or pirates Photoshop CS because they
  • I am part owner/developer of www.xheadsoftware.com [xheadsoftware.com] and we've had some success, but need to spread the word more. Will makes it sounds easy, but you don't make 54k in one day w/ zero advertising, he had to get the word out some way. We do press releases and are all over Google and the download sites and do some banner ads too, but I would like to know what other Mac related sites people use to get the word out. Which ways to spread the word are most effective in the Mac community? -Jeff
    • Become involved in the community. Sites like Macnn, macosxhints, etc. This is how the buzz for Delicious monster go going ("From creator of OmniWeb" did not hurt). It also helps to troll around looking for support threads on your product.

      Btw I made a app very much like info.xhead as a learning app when I started playing around with Cocoa. Not sure if 20 bucks is worth it but best of luck to you.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • More power to the author of the talk, definitely, however, personally I think most of the shareware scene on macs is completely out of control. Most shareware authors expect people to pay something like $40 for a thin wrapper over some fundamental system tweak, like a firewall wrapper, some way to tweak the kernel priorities and whatnot.

    In the case of the author, he expect people to pay the same $40 for something that will index their personal library (books, videos, etc). Sure it is very cool with an impr
    • In the case of the author, he expect people to pay the same $40 for something that will index their personal library (books, videos, etc). Sure it is very cool with an impressive GUI, barcode support using a video camera, and all that, but it is not something you couldn't do with a spreadsheet, at its most basic.

      On the other hand, a spreadsheet is not something you couldn't do with a pencil, some lined paper and a calculator, at its most basic.

    • You don't get the fun factor (Score:5, Insightful)

      by zpok ( 604055 ) on Monday July 04, 2005 @03:16PM (#12980913) Homepage
      "Perhaps the people who work tring to make Linux better aren't so much interested in making up fluff that will sell."

      First off, use Monster's library, and see what it does when you scan a barcode or type in a title, see how well the search engine works, check out the loaning panel, integrated with Address Book.

      You can't do all that with a spreadsheet. It's a wonderful program, integrating extremely cool features in the simplest way possible.

      And even if you could do it with a spreadsheet, (you might with some hard work even get there, what do I know) using Monster's library is fun and fast.

      What you say could easily apply to iPhoto. But to my own amazement, I actually use that program to the limit, while all this cataloguing and stuff really isn't my thing (chaos is my middle name). Why do I use it? It's fun, and it makes you do things with your photo's, like sharing them with parents and friends. Cheesy, I admit, but hey, why not?

      I really love a good GUI on a good idea. I recommend the Google photo app to all my PC using friends, but wouldn't switch myself for the world. The best GUI's (imnsho) are still to be found on the mac, even if for every single mac program you find ten windows or linux variants.

      Fluff indeed. It is the combination if idea and GUI that makes it dynamite, I hate fluffiness and useless shiny things.

      Cheers
    • If you can get Excel to scan in the barcodes from any book, dvd, game or other electronic media using ANY firewire camera, automatically pull the title, author and other basic informational attributes and organize it into an easily searchable system that allows me to check things into and out of the system (think community based NetFlix-esque groups if you need to know where that feature might come in handy), I'd like to know how.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • I'm not sure how easy it would be to repeat Wil's success with Mac software development, but he gives some good advice if you're thinking you'd like to live in a box, down by the river. Because if you quit your job to make and sell your own software, you might not be able to afford a van, get it?

    Seriously, though, it's a pretty inspirational story, and the "form an LLC" and "you will get sued" points sound like really, really good advice, and the analysis of the over-saturation of the Windows market seems p

  • I just released my first shareware application for Mac OS X [thinkyhead.com], with the hope and belief that an increased market-base, programs like GarageBand (with which it interoperates), an increased interest in home-made music, and a vast broadband internet would help drive sales to amazing heights. When I first marketed the Mac OS 7/8/9 version of the same title the internet was far smaller and far slower and MIDI equipment was a bit more expensive. Whereas the previous version was released as honor-ware, I released th
    • Oops, it's Softpedia that kindly displays number of downloads on the front page, not MacUpdate as I stated.
    • I have shown this app to two of my upstairs neighbors who are muscians and they said they'd check it out, so here's hoping that helps you.

      On another note (so to speak): did you write the app in cocoa with objective-c? I ask because I'm trying to get into writing mac apps (don't worry...I won't compete against you in any way unless you're into pipe/valve simulators) and need to do some graphics-intensive work for it, and wanted merely to know what you used to be inspired.

      Good luck!

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