The Mac is an interesting platform, to say the least. Even though it has a small market reach when compared to other computer manufacturers, it has one of the most loyal fan bases that can be seen in almost no other place. But have you ever wondered what do developers see in it? Why are they compelled to create such awesome apps for the Mac? Keep on reading as some of them share their thoughts on the Mac.
Zac Cohan from Acqualia Software shared his thoughts:
There are a lot of reasons one could point to as to why the Mac platform the place to be: the rate of innovations coming out of Apple, the beauty of the products they produce, the stability, security and functionality of the operating system, etc.
But I think what it all comes down to at the end of the day is love.
I was just at WWDC, and talking to those Apple engineers, you can’t help but be in admiration of the passion they put into everything they do.
This dedication permeates the entire company, from the top executives down to the people who man the the Apple stores, and it culminates into an amazing attention to detail on every level of the product experience. Even the cardboard boxes Macs come in are artfully designed.
And as a result of all this, consumers just love their Macs. They love using them, and they love being creative with them.
And in the same vein, developers on the Mac also love what they do, and are inspired by what Apple does to put this same level of passion into their own products.It’s a wonderful community to be in, and I can’t think of any other company or even industry that has anything like it.
Jan Van Boghout from MacRabbit also had a great view:
One of the best things about the Mac world is its tight-knit community. People love discussing their favorite platform, so it’s a great environment to gradually get started developing Mac apps. If you have a good idea, you’ll often bump into enthusiastic fellow Mac users who motivate you to actually create your idea. Of course the frameworks Apple provides play an important role too. They’re elegant, feature rich and free! This allows anyone to get started without any real risk.
Hardcore Mac fans are generally quite demanding when it comes to user interfaces, which serves as a threat to developers that don’t take any time for their interfaces. That behavior tends to get rid of the really crappy software, which has the positive effect that people trust software from small developers. When the volume of shit software becomes too high (like on Windows), customers tend to flee to the big, “reliable” companies. I’d say the Mac indie world is so healthy because unattractive or unreliable apps are scrutinized by the community.
Claudia Zimmer from Aquafadas had many interesting things to say:
Why Macs?
The answer to this question is to be found in the very name of our company: Aquafadas.
Aqua: everybody knows that it refers to the UI of the Mac OS.
Fadas: means ‘inspired by the Muses’ in Occitan (a local dialecte in South of France). It also means ‘crazy’.Yeah, Crazy about Macs!
Matthieu had seen the very begining of the Macs back in 1984 with his uncle owning one of the very first Macs in France, the Mac 128K, and following with passion the evolution of this great platform.
Years later, Matthieu became a director in a startup developing risk management software for large investment banks, and when the company was getting out of ‘startup mode’ he wanted some new challenge.I, as an architect, have always been working on Macs.
I’ve followed with lots of interest the evolution of the different Mac applications for architecture.
My generation was really the first “computer-literate” generation of architects, so I had the opportunity to work on really exciting and cutting edge projects.
I also had a chance to advice and teach a lot of young architects (Westminster university (London) and LSE (London School of Economics) — always on the Mac plateform.Crazy idea:
So it’s all about a crazy idea of getting rid of our regular jobs in London, take one year off somewhere sunny (there are 300 days of sunshine every year in Montpellier, where we based Aquafadas) and develop ‘one’ Mac application.
All we needed next was an idea. We did not need to look far: we had a shoebox full of video tapes and no way to sort that out properly on our Macs. That’s how Matthieu came up with the idea of iDive: software that would allow you to browse and find all your videos in no time… and finally do something with all that footage.Maybe the next generation blockbuster movie was sleeping in that box: we wouldn’t know until we had iDive…
From the start, Matthieu decided that he wanted a Mac only application: he’d rather use the best of a platform than do something average that would work on both Mac and Windows. Apple was pushing developers to adopt Cocoa and Objective-C: so the stage was all set for our big adventure.
Crazy recognitions:
We released the first version of iDive in the Summer of 2004, and a couple of months later we won an O’Reilly Innovator Award in San Francisco!
A few months later, it was the turn of the French governement to honor Aquafadas with an Innovation Award, and it hasn’t stopped since then — with two MacGeneration Trophies (one for iDive, one for PulpMotion), a trophy of the Best Start-up from our region…
Crazy to think that what was considered a niche market (yes, the Macs) would bring such enthusiasm regionally and internationally.Crazy projects:
The choice of the Mac platform was definitely a great choice.
With PulpMotion, we had a chance to do truly cool and enjoyable things playing with Quartz Composer, and give to our fellow designers a way to express their talent (the themes developed for PulpMotion are done either internally or by designers).
The future with Leopard looks even brighter. So much power in Core Animation!
But you’ll have to wait until October to discover more.
Also got an interesting take on the Mac? Be sure to leave a comment below, then. And remember to enter the anniversary giveaway, featuring some cool Mac apps!
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[tags]Apple,Mac,Software,Developers,Mac Recon,Blog[/tags]
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