Pixelmator 2

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Pixelmator is my pixel editor of choice. It doesn’t take up too many resources on your computer, it’s fast, and it looks great on your Mac.

Today it looks even better. Version 2 is available on the Mac App Store for a whopping $30 for a little while. The price will go up to $60 soon, so be sure to grab it quick. If you previously purchased it on the Mac App Store, the update is waiting for you free of charge.

Pixelmator 2 is made for OS X Lion, supporting features such as Full-Screen, Versions, and Auto-Save. It also brings other great features to the table, such as a Healing Tool with Content-Aware Fill, vector shape and drawing tools, smudge, sponge, burn, and dodge tools, red eye removal, a pixel-precise tool, revamped eyedropper tool, revamped type tool, and a handy info bar.

Pixelmator is right up there for many people’s Photoshop needs at a fraction of the price. You’d be crazy to not have this in your Mac’s arsenal.

Get Your Mac Ready to Pounce on Lion

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During its quarterly financial results conference call today, Apple confirmed that OS X Lion will be on the Mac App Store tomorrow, 20 July. So, if you are planning to upgrade tomorrow, like I am, it would be a good idea to prep your Mac tonight.

Here's a good summary of how to approach a major upgrade from Chairman Gruber:

  1. Do a complete backup clone to an external FireWire drive.
  2. Test that the backup is indeed bootable and up to date.
  3. Unplug the backup drive.
  4. Pop in the installer DVD and launch the “Install Mac OS X” app.

Step 4 has been obviated by the App Store, of course, but steps 1-3 still stand. Do not assume that going from 10.6 to 10.7 will be an easy or seamless transition.

In all likelihood, the upgrade to Lion should go smoothly, but it is always better to be prepared for the worst. I highly recommend SuperDuper! for your cloning needs.

Byword 1.3

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Byword is a fantastically simple typing interface for the Mac. I picked it up when version 1.2 came out, which introduced Markdown support. I held off on publishing my thoughts after having a brief discussion with the developers about Markdown support getting a lot better in 1.3. Well, Byword 1.3 made its way onto the Mac App Store today, and I thought I'd share my thoughts on what has become my go-to tool for writing on my Mac.

Syntax

When Byword 1.2 introduced Markdown support a while back, the furthest it reached was the ability to convert your markup into HTML and preview or export it. This was all well and good, but having come from using the abandonware of TextMate, I missed being able to see my Markdown syntax take effect while I wrote. Meaning that by surrounding a word with an asterisk on each side, it would italicize. Well, Byword 1.3 takes care of that. Emphasis and strong emphasis, headers, ordered and unordered lists, and more all render in real time, aiding in visualizing your final work at a glance.

The export options have even expanded to include PDF, RTF, Word, & LaTeX in addition to HTML.

Preferences

I have always enjoyed Byword's minimal preference pane, which offers a light or dark theme, text width choices of narrow, medium, or wide, and the font chooser. Thankfully, one crucial preference was added, and that is the ability to set a default text format of rich text, plain text, or Markdown. And the Markdown choice even uses the .md file extension.

Miscellaneous Niceties

When tapping out a list, whether ordered or unordered, tapping return once now adds the next row with the appropriate marking. Also, there is a new typewriter scrolling mode which keeps the current line centered vertically in the window, so you can watch one area while typing, instead of traveling down the length of your screen as your type.

Ready to Roar

Byword 1.3 also adds support for OS X Lion, which should be arriving any day now. Once running on Lion, Byword will trade its custom full-screen support for Lion's native Full-Screen App support, along with Auto-Save, Versions, and Resume.

As someone who writes almost exclusively in Markdown anymore, Byword has grown to become the tool I reach for when I go to write. Today's enhancements to how Byword handles Markdown syntax has sealed it. In my book, Byword has become the tool that every serious writer using Markdown should use.

If you are looking for an app that is clean and simply gets out of your way so you can write, I can't recommend Byword enough.

Byword is available on the Mac App Store for $10.

Take Five for Mac

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It's starting to feel like Iconfactory central around here, but the company has been on a roll these first few months of 2011. They've released a major overhaul of Twitterrific for Mac, a new photo app called Flare, the unveiling of their game-changing development kit called The Chameleon Project, and now one of their iOS originals has come to the Mac.

Take Five for Mac is a simple utility that pauses your music for 5 minutes (or whatever you set in preferences), then gracefully fades it back in when time is up.

You may be asking why anyone would need something like this. The answer is simple: we all have distractions. I can be on a roll working on something while listening to music or a podcast when my phone will ring, or my wife or son needs my attention for a moment. So I pause iTunes and deal with the issue at hand. And then, more often than not, I listen to absolutely nothing for the next 45 minutes (and often with my headphones attached to my ears). Take Five solves this.

I've been beta testing the Mac version for the past couple weeks and it works really well. I never did buy the iOS app because I didn't want to switch apps just to pause what I am listening to, especially since I often pause with the in-line remote on Apple's headphones.

The Mac app makes perfect sense, though, as it works as advertised while staying out of the way. An added bonus is that is pops up slightly with track info when tracks advance.

Take Five for Mac is available in the Mac App Store for $3.99. However, it is half off for a launch special of $1.99 for a short time.

If you listen to stuff via iTunes while sitting at your desk, you need this app.

FaceTime for Mac Officially Released

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FaceTime for Mac is out of beta as of today. Honestly, I didn't think it would leave beta until Mac OS X Lion's release this summer. The big new feature is HD video calling if you have a FaceTime HD camera (currently exclusive to the MacBook Pro line that was refreshed today).

FaceTime for Mac comes with the new MacBook Pro, or is available for 99¢ on the Mac App Store for the rest of us.

Some folks I've spoken with that had the beta installed say they are sticking with that. Your mileage may vary. Me? It's a buck, and I use it quite a bit.

Twitterrific Comes Back to the Mac

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It's no secret that I am a huge fan of the Iconfactory's wonderful twitter client Twitterrific. Back in October I wrote about an upcoming revamp of the Mac version of Twitterrific.

Today, the eagle has landed.

Apple's motto for the upcoming Mac OS X Lion is "Back to the Mac." Twitterrific 4 for Mac is exactly that. It is the iOS app brought "Back to the Mac." From popovers to fade-away scroll bars, Twitterrific 4 for Mac is a foreshadowing of Lion on Snow Leopard.

I've been beta testing Twitterrific 4 for the past month or so, and I wouldn't even think of using another Twitter app on my Mac. Where the new Twitter for Mac feels completely foreign on the Mac (in my opinion, it feels too much like an iOS app), Twitterrific is the perfect blend of the Mac and iOS worlds. It has many visual elements from the iOS version, but feels like it belongs on the Mac and operates accordingly.

My favorite thing about Twitterrific, for both the Mac and iOS, is that it covers the essentials of tweeting. The app is well-designed, and isn't bogged down by feature creep. Too often twitter clients throw in everything but the kitchen sink (and sometime even that). Not Twitterrific. It serves two main purposes: reading and writing tweets. You know, the good stuff.

Without further ado, I'd like to overview some of the features. Twitterrific has the ability to open multiple timelines, a collapsible sidebar that shows searches, lists, & trends. The sidebar also lets you switch between a the unified timeline, or filter between Mentions, Direct Messages, and Favorites. There are dark and light themes. Lastly, just to show them off, the tweet composer, and the info and photo viewer popovers.

There's even a fantastic little video walkthrough.

If you aren't convinced, give Twitterrific for Mac a try for free (ad-supported) from the Iconfactory directly. There is also paid version which is ad-free and supports multiple accounts for $9.99 either directly or on the Mac App Store.

I'd like to give a huge congratulations to Ged, Craig, Sean, David, and the rest of the Iconfactory team for bringing Ollie back to the Mac.

A Success Story

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Earlier this month, on January 6th, the Mac App Store opened. I previously wrote about some developers throwing their chips all in. One of those developers was the folks behind Pixelmator, one of the lightest, fastest, and most well-designed image editors available for the Mac.

Well, so far, it has paid off for them. To the tune of one million dollars. Within 20 days. That’s $50,000/day. Or look at it this way, to reach $1M, Pixelmator had to sell 33,345 copies. Comparatively, Adobe would have to sell 1,428 copies of Photoshop at $700 per copy. Adobe can reach the goal faster, but in a race to $1M, Pixelmator has more users.

And if you ask me, Pixelmator is a fantastic alternative to Photoshop for prosumers.

Just Like Ripping Off a Band-Aid

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It should come as no surprise that many of the apps in the Mac App Store are existing Mac apps — many of them being paid apps.

Unfortunately, transitioning to the Mac App Store isn’t exactly a cake walk for either developers or users. Developers already have users on the old business model of issuing serial numbers and such, and users have that software. There isn’t a way for developers to easily move customers over to the Mac App Store, so there are a couple avenues to travel down:

  1. Continue down the old road — selling and maintaining software through a web store.
  2. Support the web store and the Mac App Store, essentially having two different variations of the same app out in the wild. Or,
  3. Dive head first into the Mac App Store exclusively, and have customers re-buy apps they already own.

I don’t foresee option 1 lasting for very long. Many users, especially customers that don’t fully understand computers, are going to embrace the simplicity of the Mac App Store very quickly. Especially new Mac owners, since the Mac App Store will be their first and primary way of installing apps. One exception are apps that don’t meet the requirements of admittance into the Mac App Store. These apps will have a lot of extra work ahead of them to remain seen.

Option 2 is great for the short term. This is where many developers will sit for the time being, waiting to see which business model is more successful. Some developers may be utilizing this method until their next major release, requiring users on the old model to move to the Mac App Store at that time, as users are more likely to be understanding.

And then there are the developers who are bold and take option 3 right away. These are the developers who like to get things over with and rip off the band-aid quickly. It stings, its kind of ugly, but it the long run, the agony fades rapidly.

As I was listening to Episode 7 of Build & Analyze, Marco Arment said something profound about the Mac App Store [quoted tot he best of my ability]:

“I’ve always heard from developers that payment processing, serial number issuing and recovering, and installation support were always the three biggest support needs. This has solved all three of those. That’s awesome!” -Marco Arment

The developers behind Pixelmator are doing just that — diving head first into the Mac App Store in order to focus on their product. They explain their transition plan for existing customers very well, and sweeten the pot quite a bit. It is advantageous in the long run for existing customers to re-buy Pixelmator, which is now exclusive to the Mac App Store. However, they aren’t abandoning existing customers, they will receive free updates right up to version 2. But there will no longer be new customers under the old model. This allows the developers to focus less on supporting a store and focus more on development.

I mentioned the other day that Realmac Software has moved one of their products exclusively to the Mac App Store. I think they are dealing with this very well, too, in that they are refunding existing customers, who can then re-buy at a lower price. It has to sting in the short term, but I imagine in will pay off for Realmac in spades in the long term.

Not all developers are transitioning as gracefully, in my opinion. Existing users of CoverSutra are getting left in the cold at version 2.2.2, with no future updates, while version 2.5 goes exclusively to the Mac App Store. This doesn’t sit well with me, as buyers of CoverSutra 2 were promised free updates to version 3.0. Instead, users have to re-buy, or sit there knowing they won’t have support. It also doesn’t thrill me that the developer isn’t even apologetic in the slightest. Granted, everything would probably be peachy if the developer would have just slapped 3.0 on the app instead of 2.5. I understand her wanting to make a clean cut, but more respect should have been shown for those who bought CoverSutra. Hence, I am voting with my wallet, and not re-buying.

This transitional period of business models is interesting to say the least. It is especially intriguing to see how different developers handle the experience. I expect it won’t be too long until the dust settles.

The Mac App Store Opens for Business

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Finally, the Mac App Store opened for business today (though far earlier than the rumored noon release). It is bundled with the Mac OS X 10.6.6 update, so you’ll need to run Software Update. Once you reboot after the update, you’ll have a shiny new blue icon in your Dock — App Store.

You’ll have to log in with your Apple ID — the same credentials you use for iTunes — and then you can be on your merry way to purchasing apps. And it has never been easier.

Say Goodbye to the .DMG

Installing apps has never been, well, all that easy. That’s not to say one couldn’t learn the procedure and just go through the menial steps, but there has been room for improvement for quite some time. I have seen many people running their apps from inside disk images (.dmg) because they didn’t know they needed to move the app into their Applications folder. Also, try explaining what a disk image is to someone that doesn’t know much about computing. Yeah, that’s what I thought.

The App Store makes installing apps as easy as two clicks. You click Install (or if the app is paid, you click its price), enter your password, click Buy to confirm, and the app literally zooms off the App Store page and into your Dock. It is also automatically delivered to your Applications folder. Honestly, installation doesn’t get a great deal simpler than this.

Updates

Another great feature is the App Store will notify when any of your apps have updates available, along with a list of the changes. Many third-party apps prior to today utilized Sparkle to notify and install updates, but Sparkle requires that a user opens the app for the updater to run. (By the way, it appears the developer of Sparkle “designed and implemented exciting new technology for the Installer that will be employed throughout Mac OS X” when he interned at Apple a while back, according to his resume).

Fact is, it’s easy to go for some time without an app, and you could miss out on some updates, even ones that introduce new features that might interest you in using the app again. The App Store should help mitigate those lapses. Either way, update notifications are welcome in my book.

The Future

I have no doubt about the Mac App Store being a wild success. I imagine the App Store will be the way most folks (read non-techy) discover new apps from here on out. Especially switchers. They’ll be introduced to it when they buy a new Mac at the Apple Store, and may not ever know that there is another way to get apps on the Mac (kind of unlikely, but you never know).

At the end of the day, I am all for making user experience easier.