Developers, Developers…
Ok, when is Intuit just going to throw in the towel and stop making Mac software? It’s clear they have absolutely no desire to, they just do it to make a little extra cash on the side. Their flagship product, Quicken, hasn’t been updated for Mac since 2007 (and now doesn’t even work well on Lion). Today they listed their half-assed version, Quicken Essentials for Mac, on the Mac App Store. They were extremely anxious to let potential buyers know, “this is not a new release of Quicken Essentials for Mac.”
Honestly, I never used Quicken. There are so many Mac-friendly alternatives that, unless you absolutely have to use Quicken for some reason, you would be stupid to keep using Quicken for Mac. iBank is one that get’s a lot of recommendations.
It’s quite depressing to see Mac users get tossed aside by many companies that seem to still think we’re in the 90’s. And when PC developers do make their product for the Mac, it’s usually a half-assed concession, as if to say “hey you guys wanted our software for your stupid computer? Here ya go! We may nor may not continue to update it. Enjoy!” Yes, it’s better than nothing, but it’s also rather patronizing.
Cider is another thing that really pissed me off. When Macs switched to Intel CPUs, a company called Transgaming discovered it would be rather trivial to make a wrapper for Windows games (using an open-source Windows compatibility layer, called WINE) and sell it to game developers to make “Mac games”. What they failed to mention was that these games take a pretty hefty performance hit, because WINE…err…I mean Cider is translating the Windows code on-the-fly to something the Mac OS X APIs can understand.
Electronic Arts is a company that used Cider for a time. It seemed like a miracle, instead of waiting months for Aspyr to make a native port of The Sims, we would get a far inferior version of the game wrapped in WINE.
Adobe is probably the best in terms of large, multi-platform developers. But even they can’t seem to get it right. They hardly ever fix glaring bugs until the next major release, and they’re always behind on Apple technologies. Their apps weren’t even Cocoa apps (therefore could not be Intel-compatible) until they released brand new version over a year after the first Intel Macs started shipping (I don’t even want to know how Photoshop ran under PowerPC emulation).
Then there are tools like Adobe Air that are supposed to make cross-platform development easier. Wether you’re a Windows or Mac user, you should find these tools insulting, because it’s impossible to build a tool like that and let the developer use platform-specfic features. A program built with Adobe Air has to function with the lowest common denominator when it comes to platform features, and visual style.
Fortunately we have some great, smaller developers who give great care in crafting the best software they can for the Mac platform, and I am always happy to support them, and their apps.
