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Conversations with the App Store

Saturday, January 29th, 2011

We’re now roughly three weeks into the Mac App Store’s existence, and both Peter and I have been thrilled with how it’s gone. We’ve found it generally pleasant working with Apple (they’ve yet to reject one of our apps or updates), and the users we’ve chatted with have found the store to be a pleasant place to browse and shop.

With that said, there’s one feature missing from the store that impacts our ability to interact with customers and prospects: there’s no mechanism for developers to respond to questions or comments in users’ reviews. (We could modify our program’s descriptions, but using that space to answer questions seems like using a hammer to crack an egg.)

So we’ve decided to start an occasional series here on our blog, of which you’re reading the first installment: Conversations with the App Store. Each installment will address some of the questions and comments raised in reviews on the global (those we can read, at any rate!) Mac App Stores.

While this isn’t an ideal feedback mechanism—Apple should really allow developers to post responses directly—we hope it provides useful information to those who may have similar comments or questions about our programs. So without further ado, here’s the first edition of Conversations with the App Store.

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Two new versions of Desktop Curtain now available

Monday, January 24th, 2011

Today we shipped not one but two versions of Desktop Curtain, our ‘cover-your-mess’ utility. Desktop Curtain is ideal for those who dislike their clutter, or who need to take ‘clean background’ screenshots. The two new versions are:

  • Desktop Curtain Classic (version 1.5), free: This is an updated version of our free Desktop Curtain baublery, featuring a much-cleaner interface with the same basic feature set as it’s always had. As before, it’s free, and available directly from our site.
  • Desktop Curtain 2.0, $1.99 App Store only: This version features the ability to pick background images using the standard Open dialog, choose from up to 10 previously-used images, and it runs as a normal application, menu bar application, or faceless background application.

The Desktop Curtain web page has an easy-to-understand chart that shows all the differences between the free and App Store-only versions, so you can pick the one that you prefer. You’ll also find a link to download the free version, and a link that takes you to Dektop Curtain’s page in the App Store.

As for those of you curious about why there’s an App Store-only version of Desktop Curtain, given our prior writing on the subject, keep reading.

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yFlicks 3.3.1; TubiTunes 1.0.1; Desktop Curtain 1.1

Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008

We have four updates for you today, and we’ll divide these into two blog entries, because the fourth one needs more detailed explaining.

Let’s start with these two: Just in time to meet today’s 50%-off macZOT promo, both yFlicks and TubiTunes are now capable of downloading the higher-quality MPEG-4 file for a given movie from YouTube, if available. Other than that, we’ve just squashed some bugs — including a particularly embarrassing one: TubiTunes’s automatic update checker didn’t actually check for updates automatically.

What are the other two updates? Desktop Curtain is now ready to deal with multiple screens and spaces. And Witch 2.0 is detailed here.

Desktop Curtain 1.0.1

Tuesday, February 12th, 2008

It’s about time we made our little screenshot helper/tidiness impersonator a universal binary that runs natively on Intel processors. Moreover, Desktop Curtain 1.0.1 has been adapted to Mac OS X 10.5’s new default desktop picture.

Beware of Sharp Corners

Friday, October 26th, 2007

As explained here, the very first Leopard hack, namely Non-Transparent Menu Bar, was forcefully retired somewhat prematurely. So we recycled its source code and turned it into another nostalgia hack.

See, the new Mac OS X doesn’t draw rounded screen corners anymore. Most users won’t notice, others will be happy about this change, but some might miss that cuddly CRT aura those rounded corners emitted.

So if you’d rather still have rounded corners, have a look at Displaperture, the little tool that lets you retain your beloved rounded screen corners. You can even determine those corners’ radii, and you can pick the corners you want rounded — including the bottom ones.