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.

The explanation for this is relatively simple, and it boils down to this: we wanted to run an experiment with an App Store-only product, and Desktop Curtain was the perfect test subject for three reasons:

• There are (essentially) zero prior customers. In the last 10 months, exactly two people have paid for Desktop Curtain, using an old version of the app that has a Donate button in it. Prior to that, when Desktop Curtain was actually donationware, the numbers aren’t much higher. So there’s not an existing customer base that will feel alienated by this move. (For those who did donate, see the Desktop Curtain product page for a link you can use to get a free copy of Desktop Curtain 2.0, outside the App Store.)
• We’re still giving away the exact same product that’s always been free here. In fact, it’s actually been improved, as it gets the new Desktop Curtain interface and a couple minor features that it lacked before. So if you want it free, and never got around to getting it, you can still do so. (And you’ll be able to do so for as long as we have any say in the matter.) We’re not taking anything away from what’s been available on our site in the past.
• It’s a simple utility that we don’t update very often. The advantage of the direct model for our apps is that you, the customer, get faster updates to what can be large, complex applications. We frequently add new features and fix bugs in our “big” apps, and you the customer get the benefit of receiving those updates as soon as we can release them.

  Desktop Curtain, on the other hand, is quite simple, and it’s rarely updated—this is the first update of any kind we’ve released for it in the year or so I’ve been with Many Tricks. These infrequent updates remove one of the main benefits of buying direct.

So for these reasons, for now at least, if you want the “full” Desktop Curtain 2.0, you’ll be buying it from the App Store. This may change in the future, but we do want to see how the experiment goes for a while first.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 24th, 2011 at 7:22 pm by Rob Griffiths and Peter Maurer, and is filed under Company News, Desktop Curtain. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.