“The startup buzz is back in the Valley, [but] many of the new startups in the convergence space — such as Grouper, Mercora, Orb Networks, and Sling Media — have developed their products only for the Windows platform… I think these companies are focusing too much on the numbers and missing the more promising opportunity. Why? Because rolling out a product for the Mac platform ensures a certain buzz and élan, which begets more buzz, which begets sales. Let me explain. By some estimates there are 5 million active Mac users. Not a lot, that’s for sure. But among them are most of the influencers — high-profile bloggers, most (if not all) technology journalists, and, of course, the hipsters,” Om Malik writes for Business 2.0.
MacDailyNews Note: We don’t know where Malik is getting his “5 million active Mac users” number, but over a year ago Apple said that there were “10 million Mac OS X users alone, which at the time was 40 percent of Apple’s entire installed Mac user base which works out to 25 million Mac users – and that was back in January 2004. Apple sold 1,046,000 Macintosh units in its fiscal 2005 first quarter ended December 25, 2004. Apple sold 836,000 Macintosh units in its fiscal 2004 fourth quarter ended September 25, 2004. Apple sold 876,000 Macintosh units in its fiscal 2004 third quarter ended June 26, 2004. Apple sold 749,000 Macintosh units in its fiscal 2004 second quarter ended March 27, 2004. So, for the last four quarters alone, Apple sold 3,507,000 Macintosh units. Granted, a large portion of those units were sold to Mac users replacing their old Macs, but Malik’s 5 million number is obviously far too low.
Malik continues, “Being part of this so-called cult of Mac, I know I’ll try out pretty much any Mac-related product or software. Precisely because of our small numbers, Mac users are willing early adopters. A Mac product, if done right, can easily attract half a million users within a few weeks without the developer spending any marketing dollars. Why? Because the Mac community has dozens of enthusiast websites that tout new products quickly. Given the small size of the market, Mac columnists are always looking for something new to write about and are more than willing to give startups a fair shake. The news then spreads like wildfire. In comparison, it’s tough for a Windows product to stand out among the thousands of other products that hit the market every single week.”
“Like many reporters who spend most of their time on Macs, I’m more likely to write about a product that runs on my everyday machine. Otherwise I have to seek out a Windows computer, install software, and try it out for a few hours before switching back to my daily machine. I never really used Skype, the peer-to-peer telephony software and service, until the company released a Mac client,” Malik writes. “Oh, I forgot the most logical reasons to develop for Macs: They’re more convergence-friendly and have superior audio and video capabilities. Apple (AAPL) crams cutting-edge technology right into the box and ensures a universal experience. Never mind the fact that the Mac has slowly started to increase its market share. If you’re thinking about starting a new company and building a cool product, put that salesman of cool, Steve Jobs, to work for you.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Developers that ignore the Mac platform aren’t using their heads. Why ignore Mac users who tend to be better educated and make more money than Windows PC-users? After all, Mac users are the group that has the most disposable income to spend on software, right?
Related MacDailyNews articles:
More people use Apple Macs than you think; 8-12 percent of homes use Macs – March 31, 2004
10 percent of computer users use a Mac; 3 percent is Mac’s approximate quarterly market share – February 10, 2004
How dare you call me educated!
Don’t worry, Dumb. They weren’t talking to you, Nooo.
Come onnn, I keed.
I have heard that Mac Users tend to pirate software less also. Which is another reason to develop for the Mac.
Testify, Brother Malik, testify!!!
Virus and spyware writers, of course, are more than welcome to keep on the other side of the aisle; to everyone else, c’mon in, the Cult of Mac welcomes you! And if you’ve got a good CAD/CAM or accounting program, you get to move up to the VIP section…
Probably it is not as easy as it seems: porting a Windows App that relies on specific Windows services or Windows-based middleware without an easy OS X counterpart must be expensive (hiring dedicated OS X programmers, replicating those underlying libraries, etc.). Plus it’s not just about creating the Mac port. There is packaging, printing manuals, hiring people for customer support, etc.
This is an example from the 3D World: Rhino, a popular parametric modeler: http://news2.mcneel.com/scripts/dnewsweb.exe?cmd=article&group=rhino&item=41784&utag;=
Hey Triumph,
Are you constipated in this post? Where’s the poop?
That link didn’t work. Let me try again:
http://news2.mcneel.com/scripts/dnewsweb.exe?cmd=article&group=rhino&item=41784&utag;=
Don’t click on the link: select it, copy and paste into a Safari window. I don’t know why it doesn’t work otherwise.
and where’s the mention of the Dev-kits available to any developer ??
I hear these things make writing Mac apps easy as pie !!
Maybe someone should get the word out !
Where would one go to find people to develop industry specific software for OS X?
If you want to develop for Mac OS X, go and install the developer tools (that’s the 4th CD with Panther) and then check out a good developer book.
Two I’ve found to be very good are “Cocoa Programming For Mac OS X (2nd edition)” by Aaron Hillegass and “Cocoa Programming” by Anguish/Buck/Yacktman (bit older, so doesn’t cover bindings.) There are others of course, so shop around.
notatotalsucker – Thanks for the good info…however, I’m no programmer, well, not for a long long time anyway. I’m talking about finding people with the skill sets needed to produce a professional level application. How do you find these people?
Notatotal sucker, do you think that “Cocoa Programming For Mac OS X (2nd edition)” will be obsolete for programming for Tiger?
Winchester Biggins:
Winches– wait a minute! Winchester Biggins? What de hell kind of name is Winchester? Come onnnn. And Biggins? That’s not real! No seriously, that sounds like the name of a fox terrier I banged last month after she competed in the Westminster Dog Show. What a slut! She was cute, though. Yesss. Cute enough . . .
FOR ME TO POOP ON!!
Don’t you call me edumicated! I’m a Windoze youser and I like what I got. But I can’t write for long. My screen is due to turn blue at any time now, and I don’t wnat this message to be los
Bill,
Go to a high school. Better yet, a middle school. I believe the person who wrote Chronopath Library (now known as Delicious Library,the flagship product of Delicious Monster)was in the 7th or 8th grade when he origininally wrote it.
Granted, there’s a bit of difference between a flashy program that uses your iSight to scan your books and DVD’s and, say, a really incredible industrial app, but at the same time, imagine what sort of stuff he’ll be programming in ten years if he sticks with the Mac platform…
Is there a particular industry-specific application you want for the Mac? I only ask because your question is vague…
rogozhin – I’m afraid a highschool kid might not cut it. I’m interested in professional level income tax preparation software, NOT Turbo Tax mickey mouse software. The fact is there are plenty of great prep software packages but they’re all for the PC platform and subject to all the glitches and inferior design that goes with it. If there was a choice, professional firms wouldn’t be held captive in the PC world. Imagine how desirable the security and stability of OS X is for those of us warehousing sensitive information on a multitude of individuals. The market is wide open and I can’t figure out why noone is jumping in.
Bill, sorry, I’m really not sure where to find these people… I wish I knew… I could do with some work myself!
Colonel Panic, the book will definitely be of use with Tiger. Obviously, new areas, such as Core Image and Core Data won’t be covered, but the fundamentals of Cocoa development are still very much relevant. Core Image and Data will build on those foundations.
Oh, and be warned, many Cocoa books presume some of knowledge of C programming. If you have Java or C++ (something based upon C), then you’ll be cool as well.
notatotalsucker, thanks. I was inquiring on the TMO forums, and a poster there recommended dabbling in Java before attempting Objective C. Yours makes two and I think I will start with Java.
MW word “movement” as in something that Triumph is looking to do unto somebody. Yesssss..
Because as soon as you develop wonderful software that runs on OSX, Apple takes your idea, throws in some eye candy, and sells it under the “I” something name. All your efforts are for none. That’s why.
Business 101 Apeal to the lowest common denominator. You want to sell more product go to the source. Why do you think Adobe is leaning PC nowadays? They have to feed the beast. (stockholders).
It’s not about building a better app all the time but getting your users to be on a constant upgrade cycle. And of course there are more windows users than Apple users, sad to say.
I agree, a high school kid isn’t going to write your complex tax program. I guess the point I was trying to make was that, if the kids start writing programs for the Mac platform early enough, and they’re rewarded for doing so (like the kid who sold Library to Delicious Monster) then they’ll keep developing Mac platform apps and building their skills to such an extent that needs are finally being met. The problem is, for you right this minute especially, is it’s a long-range thing, indoctrinating the youth!
I truly feel for you, Bill; at one point, this discussion wouldn’t have been happening. But the ball was dropped on nurturing further development, and it’s taken until now for there to be any increase of interest from the developers. Perhaps within five years there will be less eyecandy and more meat and potatoes programming for Mac.
All the old excuses for not developing cross platform are complete and total nonsense. For example, a company called Trolltech makes a developer platform called QT that:
“is a complete C++ application development framework. It includes a class library and tools for cross-platform development and internationalization.
The Qt API and tools are consistent across all supported platforms, enabling platform independent application development and deployment.
Qt applications run natively, compiled from the same source code, on all supported platforms:
Qt/Windows (Microsoft Windows XP, 2000, NT 4, Me/98/95)
Qt/X11 (Linux, Solaris, HP-UX, IRIX, AIX, many other Unix variants)
Qt/Mac (Mac OS X)
Qt/Embedded (embedded Linux)”
What’s the excuse now?
Here’s the page for those interested. BTW- QT for Mac is free if used to develop non-commercial software.
http://www.trolltech.com/products/qt/index.html
GPL version
http://www.trolltech.com/download/opensource.html