Wednesday, August 01, 2007

open letter to software makers

To whom it may concern,
It is no secret I am a hardcore Mac user. I have used Macs exclusively since 1992 and will keep using them as long as they are around. When Apple transitioned to the intel CPUs from PowerPC, I was very skeptical - just like everyone else. When the first intel Macs hit the market, my fears were put aside... it's still a Mac. This new intel hardware meant that neat toys like BootCamp or Parallels would let you run Windows programs at a native speed instead of emulating hardware in something like Virtual PC. This is a neat feature, but it is only meant to act as an intermediary between your blazingly fast mac and that 5 year old Windows program your company has been forced to use. When I see Windows software that is remarkable and there is no equivalent in the Mac world and I see a need for it, I usually submit a friendly email or comment to the software maker asking that they please port their great program over to the Mac... pretty please with sugar on top. The usual response I get is to just run the program in Parallels or Bootcamp or VPC. Well let's examine this... If I do as they suggest - AND KEEP IT LEGIT, then I would have to spend money on a license for MS Windows. That's at least $200 that I won't be spending on your software no matter how great I think it is. Writing windows software to run on Macs (intel or PPC) is not that difficult. If I wanted to run MS Windows, I would have bought a PC. Quit sending the boilerplate responses to feature requests and look into the benefits of "Made for Mac"


[I had to get it off my chest]

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