Episode 11 of “The Talk Show”:www.thetalkshow.net is up, and I’m happy to say that “Wii Transfer”:www.riverfold.com/software/… is this week’s sponsor. Even if you’ve been subscribed since the first show, click over to see the new site design by “Airbag Industries”:airbagindustries.com/. It’s beautifully done and I tried to create an ad graphic that feels at home there.
For the Wii Transfer ad text I included “Only for Mac”, partly to discourage any Windows listeners from clicking and to set expectations that Wii Transfer is not a web site, but also because after a decade of being ignored I think Mac users like to be reminded that there is a bunch of great software just for them.
Earlier this month “Daniel Jalkut wrote about the unlikelihood of MarsEdit for Windows”:www.red-sweater.com/blog/394/…
"I love writing software for the Mac. If I had to write software for another platform, I probably wouldn't be nearly as interested in doing it. Heck, I might work more on becoming a musician, or a designer, or one of the other many trades that I have an interest in. For that reason, the chances of MarsEdit for Windows are almost nil."
I love that Mac indies are receiving so many “what about a Windows version?” requests. I get similar emails every couple weeks about Wii Transfer for Windows, and luckily there are a couple Windows or open source alternatives that I can point people to. (Some of them are even cross-platform and available for Mac, but they are of the “double click this Java .jar file” variety, so I don’t generally consider them direct competition.)
It used to feel strange getting these requests. I would respond with “maybe” and “unlikely”, suggesting that it’s probably not going to happen but leaving open the possibility, as Daniel did when he said “almost nil”. Then I realized — who am I kidding? — I’m never going to port this to Windows regardless of demand. Never. “With the right team”:www.vitalsource.com I enjoy working on cross-platform apps, just as I appreciate meetings, planning, and the other formalities (in moderation) that come with a more corporate environment. But Wii Transfer isn’t about any of that; it’s my vacation from the real world, and on my time I use and build for Macs.
Also read the Airfoil for Windows section of “Ars Technica’s interview with Paul Kafasis”:arstechnica.com/journals/… from February.
