is a blog about design, technology and culture written by Khoi Vinh, and has been more or less continuously published since December 2000 in New York City. Khoi is currently Principal Designer at Adobe. Previously, Khoi was co-founder and CEO of Mixel (acquired in 2013), Design Director of The New York Times Online, and co-founder of the design studio Behavior, LLC. He is the author of “How They Got There: Interviews with Digital Designers About Their Careers”and “Ordering Disorder: Grid Principles for Web Design,” and was named one of Fast Company’s “fifty most influential designers in America.” Khoi lives in Crown Heights, Brooklyn with his wife and three children.
I have a soft spot for utility software — especially for the Macintosh — because the authors, engineers and publishers who work in this niche almost always seem to be real fans of the computing experience. The very nature of utility software — those little add-ons and enhancements that subtly or significantly alter the behavior of the operating system — is one of tweaking, of altering the way of things in a particular, sometimes obscure way so that the universe seems just a tad bit more in order… and it’s usually the most devoted computer geeks who will tweak.
Utilities make computing more efficient and personal, and especially with those programs written for the Macintosh, they make things more fun. Which is why I’m so sad to see longtime Mac utility publisher Casady & Greene shutter its operations.
Back in the Day
Casady & Greene were around for nineteen years, which is hard to believe because I’ve only been working with their products for the past ten or so. But during that time, I grew quite fond of Spell Catcher, still the best spell checking utility ever, Conflict Catcher, an indispensable machete for cutting through the thicket of Mac OS 8 and 9 extensions and control panels, and SoundJam MP, the literal progenitor of Apple’s very own iTunes.
These were somewhat geeky utilities, loaded with preference panels full of options, settings and methods for tweaking the tweaks, but they were well-written, stable and really, really enjoyable. They became such an important part of the way that I worked that I was extremely reluctant to make the move to Mac OS X without them, and in fact much of my delay in upgrading could be laid down to the fact that I was holding out for a modern release of Spell Catcher that I could run under Jaguar.
Above: Spell Catcher is still the best method I’ve ever used of letting my computer know that when I type ‘Khoi’ it’s not a typo.
Goodnight Everybody
Now C&G have decided to call it a day, citing “a series of economic disasters from which we were unable to rebound.” That sounds painful. This is more or less the same fate that’s befallen most of the other utility publishers whose products I’ve adored in the past — Now Software used to publish a full line of really powerful utlities and programs before they were reduced to selling just Now Up-to-Date and Now Contact. Even their fiscal and spiritual successor, Power On Software, has lost much steam in recent years.
Software Kills
Why did this happen? From the perspective of innovation and quality, the Macintosh utiltities market is remarkably robust; I’ve seen some of the best Mac software ever released in the past year or so. And yet, I think the market is suffering desperately at the same time. Apple’s market share continues to dwindle precipitously, and the increasingly widespread abundance of software engineering skills and tools, in combination with the anyone-can-play distribution capability of the Internet means that there are more utilities in competition for user dollars than ever, and they’re cheaper than ever. Software — as an art and a business — keeps changing, and change has victims.
Right: Conflict Catcher 8, the venerable utiltity for making sense of the old Macintosh operating system’s kudzu-like overgrowth of extensions and control panels.
Did you see this? Once less utility company for “the rest of us.” R.I.P. DiamondSoft in addition to the C&G passing you mentioned above.
I think we may see even more movement in the font management area over the next year. When Panther shows up on the Mac with its included Font utility, will Extensis continue developing its font management software? They’ve publicly stated that the font management built into Panther will be consumer-level, but really, does anyone buy that? Even if Panther’s font management is “consumer-level”, it will eat into Suitcase’s market share.
I’m all for Apple making great software, but I also wonder about the eventual impact of bringing making all the software on a Mac writen by Apple. (See Safari, iTunes.)
Don’t get me wrong, I love my Mac, but I’ve broken down and bought a PC too. Sure, it’s ugly and not as friendly, but I find myself spending more and more time on it.
Khoi Vinh
I hadn’t seen that Connectix had bought DiamondSoft, but I agree that consolidation is kind of sad. It’s a sign of the shrinking fortunes of the Mac industry, I guess, that this is happening, and it doesn’t help that Apple is stealing the dinner of third-party developers with products like FontBook. However, I was down on the Mac for a while and using my PC more and more often until last fall, when Jaguar shipped, and now I’m more excited about what’s happening on this platform than ever.
Did you see this today? Adobe discontinues Premiere for the Mac.
Khoi Vinh
I did see that bad news from Adobe. It’s cause for worry, though I’m not sure that the Mac experience would be quite the same without all the worrying.
I have a soft spot for utility software — especially for the Macintosh — because the authors, engineers and publishers who work in this niche almost always seem to be real fans of the computing experience. The very nature of utility software — those little add-ons and enhancements that subtly or significantly alter the behavior of the operating system — is one of tweaking, of altering the way of things in a particular, sometimes obscure way so that the universe seems just a tad bit more in order… and it’s usually the most devoted computer geeks who will tweak.
http://www.extensis.com/press/releases/063003_fr.html
Did you see this? Once less utility company for “the rest of us.” R.I.P. DiamondSoft in addition to the C&G passing you mentioned above.
I think we may see even more movement in the font management area over the next year. When Panther shows up on the Mac with its included Font utility, will Extensis continue developing its font management software? They’ve publicly stated that the font management built into Panther will be consumer-level, but really, does anyone buy that? Even if Panther’s font management is “consumer-level”, it will eat into Suitcase’s market share.
I’m all for Apple making great software, but I also wonder about the eventual impact of bringing making all the software on a Mac writen by Apple. (See Safari, iTunes.)
Don’t get me wrong, I love my Mac, but I’ve broken down and bought a PC too. Sure, it’s ugly and not as friendly, but I find myself spending more and more time on it.
I hadn’t seen that Connectix had bought DiamondSoft, but I agree that consolidation is kind of sad. It’s a sign of the shrinking fortunes of the Mac industry, I guess, that this is happening, and it doesn’t help that Apple is stealing the dinner of third-party developers with products like FontBook. However, I was down on the Mac for a while and using my PC more and more often until last fall, when Jaguar shipped, and now I’m more excited about what’s happening on this platform than ever.
I know one of my reasons for my recent PC addiction is the new Star Wars Galaxies game.
http://salon.com/news/wire/2003/07/07/adobe/index.html
Did you see this today? Adobe discontinues Premiere for the Mac.
I did see that bad news from Adobe. It’s cause for worry, though I’m not sure that the Mac experience would be quite the same without all the worrying.