ETA on Logos for Mac Update?

Hi everyone - I was wondering if anyone knew when Logos plans on releasing a Mac update to bring it up to speed to all the capabilities that Windows users have? Are we looking at within a month or a few months, half a year? My wife and I will be leaving for India in January and were hoping to have the update by then. Thanks!

in Christ,
CL

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Jack Caviness

Hi everyone - I was wondering if anyone knew when Logos plans on releasing a Mac update to bring it up to speed to all the capabilities that Windows users have? Are we looking at within a month or a few months, half a year? My wife and I will be leaving for India in January and were hoping to have the update by then. Thanks!

in Christ,
CL

I would not expect this kind of major upgrade prior to the release of Logos Windows version 4.0. Bob has said that Logos did not want to spend the time and money to gain parity with version 3.x which will be obsolete by then.

Jack

Donovan R. Palmer

I would not expect this kind of major upgrade prior to the release of Logos Windows version 4.0. Bob has said that Logos did not want to spend the time and money to gain parity with version 3.x which will be obsolete by then.

To add further to the mystery, the gang are very tight lipped about when 4.0 will be out and won't say much about the features for the Windows version, except that:

It appears that it will be able to search thousands of resources more quickly.
From a recent comment about the Library Manager, it appears that there is going to be some improvements in tagging and management of resources.
Improvements to the notefiles

If anyone can remember anything else, please chime in. I think this is all that I have seen and it is a bit of a mystery as to how much of the new 4.0 features will make it into the Mac version. I can only hope that since we have seen no new features for the Mac added since its release in November, this means that all the effort is going into making the Mac version come into line with the Windows 4.0 version... and one can only hope that they both come out at roughly the same time! [;)]

Chuck Lindsey

Not trying to start a war (so please don't reply with the ridiculous "nothing should ever upset us" response many of you throw out when someone brings up a legitimate complaint), but Logos seems to be the slowest software development company I can even think of... and I am very familiar with allot of them. I actually find their development cycles to be really unreasonable for the price of the software. I have seen companies who charge $50 for their software runs circles around my aging Logos software.

I have read sooo much through the Newsgroups and now through the Forums and I still can't figure out what the problem is. It just doesn't make sense. It's one thing to convert resources.... I understand it takes time to do that.... but at the end of the day the reader is what counts and that seems to get far less attention than the offering of new resources. I am constantly seeing new resources, meanwhile the core program that reads those resources collects dust and is even broken in many cases.

I think it might be an issue of priorities.... For instance...the windows version appears to be a mish-mash of different little tools all thrown together. In my opinion, it would be better to improve on what people actually use instead of strange little charts (not saying they aren't useful, but c'mon verb rivers?) At least with the Mac version they decided to focus on the core of the application. But there are soo many shortcomings (and I'm not talking about verb rivers) with the Mac version that are just inexcusable as a final product. Things are broken, important things are not there ect...

Keeping 4.0 a mystery is ridiculous at best... for a company with an aggressive development cycle and lots of releases maybe... but not when your going years between versions. It's silly. And it's code for, we don't really have much right now that's any different than what you have.

In my opinion the Mac version is ALREADY out of date with what it could be based on Mac OS X technology. I bought it when it first came out and there have only been 2 updates and they are so insignificant it's hardly worth mentioning.

Oh well. For those of you with your finger on the trigger about how critical this is... save your breath... I get it.

It looks like I've stirred up some emotions. I didn't mean to do that. So, I'd love to have a Logos employee respond. It'd be great to have an update on the status of the next version for Mac. Thanks!

in Christ,
CL

Donovan R. Palmer

Not trying to start a war (so please don't reply with the ridiculous "nothing should ever upset us" response many of you throw out when someone brings up a legitimate complaint), but Logos seems to be the slowest software development company I can even think of... and I am very familiar with allot of them. I actually find their development cycles to be really unreasonable for the price of the software. I have seen companies who charge $50 for their software runs circles around my aging Logos software.

I'm am a recent Mac convert after having two horrific experiences with Vista. So one of the things I was keen on is finding equivalents of my favourite apps on the Mac. One of them was Logos. Another was Ilumsoft's eWallet. I already had tons of data in their windows version and wanted to buy the mac version so that I didn't have to mess with a painful migration of my data. Ilumsoft was supposed to release it's mac version last autumn. If you read their blog, you will see one missed target date after another. They started with an outside developer, that didn't work out and they then had to bring it in house. A year later we are still waiting. The founder has openly confessed on their blog that a Mac version of this software was a bigger job than they ever anticipated. They have learned from it and are committed to the Mac platform, its just that it has taken them longer than they ever imagined to build up the capacity to develop on the Mac platform.You can read one of the frustrated blogs here: http://blog.iliumsoft.com/2008/12/02/ewallet-for-mac-update/

While a case could not be built on the examples of Logos and Ilumsoft alone, the parallel of the two stories as I have followed them have been strangely close, except that version one of Ilumsoft's software has still not seen the light of day. It appears to me on the surface that a windows company gearing up to produce Mac applications from the ground up (as opposed to a port) is a major job. I have Microsoft Office for Mac and I have a love/hate relationship with Entourage. Entourage lacks the polish that other Mac programmes do. So my growing theory is that it takes a lot of work for a Windows company to make the jump to produce really good Mac software.

[quote]

The MAJOR problem I see is Logos' silence through all of it. They communicate ACTUAL information so few and far between with their users that it makes all of us feel as though some sort of "bait and switch" happened. Keeping 4.0 a mystery is ridiculous at best... for a company with an aggressive development cycle and lots of releases maybe... but not when your going years between versions. It's silly. And it's code for, we don't really have much right now that's any different than what you have.

I'm not defending them, but Logo's policy to say little is not unique. Apple does the same thing for starters. If I was in their shoes, there are two primary reasons I wouldn't do it. First, I wouldn't want to over promise and under deliver. Second, I wouldn't want my ideas that are in development to be in the public domain until they are ready to go into a solid release candidate. The downside is that users don't have a clue what to expect. Even with Apple, we have known that Snow Leopard is going to be release sometime from this summer onward.

The way I see it is that Logos puts as much and maybe more effort into their resources. I am stunned how much the resource base has grown in the last couple of years and producing things like Anchor Yale Bible is stunning. (though I can't afford it at this present time). Even seeing the venerable NICOT and NICNT come to the Libronix platform is way cool. I am guessing that we will see some more surprises in the future. As I don't have access to a seminary library, to be able to have them on my computer and be able to search them at a click of a button is amazing, and even unheard of ten years ago.

I am always amazed when people give me a hard time for paying for Logos, when they can get a free programme off of the internet. What this paradigm does not take into account is that the bulk of what makes a Bible programme great is the up to date scholarly resources that can be used with it. To not have good resources is almost as bad as having Adobe Acrobat reader, but no PDFs to read with it.

[quote]In my opinion the Mac version is ALREADY out of date with what it could be based on Mac OS X technology.

It has been six months since 1.0 came out and there has been no functionality added. Bob said on the older newsgroup forums earlier this year that they are putting the bulk of their effort into bringing the Mac version in line with version 4.0 for the windows, rather than 3.0. My guess is that if 4.0 comes out and the Mac version is still lagging way behind, there will, to use a descriptive of Bob's, be a bunch of users with "torches and pitchforks" outside the office in Bellingham.

All this said, knowing that the Mac market base is still only approximately 10% of the worldwide PC market, I am grateful that Logos has committed to writing Mac software.

[quote]Oh well. For those of you with your finger on the trigger about how critical this is... save your breath... I get it.

I don't think your views are critical. My only concern with the development of all the web apps, global Bible reader, a Magazine, a conference, etc. that Logos doesn't focus the development capacity that it needs into its core business, which is its Windows engine. It is always important when growing to keep the main thing, the main thing.

Regardless, tt is clear there is growing interest and desire for version 4.0 for Windows to come out. In tandem with this, there is a lot of desire to see the Mac programme go to the next level. These next 18 months are going to be interesting!

Donovan R. Palmer

It appears that it will be able to search thousands of resources more quickly.
From a recent comment about the Library Manager, it appears that there is going to be some improvements in tagging and management of resources.
Improvements to the notefiles

I remembered one more thing I read on the forums.

Redesigning the interface so that it is easier to get at the information what you want. (something to this effect)

Bob Pritchett

...but Logos seems to be the slowest software development company I can even think of...

...I think it might be an issue of priorities.... For instance...the windows version appears to be a mish-mash of different little tools all thrown together...

We're just trying to do things "the Mac way." That means no news about future products, then big surprise demonstrations by people wearing black turtlenecks.

<smile>

I agree with a lot of what you said. The Windows product had reached the point where all we could add to that architecture was an increasingly random set of little add-on tools and graphs, etc. Unfortunately, the Mac product was a port of the core of that existing platform.

I completely agree -- the reader is what counts, and it needs attention. But giving it what it really needs isn't compatible with what you are asking for. What our 1998-2001 architecture needs is a complete re-thinking from the ground up, in order to take advantage not only of what we've learned about our users' needs, but of the changes in technology and web access and OS capabilities. That isn't something that fits into frequent updates or even constant communication.

That's something that requires lots of research, lots of thought, lots of going off in a room with a blank slate.

I don't think many companies do this. Few of them are willing to risk the "slowest software development company" label, and few can afford to hold off a major release for years so that they have the time to do something amazing. But if you don't do this -- if you don't take that risk -- you face other problems. Like a bloated application with lots of "stuck on" features. Like a development team that is tired of hacking an old code base. An inability to take advantage of new platform technologies.

The good news for Logos is that we generate revenue selling books, not technology. So as long as we keep cranking out new books, we've got a way to keep the lights on while development retreats to the underground lair for a long season of re-invention.

(The Mac product is actually two projects running in parallel. One is admittedly minor fixes and improvements to the existing Mac product, which are trickling out slowly, and the other is an attempt to develop the next generation Mac product in parallel with the next generation Windows product.)

There are more than 40 people working on our next generation application (Windows and Mac). This is completely aside from the work being done on building books, web sites, marketing, sales, and all the other stuff you are hearing about. These 40+ people are primarily working on the future.

And, as much as I desperately want to tell you what they're doing, and answer your objections with cool screenshots and long feature lists, I'm not going to. Because keeping 4.0 a mystery isn't ridiculous. It ensures we won't over-promise and under-deliver. It ensures we won't make people upset if we fail to hit a planned ship date. It ensures sales won't fall off as people defer spending until the new release.

Are there downsides to being mysterious? Yes. Maybe we're doing it wrong, and don't know because you can't see it to correct us. Maybe you don't believe we're working on it at all, and that our programmers spend all their time mountain biking and preparing for our chili cook-offs. Maybe you think we've run out of good ideas. Maybe our silence is "code for, we don't really have much right now that's any different than what you have."

We'll just have to wait for the big black cloth to drop away, won't we? :-)

-- Bob