Leopard

So I just put up a public link to the Leopard version of Frictionless. Going forward, all the future versions will be Leopard only. Why?


It's not because I want the latest/greatest. (a user asked me)


Steve Jobs gave a speech right after he came back to Apple that illustrates why. He said that programmers can build programs that are the equivalent to a building about 4 stories high before things collapse under their own weight. But if the operating system provides 10 stories for the programmers to build on, you end up with programs with 14 stories of functionality.


When Tiger came out, Apple introduced CoreImage, and subsequently you see all these cool Photoshop replacements. So instead of paying $799 for Photoshop, you can now pay $79 for a program that does most of what Photoshop does, and does it faster, because its built on those 10 floors provided by CoreImage.


With Tiger, Apple also introduced CoreData, which is really what made Frictionless possible in the first place, because I could build on top of that. 


With Leopard, Apple has fixed a number of things I've had problems with, and provided things that will let me make Frictionless better. Given that I work on Frictionless in my spare time, my choices are either not add those features, or make it Leopard only. So the next release will be Leopard only. 

Copyright 2007, Pierce T. Wetter III