January 07, 2011
Lots of things happened in the last few months and I wanted to take the time to share with you some updates from Widget Press. Yesterday, Widget Press released some new versions of its software on the Mac App Store and iOS App Store. The following details will hopefully shed some light on what's been happening.
All of our Mac applications will no longer be sold or updated directly through us. By moving to the new Mac App Store for purchases and updates, helps us tremendously. We no longer have to worry about license keys, software updates, our server, merchant accounts, so on. What this means to you, is hopefully better quality software from us (we are putting more resources in the software we produce).
When Apple announced the Mac App Store in October 2010, we immediately started to cut scope on a number of software features and began the transition of our three major Mac applications to the new Mac App Store requirements. All the things we wanted to get in for release 2.0, didn't happen.
We've moved FormEntry Touch, FormEntry for Mac, FormEntry Server and ModelBaker to version 2.0 across the board. This allows us to have a clean break from our current system to the new Mac App Store system. All software prices have been reduced by more than half. For current customer, if you choose to get the newer version, this will hopefully be a less painful transition. If the new pricing is a factor for you, please send us an email at inquiry@widgetpress.com and we will see what we can do.
FormEntry for Mac
Big changes here. Lots of new features have been added. As you know, FormEntry for Mac works with FormEntry Touch and the optional, FormEntry Server. We've dropped the price from $39 to $19. We believe this is the right price for this product in the new Mac App Store. We've added color tinting to the navigation bar and backgrounds. We've added a new Spin Wheel Picker as well as AirPrinting. FormEntry for Mac and FormEntry Server have been localized for nine languages now.
FormEntry Server
We've reduced the price from $79 to $29 when it's available on the Mac App Store. Coming soon! We are working with Apple and trying to get FormEntry Server approved. There's a chance that FormEntry Server might have to change in the User Interface / User Experience. One of the requirements to be in the Mac App Store, is an application cannot ask for privileges. By design, FormEntry Server asks for your password to Start/Stop the server, make changes, etc. We are hopeful to have FormEntry Server in the Mac App Store very soon.
ModelBaker
This is a tough one. We have made some hard decisions about the future of this product. We have decided to hit the reset button on ModelBaker with version 2.0 and take a somewhat different approach than from its original vision. Its original vision was to generate all different sorts of output with iPhone UI, themes, templates and Ajax (View side) while creating the SQL, models, controllers (back-end code). The problem with this, is it was trying to be something for everyone. This is a hard thing to do and to stay on top of.
So what we have done, we've removed most of the user interface features and are going to concentrate the product to be a great Mac server side toolkit. We've taking out the iUI, ExtJS, themes, plugins, templates, vendor packages, so on. By removing these view centric items, this will allow us to create a better server side toolkit app for our customers.
We've also reduced ModelBaker's price from $79 to now $19 and have added an updated CakePHP 1.3.5 package. We also envision tighter integration with FormEntry and ModelBaker in the next few months.
Thanks for listening,
Jonathan
Widget Press
