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AppcuityThe sharp way to find great Mac apps at great prices Normally: $21.99 ZOT Price: $12.99 |
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| Appcuity Pro for Mac
Do you love the Mac App Store’s fantastic selection of apps but find it frustrating for zeroing in on the apps you really need? Have you ever wished the Mac App Store had better searching, or a wish list to remember apps you are interested in without immediately purchasing them? Would you like to open multiple apps at once and compare them side by side, or quickly find apps that are on sale? Now you can do all that and more with Appcuity, the shopping assistant program that works in concert with the Mac App Store to revolutionize the entire app selection process from search to installation. (Note: This ZOT is for a lifetime subsciption to Appcuity Pro, normally $21.99.) Guided Tour This short video takes you on a quick tour of Appcuity. You’ll see how you can quickly search for and sort apps by multiple criteria, how to display and compare multiple apps at the same time, how to find the best new app deals, how to add apps to your wish list, how to purchase and download apps and much more.
Features
Press and User Comments “Appcuity puts a whole new face on the Mac App Store … makes apps discoverable in a way that they definitely are not in Apple’s App Store interface” TidBITS.com “digging through sales and freebies has never been easier … one wonders why Apple doesn't do these things in the official store” TUAW.com (The Unofficial Apple Weblog) “makes searching for apps more fun and productive than the Mac App Store app” Mac360.com “especially great for finding free and on-sale apps” LifeHacker.com “Makes the Mac App Store fun and easy to explore! … Far too addictive and tempting to get apps you never knew were available.” gary102 (on download.cnet.com) “an astounding improvement in the usability of the App Store” “I downloaded more apps in my first 15 minutes with Appcuity than I had downloaded with the app store app in 6 months!” “I've paid for my Appcuity subscription in a few days by getting apps that were for sale but are now free” System Requirements • Mac OS X 10.6 or higher Visit the Appcuity web site for more info and a free trial.
Developer Interview
How long have you been developing for Macintosh? I got my first Macintosh, a Mac128, in February 1984. At that time you couldn’t program on the Mac, you had to use a Lisa, so I got one of those also. I had developed a RAM based database for another 68K based computer, so I ported that to the Mac. The database, called OverVYE, started shipping in August of 1984. It was one of the very first programs available on the Mac. In September Apple flew about a dozen developers including me to a sales conference in Hawaii where we got to show our software to several thousand Apple sales reps. I also got to meet both Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. 25 years later ProVUE Development is the second oldest Mac software company — only Microsoft has been shipping Mac software longer than we have. Why did you decide to write Appcuity? Back in January I started playing with the Mac App Store and it drove me crazy. Poor searching, no sorting, no ability to compare apps, no wish list, and very hard to browse. I knew there were a lot of great apps in there that I would be interested in, but it was way to frustrating to try to find them. I had the idea that became Appcuity right before the 2011 MacWorld Expo. I actually started writing code on the plane flight up to San Francisco. I was so excited that after the show was over each day I would go back to the room and program until 2 or 3 in the morning. By the time I went home I had an early working prototype. Does Appcuity replace the Mac App Store? No, instead, Appcuity is a companion to the Mac App Store. You’ll still need to use the Mac App Store to actually purchase and install software. Appcuity is similar to a search engine, but for apps instead of web pages. With Appcuity you’ll find it is much easier to find the apps you need, as well as finding apps that are great deals or just for exploring all of the brilliant apps in the Mac App Store. When you find an app you want, a single click opens the Mac App Store directly to the page for that app so that you can purchase and install it. How does Appcuity find out what’s new in the Mac App Store? Our servers scan Apple’s web site every evening to prepare the updated store data for the next day. (The process is very similar to the way Google scans the web for it’s search engine. The scanner was actually the first part of the program I started on the plane to San Francisco.) Once the scan is complete, we prepare a compressed update that is downloaded to your machine each day. (At the time this is being written the compressed update is about 4 megabytes each day.) In addition to tracking the current state of the store, we also keep track of changes to store data over time, allowing us to automatically identify apps that are updated or go on sale. This historical information is also included in the daily update so that you can see the price and version history of any app at a glance. This diagram shows the flow of data from the Mac App Store to the Appcuity Server to your machine.
What about iPhone and IPad apps? This is a very frequent question. Because there are about a half million iOS apps, the RAM based approach we are using for the Mac App Store won’t work. We are thinking about how it could be adapted for iOS apps, but we haven’t decided on the best approach yet. What else new are you planning? We’ve got some ideas for making Appcuity even better in 2012, and in the longer term we are also planning a major revision to Panorama, our flagship RAM based database program. |
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Jim Rea