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The Bat: Great program, terrible documentation and support

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superboyac:
Some time ago, I decided to get a Mac and lose all those expensive Windows apps.

It took a while to migrate 50,000 email messages from a whole load of folders in TheBat, Outlook, ThunderBird and Outlook Express to Mac Mail. I'd say I lost maybe 5,000 emails or maybe 10,000 emails when I used Outlook Express and ThunderBird :(

Ever since I used MacMail:
- I got a working address-book that syncs with my iPad, iPhone, Google, Yahoo and LAN here. No more Windows Address book problems!
- I never lost a sync or contact for past 6 months
- Email backup: almost automatic...
- There's a script to do remove duplicates, remove attachments, tag folders
- Automatic syncing between iPhone, iPad
- never had to bother with those WinMail.dat or HTML spam or EXE attachments ever
- There's tagging, color tagging,
- Working to-do lists,
- Calendar that syncs with Google, Yahoo.
- automatic filing with intelligence
- brilliant search feature
- IMAP compatibility. I can use Exchange with MacMail too

I especially like Mail, To-do list, Reminders and Calendar API integration system-wide.  :-*
-vizacc (February 24, 2011, 02:54 AM)
--- End quote ---
I hear you.  A lot of PC developers don't care to make life easy for the end user.  They want to add features features and more features, and often ignore the little things that just make life a little easier.  I still often wonder what significant improvements/fixes the Bat has done in the last 5 years, and it's not much.  They still refuse to have a true forum, they don't fix any of the issues with MicroED that have been there for years.  They still don't have ANY documentation for anything.  It's funny; they have a Quick Templates feature that is very powerful, and it has its own syntax, it's basically a programming language.  Is there any documentation for this language?  Nope.  You just have to figure it out.

J-Mac:
That does sound nice vizacc. Shame it isn't available on Windows.

Thank you.

Jim

vizacc:
I hear you.  A lot of PC developers don't care to make life easy for the end user. 

--- End quote ---

Previously I used to do same, add feature upon feature without thinking... after I got a Mac and saw how they did things, I felt lot of difference how I did it vs. how they do it.

It was eye opening experience into usability vs. what you think the customer should do.

This leads to worse and worse Windows software that costs US$249, US$99, US$149 with developers saying they have very few sales, slow sales or non-existent sales...

While Mac OSX software sells for US$1, US$2, US$4, US$9.99, US$14.99 and amazingly, most of these developers earn hundreds of thousands a month just making their product well designed and simple to use.

superboyac:
vizacc, firstly, is that the Terminator 3 chick?  She was bad ass.  Some of my favorite action scenes in that movie.

And about PC and Mac software, you are correct.  As far as money and business go, a lot of PC developers are shooting themselves in the foot.  It's not entirely their fault.  40hz's historical explanation today is very revealing and thought provoking.  The culture has already been long established with Windows software: more features are good good good.  Making things elegant and easy is ignored.  I don't think the developers think making things easy is bad, necessarily, but they ignore the need for it.  We pc users operate under the assumption that clicking around in windows and figuring out how a program works is a very intuitive, easy thing for everyone.  It's not.  Often times, what is happening is that the users and developers are getting a big kick out of interesting, but largely insignificant features being added to the program.  But they are not demanding that the everyday functions be improved or streamlined.  So little annoyances in programs remain version after version.

That's why I keep insisting that there's a good business opportunity out there for a developer who decides to address these issues.  There is a demand for this stuff, but who is the one that is going to fill the need AND make a living doing so?

JavaJones:
The reason the percentage of PC developers who make lots of money is less than the percentage of Mac developers is because *there are way more developers on PCs*. There's a lot more competition. It's not so much about the price of the apps as that the income tends to be distributed among many possible competitors. On a Mac you may have one or two options for a particular tool, and so even if it only costs $10, 1000's of people are buying it. On a PC I have literally 100s of options for almost every single app I can think of, many of which are even free. Less freeware on the Mac side I find too (though certainly there is lots of freeware too).

But really the PC software market just dwarfs the Mac market in terms of overall revenue. Most of the huge, profitable software companies are either Windows-specific or Windows-driven.

- Oshyan

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