June 5, 2007
Pixelmator Team at WWDC
Me and Aidas, for the first time in our lives, are going to the USA. Whatβs more, we are heading toward the most exciting Apple event for Mac developers–the World Wide Developers Conference.
Weβve already learned that there will be many wonderful events at WWDC, such as the Steve Jobs keynote, Apple Design Awards, Sessions & Labs for developers, and much more. One of the most important things for us is that we will have an opportunity to meet other Mac and Apple developers and ask questions. Boy, we have many questions!
Also, we will get our hands on Leopard Beta! You might want to know that Pixelmator was first an application developed exclusively for Leopard. We took advantage of plenty of wonderful Leopard technologies (which I canβt talk about much–youβll see them once Leopard ships), but because of an Apple delay (because of the iPhone, which is going to be great), we decided to let Pixelmator run on Mac OS X Tiger too. I will explain that decision in my future articles.
So, if next week you see two strange guys who look scared to death because they are lost in San Francisco–that will be us.
Rafael
That’s great! I hope you guys get a lot out of it, and are able to apply what you learn. π
Lars Tiben
Have fun in SF, I am really looking forward to get a release of Pixelmater and try it out. Looks killer.
Daz
All the best, boys. Enjoy your new celebrity status!
duncanw
Be sure to meet other indies on sunday night, details at http://sfmacisv.com/ !
See you there!
Questionable
If there is a session that explains the difference between marketing demonstrations and working applications, I would recommend you take notes and report back on what you’ve learned.
Saulius (Pixelmator Team)
To Questionable: I am sorry, but we didn’t expected such a buzz. Forgive me please if that makes you feel bad.
Jonas Westerlund
Have fun! Maybe next year you will receive the design award yourselves. π
Questionable
@Saulius: The only thing that will “feel bad”, if this is a product built around very slick collateral that ends up being Jumsoft 2.0. There isn’t anything wrong, per se, with promoting and releasing software that looks better than it plays. However you almost certainly are going to make quite a few sales based on this slick collateral. It’s reasonable to flag this concern (based on the history of the Jumsoft pedigree that is freely revealed on this site) for others that are expecting a certain quality of product when the lay down their cash.
Aidas
@Questionable: We’ve promised ourself that with Pixelmator we will do everything right. No matter what it takes (in terms of time and money) we will deliver top quality product. Me and Saulius know what we did wrong with Jumsoft and we will not repeat our mistakes again. Your criticism is very constructive and really helps us to stay on the right track.
Questionable
Very cool. I wish you the best of luck (’cause it does look yummy).
Joram Oudenaarde
One thing that got my attention is the fact that the colorpalet only shows colors as little blocks. Most people who work with programs like Photoshop, Illustrator and such are using the colorpalet displayed as a list. Any chance that’ll be implemented in Pixelmator? π
Other then that… I can’t wait to get that program on my hands! Not sure what the pricing will be, but it looks as slick as iPhoto, and seems to have most of the important features that Photoshop has. Nice combo if you ask me π Kudo’s to the dev’s π
Ryan Miglavs
Good luck! Enjoy WWDC, San Francisco, and being the cool kids of the Mac community. I’m sure you’ll learn a lot, get a lot of positive feedback, and some suggestions (curves! we need curves!).
All in all, I wish the two of you success as you craft the tool that I hope will replace Photoshop in my Dock.
[love],
[ryan]
Carlos Sisi
Can’t really wait much more for this interesting piece of software to be released. Photoshop interface has *always* scared me and during my PC days I was always friend of Corel Photo Paint.
dimitre
what about Quartz Composer compatible plugins?
cheers
Sonny
It’s good to hear you are going to WWDC. I am also glad to hear you are commited to making a quality product. I am pretty desperate for a viable alternative to photoshop that is native to OS X. Gimp works well but it just seems clunky to me. Keep going.
maximus
This looks like a nice application. It would be great if you could put up a feature comparison table that compares Pixelmator to applications like Photoshop, Gimp and Fireworks.
Fre
I just stumbled accross this site via macminds.net and WOW this application looks great.
I love the interface of this app and can’t wait to get my hands on it.
Is there an expected release date? Because I don’t seem to find anything on the website (except for the notify button) and this application looks quite ready to be released.
Milos
Have fun! We’ll see, maybe you’ll receive an award yourselves in a year or so…
T-Man
Have fun and good luck. I hope you learn a lot and get connected.
Question: Are you guys still involved with Jumsoft? Or have you two been working solely on this project for some time now? I’m sorry if it has already been answered somewhere else.
JC
When is the launch date? And, when are you going to add vector tools to the mix? You will get all the web designers if you do that.
Thanks.
Gary
What about the Pen tool? Even if it doesn’t have the pen tool I am still going to purchase this product. I will soon be ordering a new MBP and really do not want to shell out the cash for Photoshop.
So looking forward to this app.
Also, it would be really good for you to have several video tutorials available when the product is released.
Matt
Just wanted to say that I’m very impressed with the interface and feature set from what I’ve read so far. I look forward to getting my hands on this product later this summer and sharing with my readers.
Hope you are enjoying WWDC and getting the most from the great Leopard technologies. And from what I see, Pixelmator should be in the running for Best User Interface at WWDC 2008!
Blackdan
SF is great! I went to Macworld last January. (First time in the US as well) I was quite overwhelmed! Lovely city and seeing so many likeminded people in one place is very inspiring. Hope you guys have loads of fun!
Can’t wait for Pixelmator to be released!
Alexander
I hope you are all enjoying WWDC! I wish I was there.
Keep working, keep innovating — you’ll always have a spot on my Dock. π
shawnyQ
Can we get some kind of update on the progress of Pixelmator? You could always do the trendy thing and release a beta version.
Tankgrrl
Hi, boys. So… when is someone going to see this app first-hand?
No one at WWDC seems to have seen it. Weren’t you supposed to demo it at Delicious Generation? You did indeed rock up to WWDC, that much I know (green shirt, blue shirt, blue badges, right?) but that’s as much as has been heard from Pixelmator as far as I can tell. Do fill us in.
I can’t think of a better opportunity for a new app to garner some interest (and some credibility) than at WWDC. What’s the story?
Saulius (Pixelmator Team)
Hi Guys!
we are still stuck in SF. WWDC has been great for us and we will post an article about that soon.
Tankgrrl: who told you that we didn’t do demo of Pixelmator at Delicious Generation party?! We did.
Also, we showed Pixelmator to every single person who asked us about it at WWDC. Some were even able to play with it. And feedback is just great!
So, stay tuned, we are coming back soon.
Tankgrrl
I guess I haven’t asked the right people. Looking forward to seeing the video and whatnot.
Matthew Fern
Yeah, I remember the demo – seeing as I was right in front of the table (and speaker @_@) for it. Great stuff, can’t wait to play with it hands-on!
Is there a chance that you could send a copy of that picture you took at the party? I want to see how it came out. π
UKMac
This looks like it is going to be something else guys. Cant wait for finished product.
Cheers
Aaron
Hey guys! So when will we see an update to the blog? I can’t wait to get my hands on Pixelmator! I’m really excited :)!
shawnyQ
I guess when you said you were stuck in San Francisco, you weren’t kidding. Maybe if you release Pixelmator you can make enough to fly back home.
Gary
Hey guys!
Came here today looking for an update to your blog and see that it still hasn’t been updated. (Believe me, I know how busy things can get and next thing you know its been 3 weeks since an update)
I was just wondering if you guys had anymore news that you can share with us. I think most people are wanting to know the following:
1. What is the planned release date
2. Will there be a beta program
3. Do you have more “eye candy” that you can put up for us to “oooohhh and awwwwwe” over
Personally I would like to know if it will be optimized to take advantage of the Core 2 Duo processors in the Intel Macs
I would love to see some benchmarks in comparison with Photoshop.
Gary
Lucky
Hey! I hope you’ll update your blog soon. I want to hear how was WWDC and a little more about the app.
Good luck π
Morten THorpe
First off – congrats on the good job on version 1.0 of this promising app…
I say promising for several reasons – there are a number of bugs and oddities which I’ve found in approx 10 min.’s usage.
1. Your understanding of Mask is the opposite of everyone elses – whenever a masked area is black it is totally hidden/not-included
2. You’re missing the essential tool-mode for selectins where it is possible to select from a center and outwards by holding down the ALT-key.
3. Gradients – Why aren’t there any real linear-gradients and only “faked ones” trough radial gradients?
4. Command+Apple-key+mouse-down on a layer should select its contents and outline it in “marching ants” – no goin to the “Edit menu” to load the selection, please!
5. (request) Rulers-on-demand – why aren’t there any?
6. (request) Fill-with-pattern
I believe that the 6 improvements above would get me to switch away from Photoshop alltogether π