January 15, 2010

Fully Charged Batteries

Charge

All of the Pixelmator Team crew members (except for the support master, of course) just returned from a nearly three-month vacation. Yes, I realize that is an unusually long break. But if you take into account the considerable number and quality of recent Pixelmator releases(including Firestarter, Kitten, Draftsman, Tempo, Sprinkle, and finally, the glorious Spider), I hope that you can find it in your heart to grant us the time we took to slow down a bit so as to prepare ourselves for even greater accomplishments.

What’s more, our vacation was absolutely perfect for the following reasons:

  • It was agreed that our vacation time would be unlimited, with each crew member taking as much time as needed before missing worktop such an extent that one cannot but resist returning.
  • We visited Germany’s Munich, Alps, and some impressive Alpine castles, all of which contributed to making this a mentally refreshing and restorative trip.
  • We set up our new office, which is turning out to be a much more well-suited place in which to work and for our company to grow:
  • It looks as though Pixelmator is selling everywhere – from our tiny Web store to such giants as Apple Store, Amazon, and almost anywhere else you can think of.
  • Not surprisingly, Pixelmator 1.5 Spider happened to be the most successful Pixelmator release ever. Spider is still selling like hotcakes, and your feedback regarding the current version is great.
  • And because Spider has been so successful and other Pixelmator releases were also very strong, we have made lots of money.
  • Since we have a bit of money, we are looking to put the majority of it into Pixelmatorโ€™s development, perhaps investing in some new technology, hiring some good developers to help us out, and so forth.
  • With clearer heads from our vacation, we have also reviewed the Pixelmator flight plan, which looks better than ever. The plan is, in fact, so inspiring that the whole team cannot wait to reveal it to you in future Pixelmator updates.

Power-Up

Currently, the Pixelmator Team is working on the 1.5.1 update, which will provide numerous improvements and enhancements. It is to be released at the end of this month or sometime in early February. If you happen to have any problems with Spider, now is the perfect time to let us know about them; we might be able to add the change or improvement into 1.5.1.

Run

For those of you wondering whether or not the Pixelmator Team is working on version 2.0, I can assure you that we are, in fact, doing so! And working very hard at it, too. To be more precise, we have been working on it (UI, features, foundation) for almost a year now, but it is still months, maybe even years away from release – it certainly won’t happen in 2010.Reasons for this delay include:

a) Pixelmator 1.X is the foundation for 2.0 and, by our standards, still needs a lot of improvements;
b) Since 2.0 has more than enough features, some of them should really be introduced in the 1.X era;
c) We would like to polish up certain important features in 1.X before adding new features;
d) Lastly, it really does take time to develop impressive stuff.

Thus, there will be no less than two or three major updates for Pixelmator 1.X. The newest one to be released once it is finished is called Pixelmator 1.6 Nucleus.

I am more than happy to confirm that after such a long vacation and such great news about Pixelmator, the Pixelmator Team’s batteries are once more fully charged and ready for a triumphant Pixelmator journey into the future.

Stay tuned.

Comments

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  • Philip Morton

    Wow, nice office! Good to hear that more updates are on the way.

    14 years ago
  • Lucky

    I just love reading about what’s happening with Pixelmator. Thanks for the really long post! I hope there are more to come!

    14 years ago
  • gp

    Great!! Well done! Developers should learn to take long vacation. All the best for your company and your wonderful software!

    14 years ago
  • Zack Kitzmiller

    Looking Great. Can’t wait for future releases.

    14 years ago
  • Jana

    Welcome back! This certainly explains the long silence since the release of 1.5. I was beginning to think that maybe Pixelmator was somehow being abandoned or losing interest with the developers. I had hoped that wasn’t the case, however, because it is a program that I like and admire. I am glad you all took a long vacation, cleared your heads and are now recharged and ready to push pixelmator to the next level. ๐Ÿ™‚ I am eagerly anticipating future releases!

    14 years ago
  • awmyhr

    This is awesome news. Congratulations on the success, and the long vacation. I really hope we see Snow Leopard enhancements (like 64-bit and OpenCL) before 2.0…

    14 years ago
  • Julian Pearce

    Nice to see that the Pixelmator Team is in fact alive! Amazing office you guys have ( very jealous ).

    1 of the fixes I would really like to see in 1.5.1 is the gradient issue where there is banding ( there are is a forum post about it ).

    Heads up guys! Really anticipating 1.6

    p.s. It would be really great if the team could give us more updates via the blog, twitter or something. It’s always nice to see what you guys are up to!

    14 years ago
  • Mike

    You deserved a break. Can’t wait to hear what’s next!

    14 years ago
  • hamsta

    Please post pics of the Alpine Castles!
    Oh and welcome back. ๐Ÿ˜€

    14 years ago
  • hamsta

    My 1.5.1 wish is… Layer Folders!

    14 years ago
  • Ed Glasheen

    Welcome back.

    14 years ago
  • Joe

    Ability to import photoshop layer effects and text layers without rasterizing. Layers window can’t be resized when switching monitors. Export > color palette > Esc should close color palette only. Do something amazing with web export.

    Keep up the great work. Glad you’re back. ๐Ÿ™‚

    14 years ago
  • WimDS

    Hi there,

    Welcome back guys! I’m glad you had a good time and a new office ๐Ÿ™‚

    Keep up the good work guys!!

    14 years ago
  • Bullaballoo

    Want to hire a good developer ?
    I think Pieter Omvlee could be the best.
    The best of Pixelmator + the best of Drawit + the best of Sketch = The best piece of software of course !!! ๐Ÿ˜€

    And what about Nucleus ?
    Guys, any idea ?

    14 years ago
  • g1sh

    Hey! Good to hear you didn’t disappear somewhere.
    A really cool office you have there ๐Ÿ™‚
    As for the urgent stuff putting things into folders is a must :
    I.e. layer folders and most importantly brush folders since we can’t scroll the brush palette and it’s terribly hard to organize it…

    14 years ago
  • Jana

    As long as we are offering suggestions in this thread, I would really like to see the ability to select the default file format. The Pixelmator format is not compatible with any other programs I use and it is a lot of extra steps to do a “Save As” to save a file instead of just a command S.

    If I open a photoshop file, I should be able to just do a command S to save back to that file (or another photoshop file that I initially create from a Save As. Same with a jpeg. Or any other file type.

    Thank you, keep up the good work.

    14 years ago
  • twiedi

    Thanks for keeping in touch with your customers. All you’ve written sounds great – from charging batteries at the alps (I’m living in Switzerland) to the next steps in developing Pixelmator. I can hardly waitโ€ฆ

    14 years ago
  • Jana

    To clarify my previous post with some examples:

    If I open a jpeg file, make a few tweaks and then hit Command S, that should save back to that jpeg file as a jpeg. It should also meet the requirement of the file being saved and I should be able to do a Command Q to quit Pixelmator without getting the file not saved dialogue.

    If I open a jpeg file, do more extensive changes, like using layers, and I do a Save As to create a new file name with the PSD extension, then from that point on I should be able to do a Command S to save to that new file and at the end do a Command Q to quit. Again, without the file not saved until I save as a Pixelmator file routine.

    I admire your initiative to create a new file format. Reality is, however, that the world uses the PSD format as a standard and even if Pixelmator ultimately slays the Photoshop dragon, the file format will remain with the millions (billions?) of images already created in that format. As such, all the other programs that uses those files.

    MS Word is an example of that. The .doc file format is that world standard. As much as I hate using MS products, (and I don’t anymore), I still have to be able to read and write to the .doc format. That is my biggest complaint with Apple’s Pages program. It’s native file format is .pages. Something that no other program can use. The same scenario exists with Pages as with Pixelmator in regards to opening and saving files. But that is another story for another company (Apple) to deal with.

    The bottom line is, make it easier to use industry standard file types and it will only enhance the attractiveness of Pixelmator.

    thank you.

    14 years ago
  • FM

    Glad to hear you were all doing something sensible, like others I was a little worried some of the spark had gone.. However, that not being the case I wish you guys a happy new year and look forward to what comes next!

    14 years ago
  • Robert

    Hi guys,
    I just updated to Mac OS X 10.6.2 (and Java and so on also) and got some problems with Spider: it crashes very very often and slows down the whole system. It doesn’t seem that there’s a typical reason – it crashes when resizing the window, another time when picking a color or when undoing.
    Greetings from Germany! ๐Ÿ™‚

    14 years ago
  • hamsta

    Robert, I’m using Pixelmator on 10.6.2 and haven’t experienced those problems. Try booting up in safe mode. If the problems disappear when using Pixelmator then something is conflicting with it.

    14 years ago
  • iDK

    Pixelmator es simplemente genial.
    Una de las mejores aplicaciones para MAC ๐Ÿ™‚

    14 years ago
  • cookeecut

    Great to see that work is continuing on Pixelmator. I absolutely love it and use it for all my design work. Guys, now if you could only include a small information pane to show image and cursor info that would be great!

    14 years ago
  • BOBLOG

    Come on , make the brush system extensible….

    14 years ago
  • Kercal

    Welcome back team pix ๐Ÿ™‚ and glad to hear you’ve managed to have a break.

    Roll on all updates, always happy to see new stuff. Where do you want to see 1.5.1 suggestions? Here or the forum?

    14 years ago
  • hamsta

    Kercal, you are fashionably late. ๐Ÿ˜€

    14 years ago
  • Kercal

    Ain’t no post like a number 27 post…..

    14 years ago
  • Mike

    Word on the street is Apple is gonna buy Pixelmator for inclusion into ilife 2010

    14 years ago
  • jim

    Great to see you back and working hard.

    I hope to see Pixelmator become a hardened Competitor for Adobe Photoshop.

    I’m already stopped using Photoshop, but the temptation is still very great because Pixelmator is lacking in basic vector tools.

    I hope to see vectors soon…

    14 years ago
  • Audrius

    Po velniais lietuvai?iai duodat kaip reikiant! Sekmes darbuose!

    14 years ago
  • Heiko

    Is it true that you spent your 3 months vacation in Cupertino, because Apple bought your company to bring Pixelmator into iLife?

    14 years ago
  • Jana

    They were helping to design the new apple tablet. It has Pixelmator built into it. ๐Ÿ™‚

    14 years ago
  • John

    Hey those pictures are inside of the Apple Cupertino office!! Thats room 352!! So fess up.

    14 years ago
  • Max

    Glad to hear, you’ve earned your success, guys. I’m looking forward to new releases and I hope you will be able to incorporate some new Apple technologies into 2.0 (e. g. Grand Central and OpenCL).

    14 years ago
  • Wooster

    Like the framed retro apple logo.

    14 years ago
  • Bill I

    If I got to pick 3 things for upcoming releases, I’d love to see Layer Folders/Groups, the gradient banding issue resolved, and more granular control of text (kerning, line-height, etc).

    Glad to hear you guys took some time off, and it sounds like you spent the time well! Can’t wait to see what’s coming down the pike.

    14 years ago
  • jeff

    CMYK please.

    14 years ago
  • Gerry

    Hey folks! If you want to give suggestions to the PM team, why not use their Support forum set up for that purpose? It’s right here: http://www.pixelmator.com/support/viewforum.php?f=4&sid=765ded3faad91bbe54c123404cb0ee7f

    And welcome back guys! I assumed you were either bought out by Apple and forced into silence or else had all been kidnapped. It would have been nice to at least leave a blog post saying “bye, back in three months.” Maybe next time, eh?

    14 years ago
  • Dove

    Yes, but it still can’t show the same image in two windows at the same time, with different magnification factors, for detail work without losign sight of the whole picture.

    14 years ago
  • tab0reqq

    You can’t even imagine how happy i am ๐Ÿ™‚

    Now i’m waiting for effects of this 3 months vacations. I hope that some important features from “features and requests” topics will be implemented.

    Cheers!

    14 years ago
  • Henrique

    Woooo… sweet office.

    Just bought a Pixelmator license (I had a coupon code), and wow, nice app. Impressive what 2 people can do… other apps get many more developers, but are in no way polished as this.

    Definitely worth the price, best cost/benefit ratio even than free alternatives.

    14 years ago
  • Rob

    Guys great! Nice to hear from you! And really next time you come to Munich let me know! Its called beer halls and I know all of them, this is what happens when you put a Canadian in Munich!

    Cheers

    14 years ago
  • Blackrider

    Great to see you are back in action! Hope to see more awesome updates in the near future. In the meantime I will gladly recommend Pixelmator to all my family and friends who use Macs. ๐Ÿ™‚ Keep on rocking!

    14 years ago
  • Hasgarn

    Glad to see you back!
    I’m now waiting for your improvements of PXM.
    In my opinion, the most important thing is to make Pixelmator working with big files.
    Good luck, guys!

    14 years ago
  • Godot

    Welcome back! If you want to make a great piece of software even better, please think about
    a) text tool improvements (line spacing, etc.)
    b) brush palette improvements (brush folders, etc.)
    c) selection tool improvements (bรฉzier paths, etc.)
    d) unified palettes (color picker, text styles, which match the black theme, etc.)
    e) layer styles (drop shadow, etc.), layer groups
    f) pdf to pixel calculation improvements
    g) vector shapes
    Thanks!

    14 years ago
  • A.A.

    Whwn 2.0 comes, what will happen for boxed/retail version users? Will they need to buy a new version of Pixelmator at the Apple store again?

    14 years ago
  • Joha Allen

    Wishes for 1.5.1:

    โ€ข+1 for layer folders, I am desperate.

    โ€ขCurrently, if you hit Command-Space in fullscreen mode, it does NOT bring up Spotlight (the system wide shortcut key). You have to either switch out of PM, or mouse up to the menu bar, or switch out of fullscreen mode. Please fix this, I would love to be able to Command-Space-filename-enter to open images in PM while I am working.

    โ€ขBiggest issue I would like to see fixed: when using the brush tool, individual strokes of the same color do not blend together. You can see the antialiased edge of one stroke when layered on top of another one of the same color:

    http://www.whitespacecg.com/Images/Strokes.png

    This is 4 separate strokes, one on top of the other. The right side of the image has the contrast and brightness adjusted to make the aliasing artifacts where the strokes overlap more apparent.

    Please fix this, if it was the ONLY fix in 1.5.1 I would be pleased as pie!

    14 years ago
  • John C

    Welcome back, folks! Glad to hear you all got your batteries recharged over the break.

    After seeing the iPad introduction today, my first thought was “Pixelmator”. I think it’d be a PHENOMENAL app on the new tablet, and I’ll be first in line to purchase it if it’s made available — I absolutely LOVE the OS X version!

    14 years ago
  • Joy Inc

    I thought exactly the same thing as John C. iPad. I don;t mind if it has no new features. Just to see it as it is now on the iPad or iPhone for that matter would be awesome.

    Office is looking good by the way.

    D ^_^

    P.S. I wish I could have three month vacations. Sigh!

    14 years ago
  • Mike

    I dunno – the iPad specs don’t really support heavy-duty image editing.

    14 years ago
  • Wooster

    Is CoreImage/Quartz and its filters even available on the iPhone?

    14 years ago
  • Keil Miller

    Glad to hear that you guys haven’t disappeared!

    One of my god damn palettes somehow fell off the screen. Now pixelmator is useless for me. Why is there no reset palettes menu item? Ugh. Can we get more frequent updates? Even if you only added one thing, it may be one thing that we need right away.

    14 years ago
  • andi

    Keil Miller: have you tried to set the monitor resolution to a different value and then set it back to the original reolution again? sometimes this resets window positions and maybe brings the palette back.

    you might have to try different resolutions with and without restarting of pixelmator and rebooting of your mac.

    14 years ago
  • Anon Cowherd

    Hi,

    Could we finally have Layer Styles please? I’m a total noob, and I just can’t get anything worthwhile done without them. Please, won’t you think of the Noobs! ๐Ÿ™‚

    But seriously.. If I needed to do graphics for even one of my software projects _right now_, I’d just have to buy Photoshop, and I’d much rather pay for Pixelmator than Adobe’s Steaming Pile Of Bloat.

    14 years ago
  • MrNick

    LAYER STYLES !!!! IS needed It is the number one feature missing add it in so I can buy your software I hate Photoshop It is waaaay to bloated these days !

    14 years ago
  • Josh Gertzen

    @Wooster – Quartz 2D is definitely in the iPhone SDK. Supposedly CoreImage is also in the iPhone libraries, but it’s a private API so Apple won’t let apps that go into the App Store use it.

    @John_C & @Joy_Inc – Absolutely… Pixelmator on the iPad would be another game changing App. I don’t think people fully appreciate how game changing the iPad is just yet. The iPhone was just a test, the iPad is the real game changer. Look up the Steve Jobs & Bill Gates interview from 2007 on iTunes. Jobs eludes then to the future containing many ‘Post Computer’ devices… and that real innovation will happen with those.

    @Anon_Cowherd & MrNick – I couldn’t agree more… as a decently skilled Photoshop user, I keep running into this problem when using Pixelmator.

    14 years ago
  • Francesco Garbin

    Hello folks, Pixelmator is just great. Feature request: make the Image size visible in the document window status bar. Keep it up!

    14 years ago
  • Luis Lacerda

    Cool site and software. Maybe a version to iPad?

    Luis
    from Amazon Rain Forest

    14 years ago
  • James Brocklehurst

    As a web designer I would very much like to move to PixelMator but can’t until you provide better image optimisation options, Layer Styles and Vector Drawing Tools. Add these features and then you will have a hugely desirable product. iPad support? I’m not sure that would give you a suitable return on investment. If you target web designers currently relying on Photoshop because there isn’t a suitable altenative, there will be many more compared to potential iPad owners.

    14 years ago
  • Alex Aubert

    I definitely agree with James Brocklehurst. Please, think about the potential of the webdesigners audience. We are all waiting for a Photoshop alternative since Photoshop keeps on adding useless feature for us.

    14 years ago
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    13 years ago