Archive for October, 2008

Howdy, my dear readers – Pixelmator lovers and haters, users and those still doubting. I think it is the perfect time for our traditional development update article about one of the best image editors in the Mac world.

First of all, I must tell you that Pixelmator is doing great, perfect, in fact – tens of thousands of Pixelmator licenses have been shipped (over 50,000, as of today), and that number is rapidly nearing the hundred thousand range. The download number is exceeding 500,000. These are definitely huge numbers for such a young and tiny software company with just one product in store.

While the numbers are great, that is not the main passion and motivation engine for us. Actually, much more exciting thing for us is that your feedback and reviews are becoming better and better with every single update of Pixelmator. I know that because, even though I am still very busy working on Pixelmator stuff, I read your e-mail, blogs, comments, and other websites that talk about Pixelmator every single evening before going to sleep.

And, while everything is so nice with the current version (1.2.3) of Pixelmator, I can only imagine what it will be like once Pixelmator 1.3 Tempo is released. Speaking of the 1.3, we at the Pixelmator Team agree that it is the best major update we have ever done. Let me tell you why.

From the beginning, the purpose of version 1.3 Tempo was to focus on performance improvements. And, boy, we did focus! Aidas had to rewrite some very important portions of Pixelmator foundation that speak directly to Core Image itself. It took him three long summer months to accomplish that. And it was really worth it – Pixelmator performance improvements can easily be seen when working with large images, opening and saving, using filters or adjustments, and more. The performance changes/improvements are very important since they: 1) solve the problem that crops up when working with large images with Pixelmator; 2) make it much easier for us to optimize every single aspect of the app and 3) allow us to bring in some very powerful features.

And, by the way, from now on, Pixelmator is faster (and I really mean faster) than Big Brother in many cases. For example, opening that quite big JPEG file which is 4000x 4000 in size took Big Brother something like 2 sec., while, in Pixelmator, exactly the same image on the same Mac took 1 sec. to open. That’s very good, right? But there is even more about the speed of the app, which I am sure you will find out for yourself once 1.3 is out.

The other reason why version 1.3 is so great is the new features, which I am about to tell you more about in my next article in this weblog. Anyway, if you can’t wait – read what TUAW, ArsTechnica, and Smoking Apples had to say.

The beta for Pixelmator 1.3 Tempo is doing well enough – we finally know the list of things we have to fix before the update can be released. Be sure that our Macs HDs, GPUs, CPUs, and RAMs spin like crazy as we work hard squashing bugs and making sure Tempo is available to you as soon as possible. Though, unfortunately, I can’t give you any specific release date – it’s software, you know.

It is also worth mentioning that the Pixelmator Team is working on a huge Pixelmator User’s Guide that should reach your hands in November and a new Learn Web site, which will feature lots of resources for learning about image editing and Pixelmator.

To sum up everything I have scribbled – the Pixelmator Team crew (incl. me) is working very hard to introduce the best major update of Pixelmator. With its new amazing features and, especially its performance improvements, I think it is OK to say that Pixelmator, step by step, is moving up to the frontlines against Big Brother…

I also want to give a massive Thank You to Mac and Pixelmator users around the world for your amazing feedback, outstanding support, and heartwarming smiles (I am sure you bring those up) when using Pixelmator. That’s the reason we are so passionate about our work.

Thank You.

P.S. The next major update of Pixelmator is 1.4 Sprinkle (Sprinkle is a codename), which will focus on painting tools.