Ten Years a Mac Developer

Steve Harris is the developer behind Together, Feeder and Poster. He’s “in the (indy) game” for over ten years now and his Together is one of those apps I keep installed for a special purpose. It’s my offline Evernote where I keep and gather all things design related from tutorials up to snap shots from inspiring web designs.

To make a living, you need to create something useful that you can sell at a reasonable but sustainable price, and build up over time. Luck and good timing matter too, but a lot of that comes down to being smart about it. Sometimes it takes a while to come up with the app that sticks.

Together succeeded in a niche for me. I didn’t need almighty Evernote as a all-in bucket. Although I tried to use it for my design work, I cam back to Together. The feature I really like is the ability to create tag groups. You can setup tags for certain folders that get automatically applied when you drag files in them. Here’s an excerpt of how I use them:

Inspiration   > #webdev #inspiration
    Portfolio > #portfolio
    Templates > #templates
    Widgets   > #widgets
	    Smart Folders for buttons, forms, galleries, etc.

Together has helped me out there. I like the fact that it’s all local and that I can use my trusted folder structure. You can send files to your Together folder with your favorite Launcher apps (like Alfred or LaunchBar) or if your a I-love-my-mouse guy, you can drag files to the side of your screen where a drawer pops up with your favorite Together folders.

I recommend Steve’s post to new developers - no matter if you’re an iOS-only developer or are strictly Mac dev - because he outlines some scenarios that you might find yourself in one day.

Many Mac devs from that era have now experienced the full bell curve of interest in a platform, starting out as a niche concern, then hyped to the stratosphere, only to be swiftly brought back to earth. It’s hardly that the Mac or those apps are an irrelevance, but it can feel that way when you’re trying to promote your stuff.

You know, history repeats itself. So don’t get bummed out when your app goes through a dry phase and don’t rest on your achievements if you landed in the top segment of the charts overnight.

In addition there’s his seasoned experience about…

… people saying you should sell apps for pennies to get the most exposure…

… and why he entered the iOS market after ten years of developing:

I had to start all over again creating a Mac and iOS app combo to survive in the new world that emerged…

Last words from myself: Good look with Together Steve, also with fixing that pesky iCloud-Sync bugs. And, to my readers, if you’re into (app) history check out the 10 years of Together in this post.

PS: I hope to see an integration with iCloud Drive for the direct version after Yosemite shipped.¹