UPDATEHi Everyone,
Want to give you an update on Eric's progress developing the next versions of U&I Software’s applications.
As you know, MacOS 10.15 (Catalina) does not support U&I’s 32bit applications (if you missed the September Update, see below). Upgrading to 10.15, requires setting up a dual boot system with 10.14 (Mojave) to run them. This is similar to when Apple changed from MacOS (Classic) to MacOS X (Unix) and we had to run apps in “Classic mode”.
Unfortunately, dropping 32bit application support is not the only thing that has changed in 10.15. Repeat surprises from poorly documented “new features” have impacted development. Each time this happens, programming has to halt and a work-a-round be found before proceeding. Eric is already working 12-16 hours a day 7 days a week, so, this is very frustrating… as you can imagine!
If you’ve been reading the Tech news lately, many very large companies are also having challenges developing for Catalina. So he is not alone, but U&I Software is the creative work of just one man, and a volunteer group of software testers who are passionate about his products. So, when development comes to a stop, it has a much greater impact on all the U&I product release timelines.
From what has been learned so far, the original idea of updating all the applications at once is just not practical. Each product needs to be built, tested, the released one after the other. This allows for wisdom gained along the way to be applied to the next application’s development, and ensure product quality and stability.
The volunteers have begun testing Designer 8.0 and once that is done, work can start on Voyager 5.0. Both ArtMatic applications must be released together as they use the same version of the ArtMatic engine. The target release date for the ArtMatic Suite is late December / early January.
Development of MetaSynth 7.0 will then follow with a target date of Spring 2020, then Xx 6.0 in the Summer, and V-Quartz in the Fall. These are not the dates we wanted, but they are realistic, and while it is possible that lessons learned along the way will help speed up development, each product has its own unique technology to consider.
Eric has successfully guided U&I through Apple’s previous radical changes: a completely new operating system (MacOS to Unix/MacOS X), completely different processors (PowerPC to Intel), and has dedicated his life to continuing to do so.
I’m fully confident he will get us through their latest transition as well. Thank You for your support as we all journey into the future of these amazing programs.
Kevin
p.s. We've made the decision that U&I's applications must become multi-platform. A Windows developer has now been brought on board with the goal of porting the applications to that platform.
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