Nine years ago, early 2003, I posted on the macnn forums, asking for beta testers for a new kind of writing application for Mac OS X. On June 1st of that year, we released Ulysses 1.0.

Let’s try and put that in context, shall we? :)

In 2003 the G4 was all the rage. Every Apple product sported that processor, from the white iBooks to the “Quicksilver” PowerMacs. Intel was a sticker on other people’s notebooks, and was supposed to *never* be inside a machine from Cupertino. iMacs looked like perverted versions of the Pixar lamp, and the PowerBooks just went to 17″ within an aluminum body.

People were still using clamshell iBooks – a mere 800×600 px of screen real estate, which is less than what run-off-the-mill telephones offer today.

The Safari web browser had just entered public beta (Internet Explorer X, yay), and Apple had just opened the doors to its iTunes Music Store. iPods were operated via click-wheels, and Mac OS X was at version 10.2, Jaguar; users were supposed to reserve theater tickets online via an app named “Sherlock”.

There was no Exposé, no Xcode, no Spotlight, no Dashboard. There was no built-in, system-wide dictionary, no iCal, no QuickLook. There was no unified sidebar, let alone any sort of broad unification regarding the UI, with brushed metal all over the place and a vibrant theming community trying to win a resource-war.

There was no Facebook, let alone Twitter, and there was no WordPress either. Google Docs? John Gruber’s Markdown? Nope. Dropbox? Nooooooo…

The developer community we encountered was largely one of old school Mac programmers, who had already gone from 68xxx to PowerPC and just now came to grips with ditching OS 9. It was a nice bunch, a bit family-like, and I fondly remember subscribing to Apple’s official mailing lists and discussing the pros and cons of localized forums for non-english devs.

It’s been nine years.
Everything has changed.

My current iMac is powered by a multi-core Intel i7 running at 2.9 GHz. It boots in a little under 10 seconds, and that’s last years’ model. The current version of OS X (Lion) looks, feels and behaves so differently from 10.2, 10.4 even, that it’s like a different system altogether.

The least common denominator capable of running the beast is a MacBook with a screen of 1280×800 px — that’s twice the amount of that clamshell iBook.

The web is everywhere now, and we store huge chunks of our data online. Cloud-aware apps automatically sync our various devices, with so-called “smart” phones being no less than hyper-mobile supercomputers which also happen to allow voice chat.

Apps have somehow managed to transform from (however slick) data-manipulation programs to aesthetically pleasing design objects. Some of the best graphic designers now work on interfaces, and there’s a whole generation of young, talented artists and coders willing to embrace and push forward the status quo.

Users’ expectations also have dramatically changed. From prices to feature set to interoperability, connectivity and “post-processing” of any given output. It’s almost been a 180 degrees turn from the beginning of this century: Music, photos, videos and texts (games even) are all being distributed digitally now, and everybody can publish everything, at any time, anywhere… and does so.

And who but the nerdiest of nerds would have thought that today we all pretty much run a Unix-based system that *completely* hides its underlying complexity. No visible file system, no documents, no extensions to worry about, just tasks at hand – literally, with touch becoming the predominant input method. Of course, I’m talking iPad here, but we all know where this is going…

Last not least, developing for Apple’s platforms has turned from nice, friendly niche to a multi-million dollar opportunity for venture capitalists and indie devs alike. The App Store shook up the industry, and we dare only imagine what the landscape will be like in another nine years’ time.

Yeah, it has been *nine* years.
And everything has changed.

Ulysses? Not so much.
To be continued…

Yeah, sucks, but that’s the way it is. Ask Apple what they were thinking.

Having said that, I’m pretty excited about iBooks Author, because it looks like a nice and easy way to do some rather fancy eBooks. The image gallery widget is great, for example, and so are the options to create coffee table books or (something I’m really looking forward to) children’s books. Not having to fiddle around with CSS will be awesome, and the way they handle file export (send via email or just publish to the iBookstore) are just great.

Novels? Not so much.

Which leads me to that dreaded piece of EULA:

IMPORTANT NOTE:
If you charge a fee for any book or other work you generate using this software (a “Work”), you may only sell or distribute such Work through Apple (e.g., through the iBookstore) and such distribution will be subject to a separate agreement with Apple.

Now… there has been some uproar and some downplay of this passage, and what I think it boils down to is simply this: Awful, awful naming decisions on Apple’s part. The app is called “iBooks Author”. The resulting product is “an iBook”, which (I believe) everybody just sees as “Apple’s fancy way of naming eBooks”.

On iPad/iPhone, the way to actually buy iBooks, err, eBooks, is an app called… wait for it: iBooks. It lists all your… eBooks (ePub and PDF) and also features a “Store” button, which will take you to the “iBooks Store”. On said store, you can buy a whole lot of eBooks in the (rather standardized) ePub format.

Now, with iBooks Author, the only product you can produce, is some sort of “advanced ePub” which Apple (un)intelligently labelled “.ibook” — see the problem?

Essentially, they created a new version of an established medium (nothing wrong with that), wrapped it in a proprietary format (nothing wrong with that) and then dumbly named it after something they’ve already established: An eBook with a different leading vowel.

Of course for Apple, iBooks Author is simply the first step of a complete distribution process: Create an advanced eBook (called “iBook”) for sale on the iBookstore. Period. Case closed. But for everybody else, an “iBooks Author” is just an “eBook Creator” — thus the outrage over not being allowed to sell said eBooks anywhere but on… iBooks. Sigh.

Could Apple have done differently? Sure. They should not have called their eBook store “iBooks”.

Cheers,
Marcus

PS: Why some people bring pricing of the app (or non-pricing, actually) into the argument is beyond me. But hey, what do I know anyway…

Ha, can you believe this? We totally missed to announce the immediate availability of Ulysses 2.1 on the App Store.

We were so excited and thrilled and everything – appearing in New & Noteworthy, getting an App Store feature and great reviews, dancing, partying –, we just didn’t… manage.

And once the initial dust settled, we dove head-in to create Daedalus 1.2, which is in final stages of development right now, with some great enhancements and additions, which is lots of… work, actually.

So: We missed the announcement!

Good thing these are the interwebs, and we can fix this terrible slip-up in no time and real time. Yeah! Just imagine this being a print publication, and we had forgotten to announce the October release back in July (’cause that’s how this works in print, you know), and we just *now* realized and… HOW COULD PEOPLE EVEN LIVE BACK THEN?!?

Pfhew. And whatever.

Ulysses 2.1, available now at the Mac App Store, for the insanely low price of only $19.99 or whatever that translates to in your local currency. Wobster’s dictionary lists it under “a steal, really”.

Have fun.
We do.

Cheers,
Marcus

Hi there,

this has been sitting in one of my folders for some time, and I simply forgot to upload it. Bummer. But hey, no deadlines on the interwebs, right? So here it is: The first ever officially licensed Soulmen Wallpaper Desktop Picture, loosely based on the in-app backdrop of Daedalus Touch.

Only in 1600×900, sorry, but it’s ad-free, unlabeled, and it makes a great impression on a second monitor running Ulysses 2.1.

Cheers,
Marcus

Update: 2560×1440 by popular demand. :)

In case you missed these on Twitter, and as a filler for these hot summer days of stone-cold impatience: We tinkered-ly rush-produced three teaser trailers for Daedalus Touch 1.1 — yeah, had some childish fun in iMovie. You can also check them out on Youtube.

#1: “Whatthe?!?”
#2: “Wanna!”
#3: “Work!”

Youtube Channel: soulmentv

As for release date, timing, etc.: We’re currently waiting for the final pieces of localization to come in, which we then need to double-check, and after that we can finally submit to Apple. Sorry for the delay, we’re as eagerly awaiting release as you do, trust me.

Cheers,
Marcus

This is soooooo very embarrassing…

UPDATE: Version 1.0.2 has been approved by Apple and should already be on the App Store. Big, big thanks to the review team for the speedy turnaround.

This post should’ve been a celebration. Instead it’s a warning: For the time being, please *DON’T* download Daedalus Touch from the iTunes App Store.

Yeah, it’s released, and yeah, we’re quite happy, but we have identified a severe bug which causes the app to crash. If you have 1.0 installed, please refrain from updating to 1.0.1 and wait till the next update is approved by Apple.

We’re awfully sorry and are banging our heads on various tables. If you’re affected by this bug, please accept our apologies and be assured that we’re trying everything we can to get a fully-funtional version up again.

Thanks for your patience and ongoing support.
Marcus

PS: For up-to-date news and infos, please follow us on Twitter. It’s the first place where we’ll announce updates.

Our series of Screencasts on Ulysses is now also available in French and German. Head over to theScreencasts page to watch them in their full beauty.
In addition, we also uploaded 720p versions to our Youtube channel (French, German).

Enjoy!
Götz

English versions are online *now*, with German and French to follow during the next few weeks. Recordings for these are already done, but we still need to localize the slides and such, so bear with us if you’re a native speaker… (we hand picked nice voices for you, too)

Now… originally I had planned to do a serious rant against anonymous forum commenters and the like, who attacked us for having a German accent in our old videos. But there are more important things to write about, and these folks are not worth spending time on anyway.

Just one thing, though: We ship with a dozen or so FULL localizations of Ulysses. We’ll be adding Japanese to the mix with 2.1, along with one or two more languages that I can’t even remember. We’re trying to make sure that native speakers have a fully integrated experience with Ulysses on their system, because we believe that a truly “distraction free writing environment” is impossible to achieve with a language barrier in place.

And these guys bitch about some accent in an explanatory video.

Ts, the internets.

PS: 720p Youtube versions available also.

Italy showed some serious Ulysses love this weekend, even pushing Apple’s iWork suite off the top spot in the Productivity charts. Yay!

We’ve reset Ulysses’ price on the Mac App Store to $29.99, so AppDate is officially over now. We’re glad so many people took the chance to grab our little app this weekend, be it old users, new customers or just deal hunters.

In turn, Ulysses managed to grab top-10 spots all over the world, which is even more remarkable given the fact that we had close to zero press coverage… for whatever reason. Twitter proved to be a great source for mouth-to-mouth recommendation, so thanks everybody who retweeted and spread the word.

We now hope everybody has a version they feel comfortable with, so that we can focus on more important things than App Store yes/no/why/etc.; from now on, we’ll just assume the switch complete and move on. :)

There’s lots of upcoming news — Ulysses 2.1, Daedalus, HouseParty, Kids’Player+ –, so wheather you’ve been following us for the past couple of years or only just arrived at our playground: Hi there! These are exiting times.

Have fun!

In *this* post, I’ll go a bit more in-depth on some of our decisions.

1) App Store Exclusive? Really?
Yeah. We thought long and hard about this, and decided to commit ourselves fully to the App Store. There are some rough edges here and there, but we see this move as highly beneficial for both us and our users.

For one, we can close our own shop and cut all connections with third-party payment services. Everything will be handled in one place, so there’s a whole lot less to worry about, a lot less maintenance.

We won’t need to worry about distribution, installing, licensing, copy protection anymore. We can now send users to the App Store, and it’s all handled from there, so there’re less chances of messing things up on our side, and less hassle on the user’s side.

The App Store review process, painful and slow as it may be, actually injects another layer of quality management to our already rather high standard. It’s not that we won’t beta-test anymore, but it’s nice to have an independent entity (*g*) double-check for us.

In the future (long-term, really) we can fully focus on one version — the App Store version. We have not announced nor are we planning to release it anytime soon, but IF Ulysses 3.0 sees the light of day, we won’t keep two seperate builds alive. This mostly concerns update- and licensing-systems, but still.

Also, we can’t shake the feeling that the App Store will be the only way to distribute apps on Mac OS X in the long run. This has been on the horizon for some time, and whether you or we like it or not, it’s going to happen. So we might as well jump on the bandwaggon early, roll with it, and gain experience in the process.

2) Pricing aka IS THIS A PROMO OR WHAT?!?!
You may have noticed that we have opted for a rather moderate price for Ulysses on the Mac App Store. It’s $29.99, in case you did *not* notice, he.

That’s more or less what we charged for updates in the past. And it’s permanent. This is *not* promo-pricing or “first-day app store hurrah” — it’s permanent. It’s Ulysses’ new price point, and we think it’s a steal.

The reasoning for this move is simple: There are no upgrade paths on the App Store or *to* the App Store. Current users of 1.x (or Core/Edu) who would like to upgrade to 2.0 should still be able to do so without paying a “full version” price. More importantly, though: New versions will either have to be free updates or completely new, stand-alone apps. Again, we’re not announcing 3.0 here, but IF and WHEN we’ll release a full version jump in the future, you’re going to just buy that new app. And you’ll pay again.

It’s just like what Apple did all along with iLife/iWork, and just like they’re doing now with Aperture, iPhoto etc. on the App Store. The idea being that every version’s price is an upgrade-price — with 1.0 being an upgrade from nothing at all, so to say. Initial pricing for new apps is a thing of the past now, 20th century, as are upgrade paths and cross-grade promotions.

It’s all good, because it’s clear, simple, and much more consistent than any current system.

On a side-note: The App Store’s tier system makes away with currency exchange rates, which for us is a big plus. Prices in each country/currency will stay persistent now, which is in stark contrast to our ever-changing dollar-prices of the past.

3) For something that hasn’t been announced yet, you’re mentioning Ulysses 3.0 a lot.
He. It will happen one day, we all know that.

4) How will your move to the App Store influence Ulysses’ development? E.g., will you start releasing point updates every two weeks now?
Nah, but the App Store does have an effect, no doubt. We’ve already rerstructured our development process to some degree, in that we’ve begun to work in tighter segments and do more planning ahead, road-mapping. And we’re taking dedicated breaks to work on other projects. And I think we might very well go for a true dev-cycle-system in the near future, releasing full versions every 18 months or so, and focusing solely on bug-fixing in-between. But we’re not there yet. ;)

5) Will your other projects (Daedalus, HouseParty etc.) set back Ulysses’ development?
Depends on one’s point of view. We don’t think our other projects set back Ulysses, because of the aforementioned tighter development segments or phases. We prepared Ulysses for the App Store in four weeks (or so), because we had just begun kicking Daedalus development into high gear. I believe that without Daedalus on our backs, we would’ve taken twice the time — not just due to less pressure, but due to us trying to integrate additional features or such, making the App Store launch “big”, “worthy”, whatever.

So in terms of time spent on Ulysses — yeah, we spend less time on Ulysses. But the time is better spent now, as we’re much more focussed.

6) How will your move to the App Store effect previously purchased versions of Ulysses? Think updates…
The auto-update server will continue to serve updates for as long as 2.x is in development. These updates will coincide with updates served through the App Store, so both versions should always be in sync. Once we are no longer selling 2.x, updates will cease, as did updates for 1.x in the past. There’s nothing to worry about, really, we won’t forget nor abandon our current user-base.

7) How will your move to the App Store effect 1.x versions of Ulysses? Think registration system…
Right now, nothing has changed. We’re still running the registration server, as we are running the auto-update server. At some point in the future, we will offer a free patch to users of Ulysses 1.x to remove the registration check. It’s not high priority, so don’t expect this to happen very soon, but it will happen eventually.

8) Misc.
Stapler is freeware for the time being; partly due to our closure of the shop. We want to extend a very warm “thank you” to everybody who paid the old shareware fee. We’ve not yet decided if we bring Stapler to the Mac App Store.

And that’s it for now.
Any more questions, feel free to ask.