TrufSoft

Finally we have release the first beta version of HotApp in Universal Binary.
You can download it from the HotApp web page. This is a 2.4MB download, not so bad considering that the previous version for PPC only was 2.0MB.

We are releasing this version as a Beta version. We would like to get feedback on this version. We did not see any major issues with this version, but we would like to get some testing done before releasing it as 1.9.2 or 1.9.3.

Steve

We will be releasing soon HotApp in Universal binary. Before proceeding to a public release, we would like to have some beta tester.
If you would like to test HotApp on your Intel machine (iMac or MacBook Pro - but those are not available yet), then please contact us by email : info at trufsoft.com.

We’ve been quiet for a while… working on various projects for customers, and investigating various cool utilities.
Sometimes soon we should be releasing the first build of Calillona and HotApp for Intel processor. So if you are one developer with the intel version of OS X, let us know. We will be giving a couple licenses for HotApp if you can provide some feedback on the application behavior on this architecture.

We received some emails asking us if we’re planning to release our applications as Universal Binary.
The answer to this question is : of course !

We don’t have right now a time line on when, but yes be assured that all software / shareware / freeware we’re doing will be available as universal binary.
Since our applications are mostly based on Cocoa, it will be a matter of hours to get them available for the Intel platform.

Steve

Impressive ! What an announcement today !

So yes the rumors were true, and Apple is moving to the Intel processor family. Overall we think it’s the right move, and should bring Apple back in the front line. It will be interesting to compare in the future the same application running on similar hardware (like Photoshop). We will be able to see then which Operating System is really better.
Of course TrufSoft will continue developing on OS 10, and so expect to see our freeware, shareware available on the new Mac/Intel platform. In our case since we are mostly using Cocoa API, the problem will be as simple as recompiling our code with the checkbox for Intel… Back in the NextStep’s days, compiling for multiple architecture was as simple as checking the appropriate checkbox. And so since OS 10 is an evolution (massive) from that operating system, we are confident that it will be as easy !

We are going to see Apple in a quite interesting transition. And for the question : what about buying a Mac PPC now ? We think that if you really need a Mac now, then you should get one. Why wait ? A year is quite long and so if you have the need, then go for it !

S.

It seems that the coming WWDC will be quite interesting.
Even big name in the news industry are throwing their bet on what will be announced… Our comments on all that : just wait and see. The conference will open in a couple hours, so wait & see is probably the best thing to do.

There are various sessions that seems really interesting : from Core Data technologies, to Bonjour (aka rendezvous), to the final afternoon with the Shark (CHUD) performance tools. Last year the performance tools from the CHUD package was quite impressive. It will be probably as good if not better this year.

We just updated our newest version of HotApp to 1.9.1.
This new version fix a few issues that we discover with the support of Tiger. The main one was the lost of compatibility with 10.2.x. The reason was due to the default compiler shipped on Tiger.
Compiling on Tiger used by default GCC 4.0. And GCC 4.0 automatically linked the new executable with a library : libmx. This library does not exists on 10.2.x and so our binary was not working on this platform. The fix was easy, by changing the default compiler to GCC 3.3 and rebuild the application. We had a few beta testers on 10.2.8 and everything seems better now !
We have fixed a few other issues, and added 2 new systems actions. Visit HotApp page for more details.

Finally HotApp is available !!

This new version was officially build and tested on Mac OS 10.4, and ready to be used on the new OS. Of course HotApp continue to work on Panther, and probably even on Jaguar (but we have to admit that we do not test any more on 10.2).
This new version introduces a few new features that will be welcome by our users :

• added an option to automatically hide the dock when activating an application
• improved keyboard simulation for volume up/down
• backup or restore your settings to a file, or on your .Mac iDisk
• we have changed a few bits internally in the app, to make it ‘better’ … Hopefully those changes are minor and things will continue to work smoothly after the upgrade.

Feel free to upgrade to 1.9 even if you are running on Panther. Just the backup of your settings is worst the upgrade we believe.

Of course send us your feedback and suggestion for the next release !

- Steve

We are almost ready to release HotApp for Tiger. In fact the code is ready for a couple days now, but we want to be sure that everything is working as expected.
So if you like to try our new version 1.9, please contact us by email : info AT trufsoft dot com. We will send you the direct link to download HotApp 1.9.

Version 1.9 add a few new features, and of course is the one that is fully compatible with Tiger ! Not that 1.8.3 was not compatible. But 1.8.3 had one known bug with Tiger : the screen saver system action was not working as expected. 1.9 fix the problem and add new features. So this is the one officially supporting Tiger.

Tiger by the way is pretty cool, and if you did not upgrade to it, you should definetely consider doing so!

We start receiving many emails recently asking if HotApp work with Tiger or if there are any known incompatibilities.

The answer : HotApp work almost without problem on Tiger. The only known issue is starting the screen saver from a HotKey. So we are planning to release a new version of HotApp the following week after Triger is made available. We’re working on a new version that will add a few new extra features !