9. A Complete Set

A complete set of Eric Wenger’s core applications (MetaSynth, Xx, Designer, and Voyager) have been recreated for Apple’s AppKit application platform and released, and U&I Software 2.0 is fully implemented. This represents over 3 years of more than full-time work. Plus a couple of years of prep to create a new AppKit application framework in Cocoa code. This should ensure the programs can be enjoyed on Macintosh computers for years to come.

While these major milestones are complete, many loose ends remain – some small, some of unknown size: 1. Completing the rollout of Xx and updating its manual. 2. Rolling any minor updates that were implemented in Xx into the other programs. 3. Working with Apple to address remaining issues with their MIDI services (stuck notes) and xCode (the Apple program that turns programmer code into a final application) – we lost weeks of MetaSynth testing/work to what turned out to be a compiler bug, and are blocked from the Apple Store, Double Click installers, porting to RISC (Apple Silicon) processors, etc due to a change in xCode’s compiler which slows our application performance by 500%. This is why we have stuck with xCode8. Even with its limitations, it is reliable and applications have a 15%-25% performance increase on an M1 Mac. We’ll take that, vs. a slowdown!

Had to pinch myself this morning and say, this is all real. I’m sure Eric will feel the same soon, he is still in the “fog of war” until the above is resolved I imagine. The good news is we now have contacts at Apple who have agreed to help us get beyond these barriers and ensure we can move forward. Speaking of the future, thank you to everyone who completed the online surveys. This helps us prioritize our next steps. For example, we have had commitments to fund 1/5th of the cost to port MetaSynth to Windows which looks promising. If we make that the #1 priority, it could help all the other goals become a reality, and free up Eric to do hi-res UIs, recreate things like vQuartz (Photo and Video Editor for ArtMatic) and hey maybe even recreate Videodelic – one can dream.

Thank you all for your support during what has been a very long, and touch n’ go at times, tough process in getting here. U&I is not just a software company. It is a community of folks who love the programs and are willing to volunteer many hours to engage in improving them and sharing with the world what can be done with them. Here is to the future!