One daisy, two daisies…
As some of you already know, we’re working at full speed on the second generation of DaisyDisk, codenamed DaisyDisk 2.
A year ago it looked quite simple: we tack on in-app file deletion, make a few extra tweaks and roll out an update in a few months… But during these “few months” it has become clear that what we were doing was not a “yet another update”, it was really different in both look and feel, not to mention the huge (no, HUGE) code changes that followed and took us another “few months”.
When we released DaisyDisk last year, many people called it “cool” and “sexy”, and it was named one of the best-looking Mac apps. Now let me assure you, as the designer of DaisyDisk from its very birth, that the second version of the application is not simply cool, it’s absolutely fantastic.
Don’t believe me? Just take a look:
The new UI has been rebuilt from scratch in Core Animation. This not only allowed us to make it more appealing and smooth, but also add some features hardly possible before, and I am really glad that we managed to do this without sacrificing the ease of use.
So, what should you expect?
First of all, we’ve added the in-app file deletion that so many of you asked for (were even a little faster with it than Apple with their Copy & Paste support on iOS). You will now be able to drag petals out of the sunburst map and drop them onto a special zone, from where you will be able to delete a bunch of files and folders with a single click. Sounds easy, but this drag-and-drop interaction has taken us a lot of work.
Another thing many of you wanted is the ability to view the previously scanned disks without having to rescan them. No problems. In DaisyDisk 2, you can switch back and forth between disks and the scan results will remain in memory until you close the application. Furthermore, now you can scan multiple disks or folders at the same time in background, without having to wait extra time. This will of course require more memory, but with most modern Macs having 2 to 4 GB of RAM it’s not a big deal. Besides, you can tell the application to “forget” the scan results of any disk and thereby free the memory.
There are also lots of less notable improvements which affect DaisyDisk 2 look and feel. Just be patient and wait a bit…
If things go well DaisyDisk 2 will be available this fall. You won’t miss the release date: even if you’re not subscribed to our Twitter, your DaisyDisk 1.x will notify you about the upgrade.
DaisyDisk 2 is a paid upgrade for the majority of existing users. The price tag of the upgrade from 1.x to 2. will be $9.95.
As a sign of special gratitude to our early buyers, everyone who got their keys before October 15, 2009 will get DaisyDisk 2 license free of charge.
Everyone who buys a DaisyDisk license starting from today, September 1, 2010 will be able to upgrade to DaisyDisk 2 for free.
Stay tuned!