2011 has been a great year for the team and the product. We’ve released DaisyDisk 2.0, a rewritten and redesigned version of the app, featuring tons of improvements and some unique features. We’ve rolled out 4 updates that made the app look even better, work faster and speak with our customers in their native language.
No wonder DaisyDisk 2 is featured in the Best of Mac App Store 2011 category of the Mac App Store and is a runner up in TUAW Best of 2011, the best Mac utility app vote. Not to mention lots of positive reviews and, most importantly, our users’ satisfaction.
Right now DaisyDisk sells with 50% discount and the good news is that we’re leaving it that way. That’s right: a fantastic, state of the art tool for less than $10. That includes free customer support and nonrestrictive licensing policy.
What’s next? We have a long, long list of possible improvements, features and just crazy ideas, so the development is not going to stall. We’re not fans of abandonware :) At the same time, we’ll try to move on with one on our next projects that have been frozen throughout the year.
Standalone version is available for immediate download and the app store one has just been submitted to Apple for approval.
DaisyDisk 2.1 features two localizations (folks from Germany and Russia, rejoice) and greatly improved support for OS X Lion. Sooth to say even previous versions of DaisyDisk have been “Lion ready”, but even minor glitches are annoying, so we’re getting rid of them. As well as trying to take advantage of new technologies :)
Starting from version 2.1 DaisyDisk is no longer Leopard compatible, you’ll need to use version 2.0.7.1 (available on our support page) if you still rely on PPC/Leopard.
What’s new in 2.1
OS X Lion:
Fullscreen mode
Window state resume
Volumes encrypted with FileVault 2 are clearly marked as such, support parallel scan
Other changes and improvements:
Disk usage gauge and sidebar scale up according to the window’s size
Removed main window’s bottom bar: less vertical screen space, looks better on Lion
New navigation for returning to the list of disks and folders
Updated all buttons and controls with more polished graphics
Fixed some minor graphic glitches on OS X Lion
Updated third-party frameworks to the most recent versions
Help file updated to reflect most recent changes
Localization program is back: DaisyDisk now speaks Russian and German, more languages to come soon
Hidden disk space detector (stand-alone version only), a nice complement to “scan as administrator”
Brand new logic for scanning multiple volumes simultaneously (reduces hardware load, increases scan speed)
Volumes of the same disk are now visually grouped together
Improved disk/volume descriptions
Eject volumes, not disks
Fixed UI lag on directories with tens of thousand files
3-finger swipe up/down gesture for switching between disks/map
For terabyte disks, free and used space is displayed in GB
Updated list of locations that cannot be deleted
Updated help file
Lots of smaller tweaks and fixes
Not bad for a minor release :)
The App Store version has been submitted to Apple for approval and should be available… well, when Apple decides to approve it :)
For those curious: yes, DaisyDisk 2.0.7 works on Lion, but once 10.7 goes final, we’ll make an update to ensure full compatibility.
What’s next?
First of all, we’re re-opening the localization program, so if you want to see DaisyDisk on your own language and wish to contribute — drop us a line.
The next minor release would be dedicated to Lion compatibility. We’re also thinking about dropping support for PPC/10.5 in favor of providing better experience for Lion (and Snow Leopard) users.
Features don’t matter, experience does. Who cares if the app promises to do everything but doesn’t do a single thing right?
Being the best is not enough
It’s not enough to make the best app of its kind, one must try to build a perfect app (even though it’s impossible).
Design first
Make great design, then implement it in code, not the opposite. While thinking in code it’s easy to lose the scope and roll down to inferior solutions.
Don’t do anything you can’t do right
Ok, you have a great feature scheduled, but the final implementation is less than great. Postponing or even discarding the thing is likely the best idea.
Follow patterns, don’t imitate
Learn from others, try to understand why they’re doing things that way and only then lend the best patterns and integrate them into your app. Take a look at Zune or today’s iPad “competitors”, they’re pitiful, don’t repeat their creators’ mistakes.
Affordable premium
Merely working tools for just 39.95 are so Windows… Try to make premium quality software affordable.
Take advantages of your size
When you’re small, don’t pretend being big. Be fast, be flexible.
Iterate
You’ve made a great thing! You haven’t. Just throw it away and start it anew. Think. Add, remove, change, polish, repeat the process many times. Now compare your result with the original which doesn’t look any good at all…
Be honest
You’ve messed up something? How unexpected… Now go and tell this. Your customers may forgive you, but don’t expect them to forget.
Beautiful and useful
Don’t make anything unless it’s beautiful or useful. Try to stick with solutions that are elegant and needful.
First of all, we’re pleased to announce the upcoming update to DaisyDisk, version 2.0.7.
The first feature you’ll likely notice is favorite folders. Mark a folder as favorite and it will remain pinned to your list of sources forever. Not a big deal for occasional scans, but a real time saver for control freaks.
Scanning multiple volumes is now faster than ever thanks to the recent engine changes: DaisyDisk successively scans multiple volumes of the same hard drive, so the hardware load gets reduced and scan speed increases. This thing works automatically, you don’t even need to be aware of it.
The third interesting feature is related to the stand-alone version of DaisyDisk. Now, after the scan is complete, the application tells you if there’re significant amounts of disk space hidden in restricted folders i.e. taken by files and folders you are not normally allowed to access.
And finally, we’ve made a few tweaks and optimizations to DaisyDisk’s engine, so it handles folders with huge (no, huge) numbers of files without any hickups.
We hope to roll out this version in a week or two once we finish polishing all the stuff.
What’s next? There’re a few interesting things we have in a pipeline: I don’t want to reveal all the details right now, but we’ll keep you informed :)
One more thing. Starting from today we’ll try a more aggressive and flexible price model, so you should be able to get a premium quality product with a significant discount. We’re also considering separating Mac App Store and stand-alone versions of DaisyDisk by making certain (advanced) features only available in a stand-alone edition.
We love open source. DaisyDisk uses some popular open components that saved us hours of work. So, in order to give back something useful to the Mac dev community we’re making the code of our feedback component freely available.
We’re introducing DFeedback!
A small FAQ:
What license does it use?
We have chosen MIT License. It’s simple, it’s fair and it’s free of all the GPL’s bullshit.
Why not just use JRFeedbackProvider?
We used JRFeedbackProvider in the very first versions of DaisyDisk, but later replaced it with a custom component. While both look similar on screenshots, DFeedback has the following advantages:
polished look and feel
visual feedback for missing e-mail address when “reply to” is checked
optional system info (collected in the background, can be previewed by users)
Are there any downsides?
We haven’t build DFeedback as an all-purpose ultra-flexible component. It’s designed with DaisyDisk in mind, but you’re free to modify it to fit your special needs.
We are giving away 3 promo codes to DaisyDisk. Nah… Boring…
We are giving away 5 $10 iTunes cards… so you can download some annoying tunes…
Seen this stuff a million times, no cool. Let’s try something different.
This week we are celebrating the successful start of DaisyDisk 2 by giving away 12 greatgreat books. Most of these have already become live classics and well worth reading by just any person interested in design, data visualization and building software. Almost $500 for us — priceless knowledge for you.
Designing Interactions by Bill Moggridge, one the most inspiring books we’ve ever read. Great stories behind cult products like Mac, computer mouse or PalmPilot.
Rework and Getting Real by 37signals, an icy shower for startupers and beginning software developers. Two of the few books about business that won’t make you asleep.
Any of these books can be yours, no matter if you are in New York, Munich or Moscow. Refer to this article on MacStories for details.
Why are we doing this? We’re surely promoting our software, DaisyDisk, but that’s not all.
We believe we can make the world a better place by sharing books we’ve learned a lot from. So, if you happen to win one, improve your design skills and contribute back by creating a great website or application, that would be the best investment for us. Spending the same resources on buying ADs is merely useful for anyone ;)
Now these points of data make a beautiful line. And we’re out of beta, we’re releasing on time… …almost.
(XXI century, author unknown)
We’ve done it. After being in development for more than a year, DaisyDisk 2 is finally released and is available for everyone.
Version 2 is a major improvement over DaisyDisk 1 which many of you know and love: all main parts of the application have been re-written, refactored and improved:
In-app file deletion (yes, finally…)
Brand new look, the UI is rewritten on Core Animation
Ability to scan multiple disks simultaneously
Scan results are remembered while the application is running, can be “forgotten” to free memory
More informative disk descriptions, icon overlay for read-only volumes and folders
Redesigned Disk usage gauge
New scan progress indicator for the Dock icon
Scanned folders are added to the list of sources
New logic for scanning as Administrator (was Super-User): now you can only scan local volumes and folders
FileVault support
Support for multi-touch gestures (refer to the user guide for the complete list)
New error handling logic (yep, built-in dialogs suck)
New registration system (DaisyDisk 1.x keys will not unlock 2.x)
Redesigned About, Feedback, Crash Reporter windows
Twitter integration (quite useless, but fun :)
Major under the hood changes and tons of tweaks you’ll unlikely ever need to know about :)
Localization is temporarily dropped (we’re not accepting localizations for some time, sorry…)
Not bad, huh…
DaisyDisk 2 is available in two versions: stand-alone (classic shareware) and Mac App Store. You can read more about them in this document.
Our upgrade policy remains unchanged: free upgrade if you purchased a license before October, 15 2009 or after September 1, 2010. $9.95 otherwise.
Ok, but how do you know if your license can be upgrade freely or not? The easiest way to do so is ask DaisyDisk itself. Just download and run the application and it will guide you through the rest of the process.
Now a small FAQ:
DaisyDisk 1.5.3 is the final version of DaisyDisk 1.x; we still provide support for it, but don’t expect future updates.
DaisyDisk 2.x will continue to evolve, we plan some very promising improvements. And no, it won’t make coffee.
We do not offer refunds or redeem codes for users willing to migrate to the Mac App Store for free.
In the future “stand-alone” versions of DaisyDisk may have extra features, not available in the App Store as Apple’s review policy prevents us from adding certain functionality.
The final release of DaisyDisk 2 “stand-alone” is not unlocked with DaisyDisk 1.x keys, they must be upgraded online. Contact support if you have any upgrade-related issues.
So, what’s next? First of all, we’d liked to take a small break and finish some stuff.
We’ll also start working on a side project (no details right now, sorry…) along with preparing DaisyDisk 2 updates. There’re lots of things we have to do, especially with an emergence of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion which plans to be a very interesting OS.
DaisyDisk 2 debuts in Mac App Store and is available for purchase right now (direct link).
Now a small FAQ:
When the “stand-alone” version of DaisyDisk 2 becomes available?
We hope to finish everything in a few weeks. There’s still some work to be done.
I own a license for DaisyDisk 1, but it is not shown in the Mac App Store, why?
The Mac App Store has its own mechanism of registration and updates for apps, so it does not recognize the previously bought DaisyDisk licenses. The only way to make DaisyDisk managed by the App Store is to buy it again via the App Store.
Note: DaisyDisk may appear “Installed” in the Mac App Store, but the app will still not be managed by the App Store (updates, sharing the license across your Macs) unless the app was bought via the Mac App Store.
I own a license for DaisyDisk 1, how can I get the discounted upgrade?
The discounted upgrade will be available only as a stand-alone app and not as a Mac App Store app. You’ll be able to upgrade to DaisyDisk 2 once it’s available on our site. The upgrade policy remains the same: $9,95 unless your license key was issued before October 15, 2009 or after September 1, 2010. Otherwise free of charge.
Can I upgrade from a license for DaisyDisk 1 to version 2 for the Mac App Store?
The only way to do it is to buy the app via the Mac App Store at the full price. You cannot get a discounted upgrade from your DaisyDisk 1 to Mac App Store version 2, it’s technically impossible.
What’s the difference between the MAS and “stand-alone” versions?
The App Store version does not support scanning as administrator: the feature was removed to comply with Apple’s app submission policy. The MAS version does not support OS X 10.5 (no luck for PPC users) and update/registration mechanisms are changed to ones provided by Apple. Future versions may differ even more, a lot depends on Apple.
If I buy the App Store version of DaisyDisk right now, will I be able to exchange it for the “stand-alone” version later?
Very likely. We can probably just create a new stand-alone license for you. Note that the reverse exchange is not technically possible.
