There is some good stuff inside the latest Bundle at macheist.com
I just thought some might want to have a look…
I’ve become increasingly turned off by their horrific web page designs. This one takes rampant and useless AJAX usage to levels so extreme it almost feels like a parody. Really, I have to enable JavaScript, and then sit here and watch their page scroll around for eight seconds in order to read a one-paragraph summary on some application at the end of the list? What is the purpose in emulating film canister or a broken microfiche enlarger under these circumstances? The manner in which this page is coded is such that horizontal scrollbars do not even appear when necessary. There is simply no way to get at truncated right-hand content without expanding the browser to whatever width they felt was best.
Oops. Did I stir up something I shouldn’t have?
No. 
I’m just feeling grumpy today. It is a nice bundle.
You’re feeling grumpy. At least you didn’t watch the BSG finale yesterday. On your birthday. I’m grumpy. And feeling murderous. End of line (and all pretension to a plot etc etc).
And I’m allowed to go off-topic, by the way.
It isn’t called grumpiness it is called HANG OVER!
Hmm. Partly. It’s also called Ron-Moore-Couldn’t-even-be-bothered-to-try-itis.
Which kind of brings us back on topic to being off topic, from that of being slightly hung over, while touching on the off-topic topic of [size=120]horrible[/size] sci-fi endings—but sadly fails to address anything regarding Macintosh software bundles.
Rotated and glowing text. There’s got to be a bundle application that does that. They always have one of those!
And another one that can be set to wake up the cat at 3am so it can scratch on your door 
I guess we are all having one of those days…
Talking about BSG - Keith, do you know that this was probably the best finale ever? The entire episode’s storyline looked like somebody was really desperate to tie up any loose endings - any little, probably irrelevant story which needed some background, and, in doing so, missed the big one. Well, since it is the final episode, no more of BSG, they decided to make the parting easier on everybody. I, for one thing, have already started to forget about BSG and I really think this is because of the finale.
Looking on the bright side and so on, you know…
Almost forgot the one sentence not off topic: I do wait for boinxtv in the bundle to become available.
Now, a second one: try kinemac for rotating text 
Well, the really good news is that their web page design is very minimalist now…all it says is:
An error was encountered
Error: Unable to fetch user information.
Nice use of white space too.
Edited to add: Scratch that. It’s back. Do I really need a program called “World of Goo”?
I haven’t seen BSG. Should I?
Yes, to both questions. Now if everything in life would be that easy
I have to admit, I wouldn’t mind Espresso - but the other programs don’t “grab me”, mainly cause I don’t have the foggiest idea what they do.
I will take your advice on board though. Thanks!
I keep hearing that Macheist is controversial, and – despite quite a bit of reading and listening on the topic – I still don’t get why. Am I correct that all of the participants are consenting adults who were not mislead about their compensation? I can’t for the life of me figure out why anyone would complain about an optional marketing program. If a developer feels that Macheist is a rip off, she can choose not to participate, correct?
I’ve always seen Macheist as a particularly robust low-cost trial program. It allows me to pay a little bit of money for fully functioning versions of apps I had considered (and chosen not to purchase) at their full price – and sets me up for the inevitable paid upgrade, should I find a given app useful.
I bought the Macheist bundle to get the Acorn and WireTap Studio licenses – two well-regarded apps I’ve flirted with in the past. I am now fully in their fold, and – based on just a few days of playing with each – I imagine I’ll pony up for paid upgrades when the time comes.
Can someone please explain to me why this is bad for anyone involved?
I don’t know whether it is good or bad. I didn’t like how they originally portrayed themselves as “helping Mac developers” or something to that effect. It seemed to be big business, although not always for the developers. There were many conversations about it back then.
Then there’s the hype. There have been many over-hyped applications that were quite popular at MacHeist (e.g., Cha-Ching, Disco, even iClip). Now some of them seem to be abandonware.
There’s also the use of inflated prices. For example, The Hit List is $50, not $70. It’s also Beta.
There’s the way they market and push sales using the “Charity” approach. For example, instead of saying that an application will be unlocked once sales $1,600,000 they say once we raise $400,000 for charity. Very smart, btw.
This brings us back to the focus on helping “Mac developers.” How much money will they get? MacHeist is huge, and I doubt that they have many costs. A very intelligent business model.
I sometimes prefer to spend more directly with a developer than through MacHeist.
And then there’s the bundle. This is to just a MacHeist issue, but many bundles include mediocre applications.
I preferred by far the original GiveGoodFood2YourMac. Their second promo was good too, but the discounts were smaller. Still, they gave customers the ability to customize their bundle.
Having said this, I did buy the recent MacHeist bundle. I may use WireTap Studio, and 25% went to charity. I did not buy their previous bundles.
As you said, consenting adults enter into an agreement, or decide not to enter. Perhaps there’s just a different perception of fairness depending on how much MacHeist makes and how much the developers get. In just a couple of days sales are close to $1,000,000 USD…
Seems to me that it benefits the developers to be part of a Macheist bundle for the following two reasons:
- They get some money out of it. I don’t know how much, probably a flat fee or perhaps a percent of sales. I bought this bundle, but never would have bought any of these applications otherwise, so they got something out of me, and – who knows? – I may decide one or two of these apps are indispensible, and therefore I may pay to upgrade in the future.
- They get the name of their application before a huge audience. I had never heard of most of these apps… now I have.
As for over-hyping… what company isn’t guilty of that to some extent (with the exception of Keith, of course)?
I think that a significant difference is that Scrivener’s hype comes from knowledgeable users who keep on recommending the product. The product is great, the developer is responsive, the price is fair, etc.
With other applications such as the ones I mentioned, there’s “more sizzle than steak.” Often they’re beta quality, mediocre, but with a lot of marketing-hype behind them.
Remember Disco? It was going to eat Toast for breakfast, but all it provided was smoke It has not been updated in over a year.
And iClip? The last update came in 2006.
Some applications do not need constant updates, but these 2 were unusable for my needs.
With Cha-Ching it’s a similar story, although development has continued and version 2 “beta” is finally available.
I do like MacHeist since I get many freebies and a nice price if I decide to buy a bundle. I also like getting deals directly from developers, or through Macupdate, Maczot, GiveGoodFood2YourMac, etc.
GiveGoodFood2YourMac offered Merlin2, Freeway Pro, Contactizer Pro, Remote Buddy, Together, Pixelmator, Bee Docs Timeline, Aquafadas’ titles, Houdah titles, etc. Less hype, less sales (unfortunately), but I so far I’ve preferred their approach. The quality of the software is impressive, plus the promo is done by active developers.
Does anybody have any experience with Espresso?
It seems to be very similar in idea to “Coda”, which is a little pricey but something that has been recommended here on numerous occasions.
Does anyone know how these two compare?
With just six days remaining, I would be surprised if sales reach the point where Espresso can be unlocked. They are still $100,000 short of the goal to unlock BoinxTV, let alone getting to whatever level they need to to unock The Hit List and Espresso. Is the Macheist bundle typically this slow, or is this a case of the economy showing?
There are usually a number of people waiting for the final days to get a better idea of what they’ll get. The one that I did participate in had TextMate at the very top, and it didn’t look like it would be unlocked by a long shot but in the last few days everyone that had been holding out for TextMate jumped in and it was unlocked and the goal exceeded by a wide margin once that happened. But yes this year is different. Everyone is watching their finances more closely. It will depend upon whether Espresso and Hit List have the same sort of appeal that TextMate did.