MacJournal

MacJournal is a handy little journal application for the Mac, written by Dan Schimpf who seems to be a very nice guy. For the past three years, it has been freeware, and received numerous awards for being a great program. MacJournal's simple blue icon has been a fixture on my dock (and almost everybody else's Mac which I've setup) since I got my iBook (and now iMac). But unfortunately, it has now turned into shareware.

Now, I don't mind paying for MacJournal, from a range of $5-$15. However, it is now priced at a whopping $30. Now, I would think twice about it, but perhaps at the end of the day, I might just shell out the money, if it was actually going to Dan, since as I've said, he seems like a very nice guy. Unfortunately, MacJournal, is now being sold by a third party, Mariner Software. This I think basically killed MacJournal. There is now an overwhelming amount of negative feedback on VersionTracker on this.

I've been thinking about it for a while, since I do like paying for software that I do use, but for some reason, this just didn't work. I think selling out to a commercial developer with no rep to speak of is the problem. If Dan had teamed up with Panic for example, his users wouldn't rebel. The guys at Panic are cool and make great software. Mariner on the other hand is still trying to conquer Microsoft Word.... ick!

An example of how bad Mariner has been handling the situation on Dan's behalf is that they make no mention on their website that there is an upgrade path for current users. Their customer rep had to write an e-mail in VersionTracker of all places to explain this, and of course giving the app a defensive five stars in the process. It's just so cheesy.

I felt so bad that I had to write Dan an e-mail wishing him luck. MacJournal's three-year honeymoon with the Mac community has ended. How sad.