Now that some of the fuss around the launch of the Mac App Store (MAS) has died down, I thought it would be a good time to explain what my plans are for the future of Base.

 

Features and pricing: The current version of Base is being submitted to the MAS. It will have the same features and the same price (actually one penny different - £9.99 / US$16.99 / €13.63). I hope it will be available when the Store opens, but we don't yet know when that is.

 

Trial/demo versions: The MAS probably won't allow for trial versions, so if you want to try out Base, you'll need to download it from this website. Also, the MAS version of Base will drop support for Leopard systems. This won't be a problem as the Store won't be available for Leopard anyway. Base will run fine on Leopard if bought directly from this website.

 

Minor updates: For any future 1.x updates to Base, I will make certain that both the current and the App Store versions keep feature and price parity. This far it should not matter to you which source you buy from.

 

The future of Base I am still working of v2.0 of Base. It's happening slowly but surely. I'd rather not give too much information now, as I don't want to promise something that can't be delivered. Particularly when it comes to release dates.

Something that I can announce is that Base 2.0 will only support Snow Leopard (and hence only Intel) systems. There are very few people using Base on 32-bit systems, so Base may go 64-bit only.

Pricing, upgrade pricing and whether or not it’ll go on the MAS all depend on how things turn out over the coming months. We’ll just have to wait and see.

 

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Quick edit: If you've got anything to say or ask about any of the above, send an email. Details are on the contact page.