The Forgotten Delicious

There's been a lot of talk about the so-called "Delicious Generation." The essence of the criticism boils down to two main issues: First, some (including myself) believe that these applications are not only pretty for the sake of pretty, but they also sacrifice functionality in the pursuit of form. Second, and an issue that has become more evident in recent months, the developers of many of these Delicious apps seem to follow a fairly consistent pattern of huge amounts of pre-release hype, 1.0 release with lots of fanfare (and sales), followed by not a whole lot else. The first issue has gotten a lot of press and is a pretty polarizing issue -- any further analysis on my part would be wasted effort. Rather, I'm going to examine the apparent lack of follow-through that seems to plague the Delicious Generation.

The History of the World (Parts 1, 2, and 3)

In January 2006, AppZapper was released. At first, it saw a fair deal of updates (and, I assume, money), and the author's blog stayed moderately active. However, after August, 2006, when the buildup to Disco began, the blog received no updates, and AppZapper itself received only minor bugfixes (yes, I'm aware that 2.0 is underway, but that doesn't change the fact that it's been a year and a half with no major progress or updates).

That's fine, right? After all, we're only talking about a few guys! I mean, if Apple can pull a huge segment of its developers off of Leopard for the iPhone, isn't it only fair to cut the indies the same slack? For a time, yes. The point of contention arose when, after Disco was released in February 2007 (again, I assume with sales galore) and the dust settled, AppZapper stayed stagnant. When managing multiple projects in any field, not just software development, one of the key things to focus on is not letting any one project wither and die.

But AppZapper's stagnation isn't a huge problem on its own -- after all, it does what it advertises. What more would they add? The problem, however, starts to become apparent when you look at the Disco blog: It hasn't received an update since March 6, 2007 -- less than a month after version 1.0 was released. What could have happened?

My Dream App happened. Although the winners were announced in October, 2006, it seems fairly certain that development didn't get fully geared-up for a couple months, which would explain the sudden abandonment of Disco right around March. Umm... I guess that's okay then, right? I mean, of course Phil Ryu and company would want the developers to devote the time to get these apps pushed out right away, right?

The last update on the MDA apps was in July, 2007.

What in the world happened? Oh, they must all be hard at work on ResExcellence (last updated January, 2007).

Look Who's Coding!

The big question is: Why? Why do the guys behind this stuff continually put on a big, glitzy show and then disappear? Why not just focus on a single project and come out with a damn stellar product (like Delicious Monster, ironically the namesake of the Delicious Generation, wisely does)? Well, in my opinion, age.

The two most prominent members of the Delicious Generation are Phil Ryu, organizer extraordinaire, and Austin Sarner, the developer of AppZapper, Disco, and Cookbook. They're both 19 (Note: Austin's age was pretty hard to track down on the web. If this is incorrect, please let me know). Now, I've got nothing against 19-year-old developers. Hell, I'm one of them. But I do know all-too-well the demon that's plagued me for years: Application-ADD.

Over the last 9 years, I've started more projects than I can count. I'd build them up to marginally-complex levels, and then......

(That's me getting distracted)

Whether it's a new language, a new OS, or a new set of APIs, there's a constant bombardment of new and exciting things to try out as a programmer. This is a problem for coders of all ages, but it's especially vexing for us younger ones. Not only are we easily-distracted thanks to the quality upbringing given to us by MTV, but we really, really like shiny new stuff.

So I think I understand why Sarner, Ryu, and a lot of the other members of the Delicious Generation seem to lack that follow-through that is oh-so-important in the business world. New stuff, whether it be a new idea for an application or a new set of APIs (in this case, likely Core Animation), is just so much more fun to work on than the old, been-sitting-on-my-hard-drive-gathering-dust stuff that they really should be working on.

Basically (and ironically), these guys actually have more follow-through than their peers, but just not quite enough to maintain a steady business.

The Kicker

But see, here's the problem, and the thing that differentiates their situation from mine: They have customers. People have paid money for their stuff. When you have paying customers you lose the option to just ignore your stuff. And in the same vein, when you have thousands of people waiting on your work, you have a duty to be straight with them. My Dream App has been plagued by cases of "A big update is coming really soon," followed by a few months of silence. That's not alright.

Now, I'm certainly not saying these guys are Bad People. Nor am I saying that they're in any way bad at what they do. Quite the contrary! Sarner is, from what I can tell, a fantastic, enthusiastic programmer. And Ryu shows a level of entrepreneurship that's incredibly rare among our age group.

What I am saying is that the Mac community is much different from the Windows community. Mac users desire interaction, even communication with the developers of their apps. And if the Delicious Generation doesn't start taking notice of the community's desire, they may find themselves discarded or forgotten.

You know, like AppZapper, Disco, Versions, Menuet, and so many more...