A “Software Update”-alike software, called Renew, automatically fetches information on new versions for third party software you have installed on your Mac.
Renew 1.0 for Mac OS X Released
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Apple should purchase this and included it with the OS! They can charge developers or make it part of .MAC or somthing. Some developers might want to outsource their updates and patches this way.
Software out there, it only works on SOME versions of OSX.
This indicates serve compatability problems within OSX.
What do you mean by “compatibility problems”? The software in question “Requires Mac OS X 10.2 or higher”. Obviously the programmers chose to use functionality that was new to Mac OS X 10.2 and not present in 10.0 or 10.1.
This is no different than software that runs on Windows XP/2000/Me/98, but not Windows 3.1 or 95.
This used to be in OS 9. One of those features that got lost in the upgrade to OS X, it’ll be back.
RE: compatability problem…
Wait for Longhorn… (this is off topic)
> back to reality
This would be a great feature to add at an OS level. Thank b’jeezus that it ain’t like MS’s Explorer way of updating… The Mac OS team did a great job and I’m sure we’ll see future improvements where we can re-install or even roll back… I do like the fact that we need to use a password when installing software… some(M$)people could learn a few things…
Jb
well since all new software written is for 10.2 or higher, I would say that the API is pretty stable now and any person not using at least 10.2 is a masochist anyway so not having software would be fun for them.
Similar functionality is available in the VersionTracker Pro software. The key deal maker over VT Pro would be how many applications are tracked by it (which is the only real issue I have with VT Pro – otherwise it’s great software, and I hope that Renew will be also).
Ive never used the versiontracker software, and never will, because I hate their web page. I find it immpossible to use. It is really hard ( possible ? ) to get to the developers home page. For this reason I use macupdate, which is very friendly in terms of making the developers home page accessible, and quick download links.
My hope for renew is that its revenue model will be developer driven, rather than user driven. I can update my own apps for free ( its a bit of work ), so paying isnt very attractive.
Of course, I can see obvious feature requirements, a payment system for upgrading to new major versions for example.