inessential by Brent Simmons

Guest post from Nick Bradbury: What Can I Learn from You?

Hi folks, this is Nick Bradbury, the author of FeedDemon for Windows. Now that Brent and I are co-workers, we thought it would be a great idea to guest post on each other's blog today as a way to introduce ourselves, and also to find out what we could learn from each other's customers.

Even though I develop for Windows (and have no plans to switch), last year I bought an iBook, motivated in large part by my desire to keep up with all the cool features Brent was adding to NetNewsWire. My previous experience with the Mac was back before the OS X days, and quite honestly I wasn't wild about it then - the lack of preemptive multi-tasking alone made me dislike it.

Well, as you can imagine, I was unexpectedly impressed with OS X. So much so that I had this to say about it:

"After working with OS X for a few hours, switching back to Windows is like partying with Charlize Theron then coming home to Kathy Bates. Sure, Kathy Bates is exceptionally talented, but sometimes a little glamour is exciting."

Following my brief experience with OS X, I decided I could learn a lot from Mac applications, many of which are more elegant and simpler to use than their Windows counterparts. And NetNewsWire is the one I've learned from the most - it packs an awful lot of power into a deceptively simple UI.

But I don't have much experience with Mac users, so I'm wondering what I can learn from you? If you use Windows as well as the Mac, what drives you nuts about Windows apps (or, if you were forced to use Windows, what would you miss the most)? And if you've used FeedDemon at all, what Mac-like features do you believe it would benefit from?

Thanks!

PS: Here's Brent's guest post in my blog.