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Friday, May 30, 2008

The oldest vaporware in the Macintosh world?

The PC world has Duke Nukem, but at least they’re not taking money for something that’s never coming. Strider Software’s TypeStyler is taking orders and never delivering…

You know TypeStyler, right? If you read MacSurfer, it’s one of the first ads you see:

It didn’t work under 10.3 (ahh, those were the days) but it was under development and coming soon, and their email implored us to just buy it and run it in Classic OS 9 mode and when the new version would be ready, we’d be the first to know.

Now - that was then. We’ve broken up over 3 years ago and still I see the ad, unchanged, imploring gullible Mac newbies to invest in TypeStyler and wait for the never-coming OS X version. I’ve written recently asking where it is… “coming soon” is the reply, a virtual carbon copy of a mail I received 3 years ago.

Do they realize you can’t run it any longer since there’s no Classic OS 9 mode in OS 10.5? It’s been nearly a two years with Intel Macs and a year from 10.5’s launch… I’m sure they do, being developers and all, but when you check their website for information on compatibility:

“TypeStyler X is feature complete and we continue to do internal beta testing in Tiger for both the PowerPC and the new Intel Macs making sure all the pieces integrated so it won’t be much longer before our beta testers start seeing something”

...

“TypeStyler for Mac OS X is not just a port of TypeStyler 3 to OS X but an updated OS X application that takes advantage of the latest Mac OS X (for both PowerPC and Intel) operating systems. Until the TypeStyler for OS X is released most users have found the current TypeStyler 3.7.2 (one known issue) runs fine under the Classic environment of OS X of all past and currently shipping PowerPC Macs. The new Intel Macs do not support Classic.”

Ah, Tiger. That was fun too - many years ago. And small note to all PowerPC 10.5 users - don’t bother buying it, because we’re no longer using Classic either.

What galls me is that MacSurfer still allows the ad to run! How many people will waste their money, waiting for a working application that will—to all visible signs—never, ever come? If you were running an ad for a vaporware application that is, in effect, a bait-and-switch gimmick. And last I saw in the US, bait-and-switch was illegal.

There needs to be some pressure on MacSurfer to remove ads that are inherently fraudulent and deceitful. After 4+ years of waiting for an OS X app that’s “coming soon”, I think Strider Software is perhaps the most unreliable, vaporous and possibly dishonest software developer out there on the Mac.

Beware.

(I’ve posted a follow-up to this, but without any further response from the developer)