Tuesday, 9th June 2009 at 1:33pm about 
PictureSync
PictureSyncPictureSync for Mac in its current form is now officially end-of-life. What this means:
Licence holders: if and when a new version of PictureSync is released, you will be offered a discount on a licence for that new version. If you bought a licence recently and PictureSync is not working for you, you may request a refund (be sure to mention your payment reference number).
On paper PictureSync is quite ambitious. One application to handle any user's needs, regardless of photo organiser and service provider—super! But in practice, although for the majority of users it fulfils their needs well, there's feature sprawl and a rather inappropriate code platform supporting it (AppleScript Studio, with Cocoa sprinkles) resulting in some users hitting un-resolvable hurdles. Furthermore PictureSync has a split personality with a strong disparity amongst the types of users, spanning from consumers to professionals. Together this has lead to a heavy testing and support burden.
The function divergence came about shortly after the first version. Some of you may remember that it just uploaded from iView MediaPro to Flickr. Simple—for a specific workflow. Later I added Webshots, and with it came throngs of users who didn't use MediaPro, or even iPhoto. Thus the single focus was lost as PictureSync needed to start providing thumbnail previews and annotation editing capabilities. To compound this, I'm not really a programmer and had negligible interest in either learning Cocoa, or pursuing leads to find suitable partners or investors that would enable a complete redevelopment of PictureSync. I do however still believe my vision for PictureSync's future (aka Lumiere) is viable.
In the past year or two I became somewhat distracted by other projects, and PictureSync's support and development have suffered. I am now embarking on a new web-based project, which may or may not leave me time to continue with PictureSync, so it would be wrong for me to keep it on life support as it is.
It's not the end-of-the-line. I rely on PictureSync myself (both via drag and drop, and with Expression Media) so it's not going away unless someone else comes up with something that works the way I need…but right now I must re-focus.
I have not yet decided what will happen to PictureSync for Windows and the .NET Client Framework.
- service provider plug-ins will be maintained where reasonable
- all functionality is free
- no further support is available
Licence holders: if and when a new version of PictureSync is released, you will be offered a discount on a licence for that new version. If you bought a licence recently and PictureSync is not working for you, you may request a refund (be sure to mention your payment reference number).
Background
I've really enjoyed working on PictureSync since it's initial inception in late 2004, and in the years since was able to introduce what I consider to be a few innovations that I hope have made it easier for its users to upload the many millions of images that they have. Thanks must certainly go to those users who supported the development by purchasing licences, and those providers who have supported and promoted it to their users.On paper PictureSync is quite ambitious. One application to handle any user's needs, regardless of photo organiser and service provider—super! But in practice, although for the majority of users it fulfils their needs well, there's feature sprawl and a rather inappropriate code platform supporting it (AppleScript Studio, with Cocoa sprinkles) resulting in some users hitting un-resolvable hurdles. Furthermore PictureSync has a split personality with a strong disparity amongst the types of users, spanning from consumers to professionals. Together this has lead to a heavy testing and support burden.
The function divergence came about shortly after the first version. Some of you may remember that it just uploaded from iView MediaPro to Flickr. Simple—for a specific workflow. Later I added Webshots, and with it came throngs of users who didn't use MediaPro, or even iPhoto. Thus the single focus was lost as PictureSync needed to start providing thumbnail previews and annotation editing capabilities. To compound this, I'm not really a programmer and had negligible interest in either learning Cocoa, or pursuing leads to find suitable partners or investors that would enable a complete redevelopment of PictureSync. I do however still believe my vision for PictureSync's future (aka Lumiere) is viable.
In the past year or two I became somewhat distracted by other projects, and PictureSync's support and development have suffered. I am now embarking on a new web-based project, which may or may not leave me time to continue with PictureSync, so it would be wrong for me to keep it on life support as it is.
Forwards
Without hypothesising about the future too much, I do intend to release an open-source framework, upon which I would build new applications and tools to supersede PictureSync, but each would be more focused on a specific workflow.It's not the end-of-the-line. I rely on PictureSync myself (both via drag and drop, and with Expression Media) so it's not going away unless someone else comes up with something that works the way I need…but right now I must re-focus.
Windows
This is another story. In 2006 I decided to invest (in as much as I could) into PictureSync myself, so I set off for Bangalore and hired some C# guys to develop a new Windows version. (I never managed to get Mac guys, otherwise the Mac story would be different!) The result has a pretty solid code base and potential, in fact I have an unreleased version with online photo browsing enabled. However as I have ceased offering software development to clients I no longer have a Windows developer on board to further it.I have not yet decided what will happen to PictureSync for Windows and the .NET Client Framework.
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