Filed under: Software, Freeware, Developer
VirtueDesktops Developer Calls It Quits
Tony Arnold, the developer of the free virtual desktop program VirtueDesktops, on Saturday announced that he is no longer going to develop the software. Citing Leopard's forthcoming Spaces and the time necessary to work on the project as reasons, he has decided to stop development at this time. He says he doesn't want to kill the project and so invites other developers to take it up. It's sad to see development end on a nice piece of software (though, personally I thought the commercial You Control: Desktops was considerably more stable), but as Tony says, the writing was on the wall pretty much as soon as Spaces was announced at WWDC last year.[Via Digg]
Get a WordPress.com Blog
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
eric said 11:44AM on 3-12-2007
why people blame microsoft and sue it for millions when it puts IE or Windows Media player in Windows.
and no one bother whatever Apple did to rip-off the small developers?
Reply
mithras said 11:56AM on 3-12-2007
Oh, bummer. It's a wonderful project, and is much more flexible than Spaces. Tony's been a real asset to the Mac community. Hope he still has some time to tinker with interesting projects!
Reply
maique said 11:51AM on 3-12-2007
i'm still using desktop manager and i'm happy with it.
Reply
David Chartier said 11:53AM on 3-12-2007
Situations like this are sometimes complicated; VirtueDesktops is lightyears away from being the first virtual desktop app, so they don't have much ground to stand on. Besides, it isn't even a commercial app. This is just like widgets and Tiger - the concept and implementation of widgets happened a *long* time before Konfabulator, but they were simply popular at the time. Virtual desktops have existed for quite a while, and this is really just a matter of progress unfortunately knocking one app off the shelf.
In the grand scheme of things, I'm a big VirtueDesktops fan (been using it for a little under a year), but I'm happier that the concept of virtual desktops is being brought to the masses (that use Macs, anyway). This means more people are going to get turned on to a great way of working, which means Apple and 3rd parties can set the bar even higher when they're conceiving their next piece of innovation.
Reply
Paul said 1:54PM on 3-12-2007
I would by no means call YouControl Desktops more stable that Virtue--I may put them in the same ballpark. YouControl is a commercial product and should be 10x more stable and intuitive than it is (and the Virtue feature set and usability is at least a grade above YouControl). I would have paid for YouControl if it delivered on its promise, but it does not. So when needed, I have stopped even trying the others.
However, we can probably expect Spaces to be the most stable having Apple resources dedicated to it and integrated into OS X (at least after a point release or two). Which will of course discourage much work from the independents, unless it leaves a lot to be desired (like the Finder). I mean if Apple makes it, and it's got 75% of what everyone needs, it will wipe everything else out out of pure convenience and economics. Plus it will have those nifty quartz graphics :-) Can't resist those can we?
Reply
Word Diggity said 12:46PM on 3-12-2007
I was using a kind of virtual 'desktop' (it was text-only, so it wasn't really a 'desktop' per se, but it's the same idea) called "Screen" on my university's Unix system back in the early 90s so this is hardly a novel concept.
Reply
Hobbes said 12:46PM on 3-12-2007
It's an awesome application. Sad to hear it go. I still think there is a market for it. Not everybody will be upgrading to Leopard. There will still be plenty of Tiger users and even earlier versions of OS X that would benefit from the application. Sure, eventually people would move on to Leopard or whatever comes next, but until then...
I haven't really used any feature of VD other than the desktop switching, but I really like the different transitions and it always works flawlessly for me. I have no complaints about stability.
I'll be using Spaces once Leopard comes out, but I'll always remember VD.
Hopefully the developer will come up with some other cool app for the Mac.
Reply
tofu said 12:50PM on 3-12-2007
I've only been using this program for about a month and love it. Sad to see the developer go. I didn't even get a chance to say thanks. :/
Reply
(01) said 12:59PM on 3-12-2007
This App is great, and I'll be sad to see development dropped. Best features? Ability to change the background on each desktop, rearrange desktops on the fly, and on top of all that it's easy to use. Again, RIP virtuedesktops, you'll be missed.
Reply
Andre said 1:21PM on 3-12-2007
The site is down?
Reply
Reg Muffet said 7:14PM on 3-12-2007
It used to be possible to have Parallels on one screen running Windows XP - FULLSCREEN - then use VirtueDesktops to flip back to the main screen with a single key combo.
Is this still possible?
A few updates ago (not sure which app broke it) I lost this ability - Parallels now requires doing a CTRL-ALT to release the mouse first, or to leave it in windowed mode.
Anyone using VirtueDesktops to flip back and forth between a fullscreen Windows and a Mac OS X?
Reply