the finger-keyboard synapse

Another Mac demise: BitWise for Mac OS X 10.2

The current BitWise 1.7 will be the last version of BitWise released for Mac OS X 10.2 (Jaguar). We will leave BitWise 1.7 for OS X 10.2 available for download as long as it is functional, though it will no longer be supported. There are several reasons why we are dropping support for OS X 10.2:

• Only about one-fourth of one percent of our active users use Mac OS X 10.2.
  
• wxWidgets has never functioned well on Mac OS X 10.2, and support for OS X 10.2 has been discontinued in its development branch.
  
• Developing for OS X 10.2 was extremely time consuming due to antiquated build tools and the many workarounds needed to get things to run well on 10.2.
  
• Testing for OS X 10.2 was nearly non-existant due to the miniscule user base, and combined with the poor wxWidgets support on 10.2, the resulting releases were often of sub-par quality.
  
• Time can be much better spent on improving and testing the other versions, including the upcoming universal binary for Mac OS X 10.4.

Basically, the time required to maintain BitWise for OS X 10.2 simply was not justifiable based on the number of users and the quality of the resulting product. However, as already mentioned, the existing 1.7 release will still be available for those who still need BitWise for OS X 10.2. We anticipate that by the time 1.7 is no longer functional, nearly everyone using 10.2 now will have upgraded to a newer version of Mac OS X.

We appreciate everyone's understanding in this decision, and we certainly welcome any comments or questions that you may have.