As a part of the MacStories Apps Tree event (where you’ll find a huge giveaway worth $10.000 of 300 Mac and iPhone apps licenses), I had the chance to interview Jürgen Schweizer, the developer of Things, the best Getting Things Done application for Mac OS X. You can read a great review of Things here.
This is 2nd of many interviews and guest posts I’ll publish on MacStories during this week. Enjoy!
Hi there! Can you please introduce yourself to MacStories readers and tell us something about your work?
Computers and the fact that we seem to only be limited by our imagination are things that have always fascinated me.
Yet, I pursued a career as a scientist, acquired my Ph.D. and did quite a bit of teaching and researching at university. While this was a cool and satisfying thing to do, I realized that for the vast majority of researchers, your only audience is a few hundred fellow researchers spread around the world. I wasn’t able to make the difference I had always wanted to. Creating software was an obvious alternative for me. I left university with the intention to create software that helps people to manage their information and organize their lives.
When did you first think of Things? How did it come to life?
When I had left university, the vision I had was much broader than what would become Things. I even tested the software waters by creating a web design analysis tool called Xyle scope. Xyle scope was pretty well received in its niche, and provided me with invaluable experience. It still was a detour from my original plans. Luckily, I came across David Allen’s GTD method, which helped me to break off a certain part of those ideas mentioned above and helped me create a product where users could easily understand how it would make a difference in their lives.
Which are the favorite apps of a Mac developer? Can you please tell us something about your workflow?
Over the past years I have become extremely minimalistic. The fewer apps the better. The third party app I use most is Tweetie. For source code management we began to use Git, which is a pretty powerful tool. So I am seeing the Terminal more often than a GUI and mouse guy like me ever should. :) As you can imagine, I am pretty excited about the various Git GUIs that are emerging now. All my writing and outlining is done in Pages and TextEdit using an elaborate folder hierarchy in Finder. And, of course, Things is the glue that holds pretty much everything else together.
The App Store. Seems like it’s love or hate nowadays: developers who quit the scene because of Apple’s restrictions, developers who make a lot of money. Have you ever had similar problems with Things Touch?
I don’t think it is really that black and white. Apple has done a great job in creating a buying experience for users in which we, as developers, actually love to be a part of. Users can download any app from the App Store without ever worrying about their iPhones or data. This is one of the reasons for the huge success the App Store was with customers. Now that we can take the App Store for granted, it is pretty easy to forget in which sorry state the mobile application market was before. We are pretty excited to be a part of something that has changed the landscape forever.
I bet you have something big in store for the future..Can you give us a hint? ;)
Not just one thing actually. And no, I cannot give a hint. ;)
