NoticeAugust 4, 2019
Dear Customers, Today is my 77th birthday, and I've decided to give myself the gift of retirement. I need to start taking it easy -- getting back into painting and calligraphy, working on a Chinese translation project that has been on hold for way too long, practicing the guitar, banjo, mandolin, and fiddle, and spending more time with my wife and cat. I've self-published a variety of iData apps (iData 2, iData 3, iData Pro 4, iData Kwik, iData Lite, iData Mobile, and iData Mobile Plus) since 2003. I also wrote its predecessors, InfoGenie and iData Pro 1, while working for Casady & Greene, Inc. from 1988 to 2002. I was 45 years old when I became a professional programmer, having had a twenty-year military career and college before that. The only thing that has kept me from doing this years ago is that I have many customers who have told me how much they depend on those apps, and I have been very reluctant to leave them unsupported. Over the past couple of years, I've actively searched for a person or a group who could and would take them over, but I have had no luck. Several iData customers have tried to find someone, but have also failed. I've been working at this alone since Robin Casady retired three years ago, and it's not as much fun as it used to be. (And sales haven't been enough to pay for necessary hardware upgrades for quite a few years.) My plan is phase out iData Pro and iData Mobile Plus over the next year, stopping development completely the day I turn 78. Prior to that, I will attempt to fix bugs and to keep up with changes to Mac OS and iOS, so there may be a few updates during that period. I will continue to provide tech support during that time. Starting today, I will no longer sell iData Pro to new customers, and I will no longer add new features to either app. iData 3 customers can continue to upgrade over the coming year, but not after that. I will keep the various User Guides online during the coming year. Before shutting down the idatapartners.com website, I will update the downloadable versions of the User Guides. Thanks to all of you who have purchased various versions of iData over the years. It's been a pleasure. – Mike Wright If anyone knows one or more fairly experienced Objective C programmers who might be interested in taking on iData Pro and iData Mobile Plus, feel free to put them in touch with me. UpdatePlease see the Transition
Guide for the most up-to-date information,
including information on copying iData Pro 4 datafiles
to Apple Notes. There is a link to the Transition Guide
under the Help menu beginning with iData 4.0.49.
NEW It turns out that it is not too difficult to copy iData Pro datafiles to display in Apple Notes. It will be important to copy the latest versions of all of your datafiles to Notes prior to each update to a new version of Mac OS. That way, if you cannot open iData Pro 4 in the new OS, you will at least have your data. I've created a separate web page to explain how to do this. Click HERE. |