Iron, Lion, Zion

(The title of this post literally has no relevance except that it has "Lion" in the title.)

So, Apple previewed Lion yesterday, and made some rather interesting announcements along the way. Although my heart initially sank when the Mac App Store was announced - out of fear that it may be a portent that the Mac will eventually become a "closed" platform like the iPad and iPhone, which I would hate - over all it was exciting to see some solid Mac-related enthusiasm coming out of Apple after what has seemed like years of the Mac being neglected in favour of iOS. (Of course, the absolutely most exciting part of the whole thing was seeing Scrivener's icon make an appearance in the Launchpad demo...) I *love* the Mac platform, and getting a glimpse of Lion, and finally being given a real netbook alternative in the form of a MacBook Air that weighs not much more than my AlphaSmart, has renewed my belief that Scrivener for the Mac runs on the best, most vibrant platform out there. (Although that may just be last night's wine and lack of sleep.) It's great to feel that I'm developing for a live and evolving platform once more. In short, I can't wait to get 2.0 out.

So, here is what I've taken from yesterday's keynote in terms of how it will affect the Mac version of Scrivener over the coming months:

1) After 2.0 is released in just over a week, I'm going to make it a priority over the following couple of months to try to get Scrivener approved on the Mac App Store. The Mac App Store could, I hope, introduce a lot of new users to indie apps like Scrivener and it would be insane not to try to get on there when one of our constant struggles is simply making people aware that we exist.

2) The main focus next year will be on ensuring Scrivener 2.0 works well on Lion, when that's eventually seeded to developers. I'm looking forward to playing with some of the new features (such as the full screen maximise button) and seeing how Scrivener can take advantage of them. In the meantime, I'm really happy with 2.0 and I don't want to try to cram in lots more features (which isn't to say that there aren't other refinements I have planned for the future - there are). Instead I want to let it mature and focus on stability and minor refinements over the coming months. (I also want to at least *try* to write that novel...)

3) Those 11" MacBook Airs look awesome, and I'm getting one. Okay, that bit has nothing to do with Scrivener - er, no, wait, I'm buying it for testing purposes, to ensure Scrivener runs well on it, of course.