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gorickey · Jul 14, 2004, 03:03 PM

Anybody know what Justin is going to do for Apple by chance? Just wondering...

It will be interesting to see what this new company can do with Proteus and where it goes from here.

Story.

beno · Jul 14, 2004, 03:12 PM

He's working on iChat.

Check out the news from the horses mouth at www.proteusx.com

Ben

gorickey · Jul 14, 2004, 03:16 PM

Originally posted by beno:
He's working on iChat.

Check out the news from the horses mouth at www.proteusx.com

Ben

"So long short of it, I am now a QA Engineer on the iChat team, at Apple! As I write this, I'm packing up my stuff, and shipping it down to Sunnyvale, just a small bike ride away from 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino."

Cool.

Stradlater · Jul 14, 2004, 03:35 PM

Nice. iChat quality with Protean input!

Krypton · Jul 14, 2004, 03:40 PM

Originally posted by Stradlater:
Nice. iChat quality with Protean input!

He's on the QA team initially, so he won't be making his mark yet.

MindFad · Jul 14, 2004, 04:13 PM

Good for him!

TheMosco · Jul 16, 2004, 12:25 AM

I wish I was a QA engineer for apple.

**Goes back to reading the WinRunner Reference guide for current internship realizing that WinRunner would never be used at Apple**

Adam Betts · Jul 16, 2004, 02:18 AM

What does QA Engineer do? Also, what does QA mean?

sideus · Jul 16, 2004, 02:23 AM

Question and Answers?

Mike S. · Jul 16, 2004, 02:25 AM

Originally posted by Adam Betts:
What does QA Engineer do? Also, what does QA mean?

QA = Quality Assurance

Synotic · Jul 16, 2004, 03:41 AM

Originally posted by Mike S.:
QA = Quality Assurance

In essence he tries to find bugs and reports them back to the other engineers to fix.

Angus_D · Jul 16, 2004, 08:20 AM

Originally posted by Synotic:
In essence he tries to find bugs and reports them back to the other engineers to fix.

Also developing test suites and scripts (and procedures), giving feedback on the UI, verifying bugs reported externally, etc.

bluevertical · Jul 16, 2004, 08:42 AM

i hope he does a better job then with proteus... i actually paid for it and it was buggy at best.

nooon · Jul 16, 2004, 09:36 AM

Proteus was more stable than Adium and Fire, though.

sushiism · Jul 16, 2004, 09:56 AM

Proteus has a much better message view than adium at the minute and generally feels a hell of a lot more solid. Although I am a big time adium fan I'm a fan of 1.6 none of the 2.x series as of yet.

Earth Mk. II · Jul 16, 2004, 10:37 AM

Let's not drag this thread down by disparaging a dev because we don't like/prefer/use his app.

I'm sure Justin's a smart fellow and will learn a lot while working at Apple, and I hope the experience is a mutual one.

While proteus isn't my favorite IM app (I'm an Adium dev), as a developer I can appreciate the hard work it takes just to put an application out there, let alone one with a user base the size of Proteus. It can't be easy to leave your baby in the hands of someone else.

That said, I would have wished to see Proteus take a different direction after Justin's departure. The new development team has a lot of work ahead of them, and I wish the best for the community surrounding Proteus.

Finally, all 3 of the major 3rd party Mac IM apps have issues and different approaches to solve the same problems. That's why those 3 continue to exist today - people use what they find works best for them, and that's ok.

Krypton · Jul 16, 2004, 11:35 AM

Originally posted by Earth Mk. II:
Let's not drag this thread down by disparaging a dev because we don't like/prefer/use his app.

I'm sure Justin's a smart fellow and will learn a lot while working at Apple, and I hope the experience is a mutual one.

While proteus isn't my favorite IM app (I'm an Adium dev), as a developer I can appreciate the hard work it takes just to put an application out there, let alone one with a user base the size of Proteus. It can't be easy to leave your baby in the hands of someone else.

That said, I would have wished to see Proteus take a different direction after Justin's departure. The new development team has a lot of work ahead of them, and I wish the best for the community surrounding Proteus.

Finally, all 3 of the major 3rd party Mac IM apps have issues and different approaches to solve the same problems. That's why those 3 continue to exist today - people use what they find works best for them, and that's ok.

very well said

CatOne · Jul 16, 2004, 11:39 AM

Originally posted by bluevertical:
i hope he does a better job then with proteus... i actually paid for it and it was buggy at best.

Proteus 4 is pretty darn nice. I say it's an excellent job.

madmacgames · Jul 16, 2004, 12:27 PM

regardless of what you (or we) may personally think of proteus or Justin, obviously some people at Apple were impressed enough with his work to hire him.

bluevertical · Jul 16, 2004, 04:26 PM

my point was that proteus was an app that i paid for about a year ago and it was useless. it crashed all of the time and justin was mia. there were many many individuals on the proteus forums that were extremely pissed for quite some time because of paying for an app that simply didn't work.
i honestly haven't used it since because it left such a bad taste in my mouth. this was mine and a ton of peoples experience at that time. the point to not forget was that it was an app that was paid for and at the time was not serviced at all.
i obviously wish him no ill will at all but simply wanted to state my experience with his lack of professionalism at that time. it was a serious mess.
i agree, i am sure he will learn quite a lot at apple.... one being that support is a critical part of commercial software development.
peace.
bv.

CatOne · Jul 16, 2004, 05:44 PM

Originally posted by bluevertical:
my point was that proteus was an app that i paid for about a year ago and it was useless. it crashed all of the time and justin was mia. there were many many individuals on the proteus forums that were extremely pissed for quite some time because of paying for an app that simply didn't work.
i honestly haven't used it since because it left such a bad taste in my mouth. this was mine and a ton of peoples experience at that time. the point to not forget was that it was an app that was paid for and at the time was not serviced at all.
i obviously wish him no ill will at all but simply wanted to state my experience with his lack of professionalism at that time. it was a serious mess.
i agree, i am sure he will learn quite a lot at apple.... one being that support is a critical part of commercial software development.
peace.
bv.

Well, Proteus 4 is a helluva lot different than 3. I can't comment on the "MIA" stuff -- though as a 1 man effort the amount of use he got from it, well let's say it's not too hard to get upset with user requests and get frustrated -- believe me there are some ridiculous requests and the tendency can be to tune out everybody.

Horsepoo!!! · Jul 16, 2004, 06:17 PM

Originally posted by CatOne:
Well, Proteus 4 is a helluva lot different than 3. I can't comment on the "MIA" stuff -- though as a 1 man effort the amount of use he got from it, well let's say it's not too hard to get upset with user requests and get frustrated -- believe me there are some ridiculous requests and the tendency can be to tune out everybody.

Especially users that request stuff and threaten not to pay until said 'unrealistic feature' is implemented. Justin added lots of user inputted requests to Proteus...have the people that requested those features paid? Who knows. They probably just added more stuff to their request list of things to be implemented before they shell out any money.

Justin did an excellent job on Proteus 4. And this was a huge time-consuming project with zero assurance that it would bring in any money.

Now that he has a stable, paying job...I'm sure he's more motivated than ever.

sushiism · Jul 16, 2004, 08:05 PM

proteus for a one man effort is outstanding, puts garbage like Trillian (worst UI ever) to shame

MaxPower2k3 · Jul 16, 2004, 09:44 PM

Trillian may not have the best interface, but it's by no means garbage. It's by far the best IM client for windows.

sushiism · Jul 17, 2004, 07:39 AM

Originally posted by MaxPower2k3:
Trillian may not have the best interface, but it's by no means garbage. It's by far the best IM client for windows.

Nope sorry it is actually just garbage. Whats the point in functionality at all if the program takes actual effort to do the simplest of things.

alex_kac · Jul 17, 2004, 01:33 PM

I actually far prefer Trillian Pro over Trillian, iChat, Fire, Proteus, etc... By itself it sucks. But with a well designed skin, all that bad menu design, etc.. goes away and its a joy to work with.

I WISH Trillian Pro existed on OS X.

Tick · Jul 17, 2004, 02:42 PM

Originally posted by sushiism:
proteus for a one man effort is outstanding, puts garbage like Trillian (worst UI ever) to shame

Proteus is not a one man effort. IMServices is/has been developed by a lot of people, and the stuff behind it is developed by even more people....

I think it is very cool for Justin to have gotten a job at apple, he's a nice fellow.

Cheers

sushiism · Jul 17, 2004, 09:58 PM

Originally posted by Tick:
Proteus is not a one man effort. IMServices is/has been developed by a lot of people, and the stuff behind it is developed by even more people....

I think it is very cool for Justin to have gotten a job at apple, he's a nice fellow.

Cheers

Well seen as most behind the scenes stuff is nicked from elsewhere these days anyway who cares I was talking about interfaces mainly.

Tick · Jul 17, 2004, 11:37 PM

Originally posted by sushiism:
Well seen as most behind the scenes stuff is nicked from elsewhere these days anyway who cares...<snip>

Well, I do, and the people who make that software do, etc etc. Probably Proton does, since he helps with IMServices.. Umm.. and everyone else who does, I don't know their names.

So they do matter.

Angus_D · Jul 18, 2004, 06:49 AM

Without the behind the scenes stuff, the interface is useless. So yeah, I'd say it's pretty important.

sushiism · Jul 18, 2004, 07:04 PM

Originally posted by Angus_D:
Without the behind the scenes stuff, the interface is useless. So yeah, I'd say it's pretty important.

yeah you seem to have totally missed the point

sanity assassin · Jul 18, 2004, 07:49 PM

And as we all know, Apple seems to be focussing on interfaces these days, and forgetting how to code the core tools to function properly. So I guess Justin wll fit right in.

Just kidding, hope he enjoys it.

eevyl · Jul 19, 2004, 04:09 AM

Yeah Angus_D you missed the point, here you are:

--> . <--

mitchell_pgh · Jul 19, 2004, 11:50 AM

I wonder if Apple will permit other IM clients... I highly doubt it, but it would be interesting.

I wonder how big their iChat team is?

ratlater · Jul 19, 2004, 01:31 PM

Originally posted by mitchell_pgh:
I wonder if Apple will permit other IM clients... I highly doubt it, but it would be interesting.

I wonder how big their iChat team is?

Permit other IM clients? Do you mean connect to other services with iChat?
I'm confused.

-matt

Stradlater · Jul 19, 2004, 01:36 PM

Originally posted by mitchell_pgh:
I wonder if Apple will permit other IM clients... I highly doubt it, but it would be interesting.

I wonder how big their iChat team is?

Tiger's iChat should be able to connect to Jabber, and, subsequently, the other services (perhaps with a little user-end hacking).