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So you've been Sherlocked: AirParrot developers respond to new Mavericks features
On Monday, Apple introduced OS X Mavericks, their next-generation operating system for Macs. One feature Apple demoed on stage enables users to use an HDTV as an extra monitor, courtesy of Apple TV and AirPlay connectivity. If that feature sounds familiar, you may already be an AirParrot customer. The US$9.99 app allows you to stream your screen or individual windows to Apple TV and it also offers extra screen support. The app's popular extended desktop features have been around for a while. After Monday's announcement, we contacted Sidney Keith of Squirrels to get his reaction to the Mavericks feature. Today, he provided the following, thoughtful response. We're continuing to innovate and develop at our own pace. Just because Apple released one of our features as its own doesn't mean we quit. We're still striving for quality applications that solve our customers and users needs. Honestly, we're glad Apple finally caught up. It gives us that much more motivation to innovate and create cooler applications that users want and need. Software is about progress, and that's what this is going to give us. Not only do we have the motivation to keep innovating, we now have the opportunity and obligation to help those that can't or won't upgrade to 10.9. We have a large and loyal customer base that we'll continue supporting. We don't plan on dropping support for 10.6, even though we've now seen three major releases since then, and not everyone is as loyal to Apple as we may think. Upgrades can be costly for institutions and businesses that have hundreds of systems that need to be upgraded. We're here for those users, and we're here for the ones that don't trust the first iterations of Apple products. Whatever the reason for not upgrading, we have their back. Apple has a global audience to attend to, and while we also have users all around the globe, our feature set is much more focused. We're able to focus solely on one group of features instead of an entire operating system. While Apple might add a feature, it's likely they'll not change that feature significantly in any future releases. We saw the addition of AirPlay desktop mirroring in OS X 10.8, but that feature hasn't changed since its initial release-roughly a year since the beta. We've got the ability to focus our entire teams attention on that one specific feature if we need to. That's something you'll be seeing over the next few months. We'll be doing a lot of innovation and creation in this area, and while we hope Apple doesn't steal our new features, we know it's inevitable. It's almost an honor. If you want to see what Apple's going to to include AirPlay-wise at WWDC 14, you can probably bet our next few releases will be a preview. Squirrels is also the developer of the Reflector app, which nearly all of us at TUAW have purchased. It allows you to stream AirPlay to your Mac or PC. Note: in case you're wondering what "Sherlocked" refers to, here's a definition. Looking for other examples? Here's another for your delectation. No downeys, millers, cumberbatches, lauries, bretts, etc. were hurt in the preparation of this article.
