Edible Apple

A while back, MacObserver conducted an engaging interviewwith Rogue Amoeba CEO Paul Kafasis. Rogue Amoeba is the company behind quality audio apps such as Audio Hijack Pro, Pulsar, Airfoil, and Nicecast, and the interview is especially worth reading because it provides a fresh perspective on Apple from a company still primarily focused on Mac development. There’s a lot of meat in the interview worth digesting, but we thought this exchange was particularly interesting.

TMO:Right. So you’ve been developing products that get very much into the nitty-gritty of the Mac. And, over the years, you’ve gone through many OS iterations. Is that something that has been a problem for you?

Mr. Kafasis: Well, certainly every time there’s a major OS update, 10.4 to 10.5, 10.5 to 10.6, we have to be concerned about just what underlying changes [have been made] in the audio system — that the users never see — but we have to interact with. I wouldn’t say it’s ever been… Apple’s never been trying to kill anything. I believe that a couple of our apps are on an Apple internal white list so that they say: “…if our OS update breaks any of these 100 apps, then we need to figure out what’s up and maybe contact the developer. Or maybe figure out if we’re doing something wrong.”

TMO: That’s cool.

Mr. Kafasis: Yeah, that’s pretty nice to be aware that we’re on that list. Clearly it’s not something where we have to worry too much about breakage. But we are doing these low level things and doing things that aren’t necessarily “standard.”

And you don’t see this too often, but one of the interview questions/statements from TMO is noteworthy in and of itself.

Regarding the future of OS X and iOS, and whether their paths might cross in the future:

… We’ve seen this before, where they’ve diverted engineering resources from one [project] to another. They clearly aren’t all about just bulking up on engineers. They’re about having the right people working on this stuff, and shifting their focus.

As Steve Jobs has stated before, it’s not about the size of your research and development budget, it’s about hiring the right people.

Anyways, head on over to The Mac Observer to check out the interview in its entirety.