Goodbye, Audion

[prog]

Many years ago, long before anyone used Mac OS X and iTunes, I purchased a piece of shareware called Audion. It did a nice job playing CDs and MP3 files on my Mac at the time (a heavily mutated Power Mac 6100) and was generally very featureful.

In 2001 I got my first OS X machine, and of course used iTunes for all my music after that. Unbeknownst to me, Audion continued to exist, soldiering on as a high-end commercial alternative to Apple's free app.

And, apparently, my email address remained in the company database, because I just got a charming (actually!) letter from them announcing that Audion was finally conceding to iTunes, and passing out of active development. The mail included a link to a very interesting story about Audion's whole history, including its almost making it into the pantheon of Apple-absorbed shareware applications, and the head programmer's thought process as he turned down the subsequent offer of a stable job from Apple. Worth reading.

Comments

great

[jtroutman.livejournal.com]

thanks for posting this. I found the write-up verra nice and as you said, really interesting.

I was a SoundJam user, actually...