I recently had the chance to talk to Brian Amerige of Extendmac. Thanks to Brian for taking the time for this interview.

Flow makes its public debut on April 4th, 9 Months after the first external alpha testing began. What are you most proud of in Flow?

Yeah, that’s right. I had a smallish group of people for the early alphas, and then moved on to the significantly larger beta group. I certainly didn’t intend to (or want to) keep Flow in beta for so long, but due to time constraints (see http://blog.extendmac.com/a-glimpse-inside-one-year-later/ for what I mean by “time constraints”), I really had no choice. It’s my policy to release by quality, not calendar.

As for what I’m proud of, I’m proud of everything in Flow. Flow was, despite the fact that a number of clients lifted the idea, the first Mac client to bridge the gap between remote files and their HTTP URLs. That is, Automatic URL copying was a Flow-first feature. Naively, I was so excited by this back in April of last year, I believe, I wrote a blog post about it, and since then, a “similar” feature has cropped up in other mac FTP clients. I’m alright with that, though, because the implementation of URL-awareness in Flow is much powerful than you’ll see in any other client.

In your mind, what makes Flow better then other FTP clients?

The fact that it’s a fresh approach to an old problem. At 1.0, Flow’s interface and the experience you’ll have with it is what really sets it apart. It’s a very organic experience: Sebastiaan de With, Flow’s icon designer, said it best: “Flow is an application that is fantastically straightforward in its user interface. there is nothing to be distracted by, and everything you see is geared to do what you want at that moment. first using it is almost uncanny because you simply won’t have to think before acting. it does what you want, when you want it. ” Flow manages to feel light, despite being an application with considerable depth and functionality. It feels awesome to use.

On the Extendmac blog (http://blog.extendmac.com), I refer to Flow 1.0 being a “foundational release.” That means that 1.0 is the foundation Extendmac is going to be building on to do some very cool things — things planned for both 1.x and 2.x releases. Even at 1.0, though, Flow covers what all the other clients do (and some more) in a very beautiful, intuitive, and natural way. It’s a great jumping off point for us.

Flow also has a built-in editor, do you think users will find this a valuable feature?

Definitely; I’ve always hated having to use external editors, and I still do. Flow’s editor is a ton more powerful than any other FTP client’s internal editor — its got tabs, syntax coloring, code sense, and even live previewing. For people who wish to remain in their dedicated external editors, Flow of course honors that — but I think that there’s a large group of people who would be much more comfortable inside Flow. Editing is one of the major areas you’re going to see evolve quite a bit with time, in 1.x.

On January 26, you published a blog post asking the public what they thought about Flow going leopard only, shortly after you decided to take this route for Flow, can you tell us more about why you made that decision?

Sure. Flow is Leopard only because being it’s going to help me make a better product — simple as that. My attitude toward this type of thing is a lot like Steve Jobs’ attitude toward Apple’s stock price: he views his job as helping Apple make the best stuff he can, and believes the stock price will sort itself out. In the same sense, I believe it’s my job to make Flow as terrific as it can be, because that’s really much more important any amount of sales or market research is.

Flow uses the latest APIs, and integrates with some of the coolest Leopard-only technology, like QuickLook. It’s almost impossible to describe how cool it is to walk through a directory on your remote FTP server, and be able to preview images, movies, PDFs, web pages, etc. It’s certainly an experience.

But it’s really more than that. Flow is Leopard-only because the people who are going to love Flow are people who are already on Leopard. As I mentioned before in regard to Flow’s 1.x and 2.x future, Flow is really about progression. Flow has big plans for the future, and we’re not going to let laggards on Tiger impede on that progression that we’re really here to achieve.

Using some of the new core animation techniques in leopard, you have added quite a few nice effects to Flow, effects which are used in apps associated with the Delicious Generation, do you consider Flow to be a member of this movement?

That’s a loaded question ;-). I believe in tasteful use of animation and custom UI in areas where it helps make the experience and/or metaphor better. There isn’t a single animation inside Flow that’s there to be superflous; it’s there to help the user understand how different views fit together.

I think a lot of people misunderstand animation — animation is sexy because it benefits understanding in a beautiful way. So, if you do it right, it’s the best of both worlds — gorgeousness, and a better experience for the user. (Time Machine is a great example of this. The way it tiles backward completes the metaphor in a way that previously wasn’t possible.)

What do you think of the Delicious Generation movement?

I think a lot of people misunderstand what they’re all about. I’ve talked to John Casasanta, I’ve talked with Austin Sarner, etc., and I don’t see the argument against their work as being non-functional. In my opinion, they were some of the first to deviate from the Aqua guidelines, and that scared the hell out of some people. Change in any sort of ecosystem is always met with at least some form of resistance — it’s natural. But I think it’s a non-issue today; people accept that the Aqua guidelines have pretty much gone to hell, and the new mantra is simply to make things both usable and beautiful. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.

You participated in MacHeist and gave away beta versions of Flow to purchasers of the bundle. Now with over 1700 beta testers, do you think this large group has helped Flow to date?

Absolutely, yes! Out of the 1700, a very strong group of around 30 or so testers emerged as the leaders, and they’re responsible for about 80-90% of the feedback. It’s unfeasible to give free licenses to all 1700 testers, but those who were significant contributors will be receiving free licenses. Everyone has my eternal thanks, though.

What is one thing that you want our readers to remember about Flow?

Remember that Flow isn’t static, and you’re going to see it evolve (even more so) into the client that everyone else is going to be copying. We want to be innovators in the market.

Thanks for the interview, best success with Flow, and I look forward to April 4th.

My pleasure!

I’ve gotten permission from Brian to show some previews of Flow before it launches.

Thanks again to Brian, and make sure to check out Flow on April 4th for the launch.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 3rd, 2008 at 8:00 am and is filed under Betas, Code, Interviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.