Bounce Metronome for Mac and Multi Platform

UPDATE - Sadly the Wineskin version doesn't work in High Sierra or later due to Apple dropping support for 32 bit apps.

There are several other ways you can run it on the Mac

My Kick starter to get Bounce Metronome running on an Intel Mac was a success and was used by musicians for several years.

See Bounce Beta for Mac OSX

(Sadly the method won't work for an iphone or iPad)

Please see the more recent update to this post.

The most frequent question I get asked about Bounce is: is there is a version for a Mac, or will there be one in the future? The answer is No, and Maybe. Find out more and add your name to the wish list here:  /Mac, Mobile and other Multi Platform FAQs

Anyway, those of you who added yourself to the wish list early on might wonder why you haven't heard from me yet. The thing is, though I'm keen to do this project, I haven't had a chance to work on it.
 
Was hoping to start on it some time this year but just haven't had the chance to do it yet. One of the main reasons for the delay is that the new update of Bounce Metronome 4.3 has taken at least six or seven months longer than expected. .
 
The Mac version would probably take several months from learning the language and coding environment to first simple app, so I need to have lots of time to work on it to do it properly. Also I have two other major projects to do before then, so realistically it's not likely to happen before next year now.
 
If it works out it will be in beta first, and I expect the process to take some months from when I first start on it to the first apps suitable for release, especially since I've never done something like this before (multi-platform app).
 
I might take a week off some time this autumn/ winter to investigate it some more and try out a couple of the top ideas of ways to do it, just in case it is easier to do than expected. There is one plus side to this delay. It does give more time for multi-platform programming tools to get developed further or new ones developed - so there may be more options to explore or easier ways to do it by the time I have a chance to start work.
 
To add yourself to the wish list to be notified, if you haven't done it yet, go to: Mac, Mobile and other Multi-Platform wishes
 

Timetable

Since it's a big project for me, then it's necessary to have a few months clear to work on it. I don't expect to be able to come up with something useful with just a week or two of work - not starting from scratch as I am, with no previous experience of multi-platform apps. I expect to have to learn a new coding language and coding environment, also to learn about expectations of App users and how you deal with them at the coding level.

After the release of BM 4.2, I have two other Windows programming projects which are high priority. The next big thing on my timetable is a month or two of coding for the next release of the FTS Lambdoma for music therapy . This a multi-touch version on-screen music keyboard for multi touch devices which would be nice to have ready for Windows 8, which will also lead eventually to other on-screen multi-touch keyboards. 
 
The next big Windows project after that is a new update of one of my other programs ("Activity Timer"). It's a smaller project, so maybe a month of coding, possibly less, might be as little as a week. It was nearly finished a couple of years back - but I wasn't able to complete it because of Bounce Metronome and FTS Lambdoma commitments. 
 
After that, I hope to have a chance to look into the multi-app Bounce ideas properly. So, realistically, that's probably at least three months from now. Could be longer as it is so hard to judge in advance how long a programming job will take to do it properly.
 
There is a chance I might have some time to work on a multi-platform Bounce for a week or so before that, enough to get a better idea of how easy / hard it will be. If that goes as far as an actual test app to try out, I might contact those who have volunteered as beta testers at that stage.
 

Why it's so hard to promote an App

The problem with apps, I understand from my research, is that you only charge about a $1 or so for them, so need a really huge market for them to make it a success - either that or it needs to be really easy to make the app. 
 
I'm sure there are enough potential Mac users to pay for it eventually, easily enough. The problem is finding a way to get them to know about it. How do you bridge the gap between the product, and the users who would like to buy it, if only they knew about it?
 
Advertising something that earns you maybe $1 or so per sale is likely to cost much more than the money you get back. For instance, Google text ads (the ones next to search results) cost between $0.40 and $1.00 typically per click, and probably only one in a hundred or less of those clicks will lead to a sale.  It's only when you start to earn back at least as much as you spend on the ads that you can hope to start a major ad campaign - at least as a small business.
 
The alternative is to try to reach enough people by YouTube views, or Google search results. This is amazingly hard to do. For a rough idea - to earn say $50 a week from it, and suppose that say 0.1% of visitors to the page eventually buy it (that's high for a first release for normal "organic" search result visitors) you need to get 50,000 visitors a week, or about 7,000 a day to the page about the App. That's a level that is really hard to achieve for organic search results - and for a return of only $50 a week.
 
It's okay if it goes viral, or if most of the sales are through word of mouth so that each sale leads to dozens of others. That makes a big difference to Bounce for Windows, many of the sales are through word of mouth. But the first version would be really simple, so would be a while before that can happen.
 
Also you can't rely on the App stores to promote it, because most new apps go to the top for a few days, as I understand it, unless it is an extraordinary success. Of course that's just what I found out from researching into it and the reality might be different, but it's not too encouraging on the face of it.
 
So at this stage it is something I want to do because there is a clear need for it. Of course, hope for some financial return in the future, but don't hold out great hopes for much in the way of financial return in the near term.
 
The apps might work out eventually. If that happens I see it as a bonus. There's always the possibility it might turn out to be a big success, worth a try :).
 
Here are a couple of recent links about selling apps via the app store: Developiong my first iPhone App - the inside story and /Money and the App Store A few figures that might help an indie developer - particularly, see the long list of "post mortems" at the end of the article.
 

What about a fully fledged Mac or Multi Platform version of Bounce?

As for the reasons why I have no plans for a fully fledged Mac version of Bounce, similar to the Windows program (and so similar in price), basically it's out of my league, would require at least a number of years full time coding for Mac before I reach anything like the level of experience I have for Windows programming. The same is true for a fully fledged multi-platform program with similar feature set to Bounce. Also not practical to hire someone else to do it at present.