We recently had the opportunity to ask Vero Pepperell, the community representative for Alfred, a few questions about the company and it’s plans and ideas. For those of you that don’t know, Alfred is a groundbreaking productivity app for the Mac OS X platform.
1. What was your inspiration for creating Alfred. What motivated you?
Vero’s always been a Mac geek, getting her first Mac in the late 80’s. Andrew has been a
developer for over 10 years but wanted an OS X project. We’re both big productivity fans and like
to be efficient while working, so Alfred was a natural choice.
http://preppeller.tumblr.com/post/2991976085/hello
2. What makes your product better than that of your rivals?
To be perfectly honest, we rarely look at what the competition is doing. Vero actively used
Quicksilver up until a few years ago but the app was inefficient and would often quit of its own
accord.You may find it surprising that Andrew’s never used any of our competitors’ apps to prevent
clouding his judgement in creating something fresh.We know that people compare us to other apps but when we create, we do it to meet a need and
answer a problem. We don’t do it to outdo competitors.
3. How is business in general?
Since launch nearly a year ago, support from the community has always been stellar – a quick look
at our favourites on Twitter shows just how kind and supportive everyone has been. In January,
when the Mac App Store launched, we were lucky enough to be featured as:
– New & Noteworthy for the first week
– What’s Hot for 2 weeks
– Staff Favourites this weekWe couldn’t ask for better feedback from users in the App Store either. While we don’t sell the
Powerpack in the MAS at the moment (but will most likely do once Apple allows in-app upgrade),
it’s great to see that some users have upgraded to the Powerpack since.
4.What has been the biggest success so far?
The Mac App Store launch was a pretty exciting – and exhausting – time for our little team. I still
think the best is yet to come for Alfred and its community!
5.What is coming down the line feature wise?
In the latest release, we added custom themes, allowing users to make Alfred match their desktop
or their shoes. In the next release, we’ll be adding sharing for custom themes and custom
searches, which should be great fun as people will be able to swap them around.Address Book integration is also in the works.
In the run-up to 1.0, we’ll also be launching a developer API so that fellow Mac developers can
create plugins for their favourite apps. We can’t wait to create a few of our own for our favourite
services!
6.Where do you see Alfred in the next 2 years?
We have great plans for Alfred as well as future apps. Our focus is productivity, with a fun edge
and lots of great features.
We’d like to reach out and thank Vero for taking the time and effort to respond to our questions! I use Alfred myself, and I highly recommended it. It has made a world of difference for my productivity. You can check out our review of Alfred here.
Those interested in Alfred and its creators can follow them on twitter (@alfredapp), or check out their excellent and well-designed website.
