Three cheers for the developers, developers, developers!

I’ve said it before, and – not even counting this post – I will, at many points in the future, say it again: my favourite thing about the Mac platform is not the hardware, it’s not the operating system, and it certainly isn’t Apple itself. It’s the developers.

And not just because they create elegant, usable and useful applications, but because their attitude – their entire world view – is just phenomenal. It’s electrifying, gratifying and plain right.

Two examples prompted this. Sitting on my monitor now (there’s a poor-quality iPhone snap at http://twitpic.com/uhlaw) is a vinyl model of Ollie, the Twitterrific bluebird. It’s the mascot and icon of the Iconfactory’s Twitterrific app for Mac and the iPhone, and the guys decided – what the hell – to make it into a toy. That’s the first thing.

The second is a range of illustrations commissioned by Panic, also used on – it’s difficult to find the right word – fake, joke, parody, homage software boxes that imagine what it would be like if Panic made Atari games back in the pre-Mac days.

Both companies are selling these things, for sure, but I’d be flabbergasted – and, frankly, mighty dubious – if either expected to or succeeded in making anything more than the corporation equivalent of pocket money from these little side-lines.

And yet now, now, when the economy remains shaky, and when people will insist on implying that the iPhone’s success comes at the expense of the Mac itself, this is the time when these guys are doing stuff that’s fun, quirky, and indulgent.

Well hurrah, I say. Let’s celebrate that. Let’s celebrate people who create not just because their creation will feed and clothe them but just for the joy of creating, for the sheer delight of bringing something good into the world.

Head on over to iconfactory.com and panic.com and the site of your own favourite developers, and drop the folks there a line just to say thanks. Better yet, go to https://store.iconfactory.com and http://www.panic.com/goods and buy something truly special: the passion of good people, made real.

_{Excerpted from MacFormat 218}