Hi silba, also re:

> I have been testing out Rhino on the mac for the last two
> years without buying the windows version of it.

The Rhino mac version is a pretty different situation than the MoI one.

Basically the Rhino Windows version generally follows 1990s era standard Windows-PC interface conventions. Or in some areas like with the command-line handling maybe even more like 1980s era. That would end up being pretty weird if it was just brought over directly to the Mac. So instead they basically started over and have been trying different UI concepts for their Mac version and also started out at a much more primitive level initially. They still have quite a ways to go I guess even now.

When doing something from scratch like that it does make a lot of sense to have a wide and totally open beta test since you will need to get a whole lot of feedback to guide something that is in the process of growing and not really close to fully formed.

The MoI Mac beta is totally unlike that - instead of being in a "start from zero" state, it has the full functionality and interface of the regular Win MoI.

Having the same UI on both Win and Mac is much more feasible for MoI than it would have been for Rhino because the Win MoI version did not particularly follow many standard Windows conventions and even had a semi-mac-like more modern design feel to it. So that exact same UI with possibly a few small tweaks here and there but largely intact is not so weird on the Mac, or possibly you might say it's equally as weird on both Windows and the Mac I suppose.

At any rate, it's a much different situation and the MoI OSX version basically pops into existence much more fully formed and equal in functionality to the PC version and not needing such a long incubation period as a "start from scratch" type approach requires.

- Michael