Will You Buy Mac Software That You Can’t Try First?

These days, we buy all kinds of products without trying them out first. Not just software. Everything. Cars. Toasters. Cell phones.

Do you buy Mac software without trying it out first? Sure you do. Look at these examples.

When Mac OS X Leopard ships sometime this year, many of us will stand in line to pick up a copy, rush home and install and enjoy. We trust Apple.

We’ve gone through that process before and we’ll go through it again. How about iLife ‘07? Sorry, I’m planning to ante up for my annual Apple tax and I’ll be in line for that one, too, sight unseen.

With few exceptions, we’ve become a trusting society of computer users, willing to fork over money for something new and without so much as a test drive.

But there are exceptions for Mac users. Plenty of them. Can you say, “shareware?” True shareware isn’t in vogue these days. What’s often called shareware is Mac software that we can try for a month. If we like it, we buy it. If not, it stops working.

In between the neo-shareware software developers, and Apple and Adobe and Microsoft, whose software we’re willing to buy before we try, are Mac software makers with a little hubris.

For example, take iScrapbook from Chronos. It’s not shipping until April so you can’t actually try it before you buy it. But you can buy it for about $30. If you buy now. Delay until April when you can try it and it’ll cost you about $50.

What’s so good about iScrapbook that would get you to cough up your hard-earned Mac software allowance in advance of the opportunity to use said software?

How about a digital scrapbook? Truly, it’s an idea whose time has come.

As a new mommy with a new baby and a first year birthday coming up for said toddler, a scrapbook on my Mac looks like a good idea.

What’s it do? What you expect. It’s a scrapbook. But it’s on your Mac. You add photos and scanned items, re-arrange them on a standard scrapbook page, add shadows, add text, add colorful elements, and play around in ways you never could with a scrapbook from Costco.

Is that worth $50? Chronos thinks so, and they may be right. In fact, they’re so confident they’re right, they’re willing to cut the price by $20 if you’ll order said iScrapbook in advance.

I wonder if they need the money to pay their iScrapbook iProgrammers? Perhaps Chronos is very close to having iScrapbook finished, but just need a little more money to pay the programmers. Or, maybe the programmers are holding iScrapbook hostage.

I don’t have a problem paying money for Mac software that I haven’t actually used yet, though that anti-reluctance is reserved for the likes of Apple, Adobe, and others of major league ilk. I do have a problem paying in advance for that which I can’t even try out-- for a month or two.

iScrapbook looks like a very attractive and useful Mac application. Name another one that does all that iScrapbook does. Do you know how many PowerPoint slides you have to create to come up with software like this?

Everything you’d ever want to do to a photograph in a scrapbook you can do with iScrapbook. Except actually try iScrapbook before you have the opportunity to buy it.

“Hubris” is often defined as excessive self-confidence. Steve Jobs has it. Apple, too. Other companies with great products or services demonstrate a hubristic attitude.

I want to try iScrapbook. I have a new baby, a growing family, so I need a scrapbook. I love the Mac. I own some Chronos products already, but the break they’re cutting for an advance purchase of iScrapbook is the same for everyone.

What would be good is if owners of Chronos software could receive the same $20 discount for 60 days after iScrapbook launches. Then I could truly try before the buy and feel good about Chronos, too.

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