Magic Launch 1.2, Macword Review, Volume Pricing

This week has been full of news concerning Magic Launch. Tuesday, I released version 1.2 with two new criteria. The same day Macworld published a review by Rob Griffiths, giving Magic Launch a score of 4.5 mouses out of 5. And today I’m introducing a better thought and (much) less expensive volume pricing.

Magic Launch 1.2

Version 1.2 brings a new criterion that let you create a rule that will open a file in an application only when the application is already open. This can be very useful to make sure your files won’t launch heavy applications accidentally.

Another new criterion let you check the access path of a file. With it you can check if any part of a path contains a specified component. For instance, to match a file contained in any folder named “Generated” in a certain application, you can use the criterion like this:

access path  contains  /Generated/

One last mostly unpublicized but certainly welcome change is the removal of the system confirmation prompts about opening Magic Launch Agent for the first time when first double-clicking a document.

Macworld Review

Rob Griffiths from Macworld wrote a nice review about Magic Launch this Tuesday. Skipping to the conclusion, he says:

In my testing, Magic Launch worked very well, used no measurable system resources, and gracefully solved the problem Apple introduced with Snow Leopard. It’s well worth its cost if you spend a lot of time working with the “generic” file types—text files and images, especially—most affected by this change.

I would say it the customizable rules also solve problems that never really had a solution before. But it’s certain that for someone like Rob who feels aggrieved by the new rules about opening files in Snow Leopard, being able to restore the behaviour using creator codes is probably the most wanted feature, and apparently Magic Launch fixes that very well.

All in all, Magic Launch got 4.5 mouses out of 5, a quite good rating. Thank you Rob.

Volume Pricing

I got some comments lately about how Magic Launch can come quite expensive for potential consumers wishing to use it on many people desks. Previously, the only volume pricing option was a site license priced at about the same price as a 50-users license. This left no option to get a good deal if you had, say, 50 users.

The new volume pricing is much more thoughtful. It progressively reduces the price as the number of licensed users increase. The savings can be quite dramatic. For instance, if you purchase a 20-users license, you get a 50% rebate (per user) over the single-user license. You can look at the exact pricing on the purchase page by clicking the “volume pricing available” link above the quantity field.

With this I hope Magic Launch becomes a better options for small departments or companies who wants to equip everyone with Magic Launch.