Review of Mac version

  • I hate having to do this, but I've just had to add this review to the Mac App Store for Aerofly 2 for the Mac.

    I was very reluctant to do so, but I feel I need to warn other Mac users who are showing an interest.

    I hope this doesn't get deleted - it's a genuine concern and one which the devs here seem unable to address. I appreciate writing software can be difficult (I do it for a living), but I feel like I purchased a beta on a promise that has never materialised. I sincerely hope I can amend my review to be more positive in the near future.

  • The Mac version was considered a fully released product when it was released, so once we get back to the Mac version we will provide more updates to it.

    This doesn't mean that Mac users will get all of the DLC's available for the PC version; it's possible but not guaranteed.

    The reason why we haven't responded to you is because we have already answered these questions a few times on the forums.

    IPACS Development Team Member

    I'm just a cook, I don't own the restaurant.
    On behalf of Torsten, Marc, and the rest of the IPACS team, we would all like to thank you for your continued support.

    Regards,

    Jeff

  • Hi Jeff,

    In that case, I would respectfully refer you back to the product announcement, specifically "This new version will be equal to the PC version so don't expect a watered down port, expect the same experience that PC users are currently enjoying."

    We Mac users most definitely do not enjoy the same experience that PC users are currently enjoying and, from your response, there’s no guarantee we ever will.

    Please therefore advise how I can obtain a refund for the product I purchased based on the description provided, which I only now find out wasn’t in fact correct and which may never materialise as advertised. Or, alternatively, how I can exchange my current Mac version for a Windows version so I can use the application to the potential described in the above product announcement.

    Regards,

    Mark

  • Considering that I wrote that I don't need referring. To be clear here, yes the Mac version is exactly the same version as the PC version. There is no watered down port here. It's just that we haven't provided a version upgrade path yet for the Mac version but at some point we will get that moving forward as well. Same goes for DLC as currently the primary build is through Steam and all other versions are secondary.

    What you received for the Mac version was a complete product. Just give us time to provide Mac customers the DLC's and an update path.

    IPACS Development Team Member

    I'm just a cook, I don't own the restaurant.
    On behalf of Torsten, Marc, and the rest of the IPACS team, we would all like to thank you for your continued support.

    Regards,

    Jeff

  • I don't understand why it won't handle current DLC if it's "exactly the same"?

    I'm not trying to be awkward, I simply don't understand. If it's "exactly the same", I'd expect to behave in exactly the same way as the Windows version. That includes being able to drop a folder of scenery into it and for it to work, "exactly the same" as the Windows version does. If you can't do that (which apparently we can't), then it's not "exactly the same".

    I appreciate OSX has a different file system, but ultimately it's a bunch of files in a folder structure, so how come it doesn't work? Given it's "exactly the same".

    And you could very well argue that, as you "haven't provided a version upgrade path yet for the Mac version", it very much is a watered down port.

    If you sold it along the lines of "This is all you're getting now and for the foreseeable future - please don't expect this to be expandable in the same way the Windows version is", that'd be a different matter. But you don't.

  • What drhotwing1 will not reveal is that for some reason, they chose not to work with the Mac App Store. There are many software titles that can process updates and add-ons via the MacAppStore, so I am not sure what the issue is... My guess is it may revolve around $$$... Maybe Apple wants too much of a cut of the revenue?

    Another flaw in drhotwing1's logic is that, just because the Aerofly declared the Mac version a full product, it will be received the same way by the customers. Aerofly F'ed up by releasing on MacAppStore if they were not willing to support. They should have just offered the Mac version as part of the Steam product, but they opted for the extra $$$ of a separate sale. Now they have a customer relations issue.

  • Please hang in there, the reason why no updates yet is because we are a small group and haven't had time yet to proceed. So please don't speculate here.

    IPACS Development Team Member

    I'm just a cook, I don't own the restaurant.
    On behalf of Torsten, Marc, and the rest of the IPACS team, we would all like to thank you for your continued support.

    Regards,

    Jeff

  • The main reasons for the slow update cycle of Aerofly FS on the Mac are currently two things:

    - The Mac App Store does not properly handle large App downloads. We tried to get in contact with Apple, but didn't get any real help yet. The issue is, that with each new update we publish, the user has to download the full package all over again. So we decided to reduce the update cycle a lot compared to the Steam version, until we can resolve this issue.

    - The next reason is the deprecation of OpenGL on Mac computers. This forces us to switch to Metal which requires some heavy development work.

    A few years ago, we were quite happy with the Apple way of doing the App distribution and supporting developers. But the recent changes have put a huge pressure on us to regularly deliver updates and to get good performance.

  • The main reasons for the slow update cycle of Aerofly FS on the Mac are currently two things:

    - The Mac App Store does not properly handle large App downloads. We tried to get in contact with Apple, but didn't get any real help yet. The issue is, that with each new update we publish, the user has to download the full package all over again. So we decided to reduce the update cycle a lot compared to the Steam version, until we can resolve this issue.

    - The next reason is the deprecation of OpenGL on Mac computers. This forces us to switch to Metal which requires some heavy development work.

    A few years ago, we were quite happy with the Apple way of doing the App distribution and supporting developers. But the recent changes have put a huge pressure on us to regularly deliver updates and to get good performance.

    But you've reduced the update cycle to zero, e.g. no updates at all. Don't use the Mac App Store if it's not suitable for your needs. Does the Mac App Store not use incremental updates as iOS does? Genuine question - I know iOS apps only download what's required when updating, not the full package. But in either case, I'd rather download the full package say once a month for updates than simply have no updates.

    Also, the switch to Metal was very well publicised, so should've come as no surprise.

  • We will of course publish an update for the Mac version, but we need to do further tests first. Our current Metal implementation seems to be working ok, but a few older Mac's still show visual issues as not all features we use on OpenGL are available in Metal.

    The announcement of the OpenGL deprecation was published after we released Aerofly FS for Mac.

    Also the issues with the Mac App Store only became apparent once the App was live, e.g. we saw the incremental updates did not work properly.

  • admin - You don't need to have the user download the entire app along with DLC's each time as part of the update process, only the main application. You self host the DLC content and store it within the users local preferences folder. This is the way the app store can follow Steam without issues.

    Ping me via DM and I'll walk you through it.

  • We will of course publish an update for the Mac version, but we need to do further tests first. Our current Metal implementation seems to be working ok, but a few older Mac's still show visual issues as not all features we use on OpenGL are available in Metal.

    The announcement of the OpenGL deprecation was published after we released Aerofly FS for Mac.

    Also the issues with the Mac App Store only became apparent once the App was live, e.g. we saw the incremental updates did not work properly.

    Ah! I still have no idea to buy the MAC version or not but I see that there could be problems.

  • We apologize for the slow update cycle of the Mac version, but due to some Apple guidelines we were forced to change some critical components. At this point our version is not stable enough for public release. We are working on this, but at this point its currently difficult to give an exact release date, sorry about this.

  • Critical components in the Mac delivery code for MAS? Aerofly 2 code? Perhaps some of us can assist you... Mac users are well past 9 months in waiting for some sort of news, refresh, update, etc...

    Creating a multi platform flight simulator product require a lot of savvy and sophisticated coding... Please don't expect us to believe you cannot figure out how to update it!