MainMenu - 2.0.3

Trying to be objective here. MainMenu was free for so long, when the then author could have been justified in charging a fee. Obviously the new owners purchased it to make a killing. However, by charging $20 they are in danger of killing it altogether. I would be willing to pay $10 based on shareware fee of othe utilities (some of which are STILL free). However, its unique in that its the only menu based application. The utility has changed very little after changing hands and therefore I would respectfully suggest that a touch of greed has entered in here. My oft quoted response is "Halve the price, triple the profit". At $20 I would suggest that all those (or nearly all) who enjoyed the free app are continuing to do so. A respectful wake up call to the new owners - revive the patient before it dies on you. There is a fine line between honest profit and outright greed - step back a little. Even try a special for a month at say$5 and guage the response from thee?

I have used earlier releases of MainMenu for some time and found it worth the time it took to download and install, but that ended with 2.0. In one release, it went from 5-star to 1-star.

Considering that is is nothing more than a one-stop interface for things that are already a part of OS-X, those earlier versions were priced appropriately, as Freeware. But, with version 2.0, that appropriate value ended, with a loud crash. They suddenly raised the price to an absurd $20, but added only a couple of new features that, like most of the rest of the features, are easily accomplished in only a few clicks in the OS. Huh???

After all, all that it does, in most cases, is save the user a few mouse clicks. In those other few cases, the alternative to a menu item might require the user to enter a single line command in the Terminal (which, incidentally, can be easily accomplished in Automator). In every case the functionality is already part of OS-X. All that they have done is to put a cute interface on those existing features. As a point in fact, that's pretty much what Automator does.

Though MainMenu is far from being a great application (in fact, it's not an application, but rather, an interface to Apple applications), those earlier versions could save a little time and so, were worth the effort to download. It was a great Free interface. But, considering that the average user could, with little effort, create a folder with a group of Automator scripts, to do the same things, those earlier versions were priced right.

There are several FREE apps out there that do everything that MainMenu does, albeit with different interfaces. In fact, most people will probably consider some of the other interfaces to be far superior, since those others don't take up space on the menu bar. I personally never had a reason, to go looking for anything else, since I only ran MainMenu when I needed it and Quit it, immediately afterwards, saving the menu bar space for really useful items.

Note to MainMenu developers: GET OVER YOURSELVES! IT'S AN INTERFACE FOR EXISTING FUNCTIONALITY; NOT A STAND-ALONE APPLICATION!

As for me, I still have the earlier version of MainMenu backed up on my Time Capsule, so I may just go back to that one. OTOH, I may decide that I prefer the interface on one of those other similar, but free tools that I found, before posting this review. Either way, I refuse to pay $20 for something that does what I can do in Automator or AppleScript, without a whole lot of effort and is already available at no cost, elsewhere.