Snagit for Mac is Coming!
August 31, 2009
There are pretty much only 3 things left in my computing life that I envy on the Windows side of the fence:
1) Games
2) Articulate
3) Snagit
TechSmith Camtasia used to appear on my list as well, but that was obviated first by ScreenFlow, and later (last week, in fact) by Camtasia for Mac (huzzah!!!). I am currently putting Camtasia for Mac through its paces and will post a review soon – along with an opportunity for you, dear reader, to win a free copy for yourself. Stay tuned!
I’ve not much time for gaming, so #1 is not terribly important to me (and on the days when it is important, I simply boot into Windows on my iMac or play on a console). As for Articulate, well, I hold out little hope as their software is so tightly welded (wedded?) to Office for Windows. But at least I don’t have to yearn for Snagit much (?) longer! TechSmith recently announced on their blog that Snagit is indeed in the “early stages of development.” (Wait, did they say “early stages?” *sob*)
I’ve posted several times on the sad state of Mac-based screen capture software, and while we now have two excellent (and Windows-beating) contenders for motion screen capture tools (ScreenFlow and Camtasia for Mac), there is still no true challenger to Snagit for Windows for static captures. I look forward to this changing.
Hopefully TechSmith will eschew the mostly-crummy interface of Snagit for Windows (sorry guys!) and make it completely Mactastic (as they successfully did with Camtasia for the Mac – more on that in my upcoming review).
I can only hope the wait won’t be as long this time – they announced Camtasia for Mac way back in January ‘08 I believe, and just delivered last week. I’m hoping an 18-month wait is not in store for Snagit for Mac. I’m optimistic that the learning process of developing Camtasia will result in much faster development on Snagit.
However long the wait, I welcome TechSmith to Mac-based eLearning development with open arms and great expectations.
Posted in Apple, eLearning Development Tools
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September 1st, 2009 at 9:35 am
Thanks for the welcome to the Mac-based eLearning Dev!
We’re always learning. And, feedback always helps. Stay tuned for Snagit on Mac… You’ll be one of the first to know!
Betsy Weber | Chief Evangelist | TechSmith
+1 (517) 410-0030 | b.weber@techsmith.com
blog: http://visuallounge.techsmith.com
twitter: @betsyweber and @techsmith
September 1st, 2009 at 9:35 am
I have never used Snagit. I have used Grab the OS X included still capture utility. I realize Snagit has some built in publishing capabilities… bot for the most part, my screenshots are just being imported into an authoring program anyway… why pay for authoring features that I don’t need. Combine Grab with Preview and Mail and many of the same distribution features exist within the suite of included OS X features. Just saying, this doesn’t seem like the end of the world
September 1st, 2009 at 12:55 pm
I have used SI in the past, and my current employer uses it as well. It’s definitely one of the most fully-featured screen capture packages available. I’m glad to see it making the move over to Apple hardware, as I am seriously considering a platform change in the near future.
September 5th, 2009 at 3:11 am
I made the move over to Macs about 2.5 ears ago, and have never looked back. If you want an awesome screen cap tool for the Mac, have a look at LittleSnapper.
One of the things that people moving from Windows to Mac often take time to realise (and I was one of them), is that software on the Mac tends to follow the Unix tradition of being relatively simple and doing one thing really well, unlike Windows software which tends to be more complex and have a wider range of features. As jra said, in many cases, you do something else with the screenshots once you have them, so do you really need publishing tools in screen grab software?
September 5th, 2009 at 9:06 am
Hey Barry, thanks for mentioning LittleSnapper. I own that app and it’s a good one, but its functionality is not (yet) in the same ballpark as Snagit. Nor are any of the other Mac screencapture apps.
And jra is right – sometimes all you need is a simple capture, and Grab (or many other apps) do just fine with that. But if you need more (and I often do), I find the current selection of Mac screencapture apps ultimately unsatisfying.
I’m hoping that Snagit for Mac will not only bring better tools, but push the competition as well.
September 14th, 2009 at 11:49 am
[...] I look forward to seeing how Camtasia progresses, as well as the arrival of other products (ahem, Snagit) they have in the pipeline. Sharing Is [...]
December 19th, 2009 at 5:52 am
this beta is now out and I checked it out, it looks like a nice app, but $50?
Chris, what do you think Snagit gives you that Skitch does not? I’ve got Skitch for free and it works beautifully, very cool app. Why would I pay $50 for SnagIt?
December 19th, 2009 at 9:28 pm
Rick, thus far I am mostly underwhelmed with the Snagit for Mac beta. It’s OK, but it hasn’t really wowed me.
Yes, Skitch is fine, but is missing some basic annotation functionality I like to have, like callouts, blurs, etc. Snagit has both of these. LIttle Snapper is also a decent tool, but again lacks a lot of annotation tools (and the inability to create a straight arrow is absurd). For some reason Mac screen capture apps are obsessed with the online sharing of captures at the neglect of actual annotation tools, which many of us in the eLearning world want and need.
And Skitch has been in beta for what, more than 2 years? Ugh.
Can’t anyone make a truly great screen capture app for Mac? I’ve yet to see it. I had my fingers crossed for Snagit, but as I said, so far I’m not feeling it. Worth $50? Unlikely.
December 20th, 2009 at 6:12 am
Chris, that make sense, thanks. You need robust annotation tools and while those are available in other reasonably accessible apps, you want a self contained solution. I can understand that. At this point I have little if any annotation requirements, I’m usually capturing screen shots for tech support, or pictures I want to save for reference, actually have never even used Skitch’s annotation functionality. So for me it works fine.
You also make a nice and broader point about the software development community. “Beta” used to mean something. No more. It used to mean “we feel our software is almost ready for prime time and general release but we’d like to put it through broader tests outside of our controlled environment first, so we’re releasing it as ‘beta’”. Now, it’s just a way to get an app into the wild faster, let your users be your QA department, and if all is well, shoot, just leave it. ‘beta’ is just a meaningless label at this point. How long was gmail in beta?
Thanks again for the response.