404 Error
The requested URL /iris-10.dmg was not found on this server.

Brilliant. Wunderbar. Hmmm…. Went to the main Iris page and finally downloaded a real copy.

Some of the glitches had been smoothed out, yet I am not impressed with this. It still feels very minimal, doesn’t offer too much, yet they are asking $79 for this?! Sorry, but Pixelmator and Acorn offered much more out of the gate, and at a lower cost. Here are a couple of problems I’m finding with Nolobe’s Iris:

1) There are already several other applications out there named Iris. This causes for confusion, and could perhaps even lead to a lawsuit.
2) Would it be asking too much to have tool tips appear when my mouse hovers over a button?
3) Where’s the beef? Feature-wise, this application just isn’t there yet. And considering that it requires Leopard to run it, that will cut out people who are still using Tiger (which works perfectly well, thank you).
4) No Help or other documentation.

Image editors is an area I’ve had an eye on for a number of years. As Photoshop has continued getting larger and more expensive, I have had my eye out for a lower-end image drawing and editing program, including trying to design my own. Pixelmator and Acorn came out last year, which answered my call, and I have copies of both. However, Iris seems to have garnered far too much attention so early in the game and it just doesn’t seem that it has baked long enough.

But in the spirit of competition, a healthy fight between a few strong competitors should only make them stronger. ATI and nVIDIA continually push each other. Aperture and Lightroom keep going back and forth. In the end, we can all win — it doesn’t need to be a zero sum game.