Important Update on Igor Pro® for macOS

This is very sad news! 

Initially introduced to Igor Pro by @Tony (probably in 2000) I have been using it now for almost 20 years exclusively on Mac, and I can't imagine to revert back to Windows at the moment. Igor became my bread & butter program which I use daily, and except for a spreadsheet program in which I just organise some data before copy & paste them into Igor, it's the only data analysis and plotting tool that I use. 

I get that economic constraints are essential for a company and that it was not easy for WM to make this call. Time will tell what I do beyond the 3-4 years horizon when IP9 will become more and more ancient. At least so far, I haven't had particularly good experiences with Parallels, at least not on my present machine. Again, I can understand your decision but of course it's still a disappointment, which, I'm sure, you'll understand, too.

When I first saw this I hesitated given the date.  I even double checked with Linkedin, the name attached to the announcement.

To say this sad, understates my feelings. I am often asked why I use IP instead of Python, and the answer is always the same and two fold.  First is speed and I mean speed to an answer of the problem, insight, and this is often tied to being able to generate visualizations very quickly. The second is the support from Wavemetrics team, which is so far ahead of any software package I have ever encountered.

The first advantage is going away, I use the MacOS because it is an environment that allows me to extremely productive and using IP in Windows would eliminate that certainly if it is the only program needing virtualization.  The second advantage may still exist, but?

Given this announcement, my eagerness to beta test IP 10, will be replaced by moving things to Python.  It was a good run.

As a slight side note, in my consulting business I often act as the first introduction to IP for my clients and quite often that results in site license purchases though mostly for Windows.  The first user often is a Mac user.

Andy

hegedus wrote:

When I first saw this I hesitated given the date.  I even double checked with Linkedin, the name attached to the announcement.

The announcement is not an April Fools day joke. We didn't think of that being a possible issue until pretty late in our day yesterday, so for those of you on the other side of the international date line it may appear to have been published on April 1. Sorry for any confusion there.

I am not entering the debate about MacOS vs Windows, but want to mention another reason why Windows has the advantage with Igor Pro instrument control. John Weeks' NIDAQ Tools package was by far the best solution for a multi-instrurment experiment I developed several years age during a period when Apple was deserting that capability. That, coupled with WaveMetrics' fantastic support made me thankful that, back in the day, they had started the Windows version.

hegedus wrote:

Given this announcement, my eagerness to beta test IP 10, will be replaced by moving things to Python.  It was a good run.

If it makes any difference, Andy, Igor Pro 10 is able to directly call Python code, pass data back and forth with Python, etc. So I hope you may still find it useful, even if it isn't on your operating system of choice. As a mac-preferring user myself, I understand the disappointment though. 

While I am not personally affected by this change as a Windows user, I worry about the possibly reduced number of users, of course. Furthermore, I assume this announcement makes it certain that we cannot hope for an expanded support of other OSes such as Linux. With all what is happening lately in the Windows sphere (forced migration to 11, more and more forced online connectivity, advertisements, extreme push of AI, just to name a few) I was looking hard into finally moving away to Mac even, if not Linux. I guess I rather have to look into making Windows a bearable experience instead. That said, a certain popular rival software package is also not available for systems other than Windows (and to my knowledge never was), so I think it is commendable that you were supporting two systems as such a small team.

Ben Murphy-Baum wrote:

 

hegedus wrote:

 

Given this announcement, my eagerness to beta test IP 10, will be replaced by moving things to Python.  It was a good run.

 

 

If it makes any difference, Andy, Igor Pro 10 is able to directly call Python code, pass data back and forth with Python, etc. So I hope you may still find it useful, even if it isn't on your operating system of choice. As a mac-preferring user myself, I understand the disappointment though. 

I am working with a client now where we have a work flow quantifiying images that actually has to go to Python twice to access some AI models, a deep learning and a second random forest.  I had eagerly anticipated IP 10 to help with those workflows.  On the flip side, this client requires me to work on their hardware for security reasons.  Initially they provided a windows laptop with IP, but the user experience was so miserable andI was so inefficient, that with my sponsors assistance the IT department provided me with an iMac. And to flip back, as a result of my work the client acquired site licenses for IP.  Not the only time I was able to sell clients on the power of IP.

Given that experience, I think I will pass on Windows based IP.  I will try to live with IP9 as long as possible.

Andy

Ben Murphy-Baum wrote:

 

hegedus wrote:

 

Given this announcement, my eagerness to beta test IP 10, will be replaced by moving things to Python.  It was a good run.

 

 

If it makes any difference, Andy, Igor Pro 10 is able to directly call Python code, pass data back and forth with Python, etc. So I hope you may still find it useful, even if it isn't on your operating system of choice. As a mac-preferring user myself, I understand the disappointment though. 

I am working with a client now where we have a work flow quantifiying images that actually has to go to Python twice to access some AI models, a deep learning and a second random forest.  I had eagerly anticipated IP 10 to help with those workflows.  On the flip side, this client requires me to work on their hardware for security reasons.  Initially they provided a windows laptop with IP, but the user experience was so miserable andI was so inefficient, that with my sponsors assistance the IT department provided me with an iMac. And to flip back, as a result of my work the client acquired site licenses for IP.  Not the only time I was able to sell clients on the power of IP.

Given that experience, I think I will pass on Windows based IP.  I will try to live with IP9 as long as possible.

Andy

Sad news that Igor 10 will not be developed for the Mac. I hope that ARM will still be supported in the future.
Any experience of how well Igor runs using Wine or Codeweaver's CrossOver?