Zoom It
Appatit, Inc. develops easy-to-use utility and productivity applications that help Mac users focus on their work. The Appatit flagship app is Zoom It, a powerful on-screen magnifier that's always available but never interferes with the work at hand. The Zoom It magnifying loupe is centered over the cursor and moves naturally, enabling magnification of up to 500 percent! Simple keyboard shortcuts keep the loupe at your fingertips.
“I am so impressed by your team and their professionalism in completing this project. The Zoom It app far exceeded my expectations. Not only is the app far better than the competitors, the $.99 price point offers greater revenue opportunities than the $3.99 cost of an inferior product.“
The Challenge
Between the amazing new monitors used in the MacBook Pro and iMacs, and Apple's revolutionary Thunderbolt I/O technology, some users have had difficulty reading all the content displayed on high-resolution screen. An application was needed, not only to assist people who wear reading glasses or find themselves straining to see small elements, but also those with perfect vision required to see individual pixels, including:
- Designers hoping for a better look at layout and design elements, palettes, and tools;
- Project collaborators who need to send each other detailed screenshots; and
- Presenters highlighting specific areas of an on-screen presentation for an audience.
Several applications at the App Store attempted, albeit unsuccessfully, to address this problem.The product with the most downloads was riddled with issues, such as an unattractive interface, slow loupe content rendering, and settings that were not user-friendly.The user experience was poor and reviewers gave it a low, one-star ranking.
Joel Kraus, founder of Appatit, immediately saw an opportunity to create a superior product – the perfect loupe solution for Mac OS X. He knew what he wanted: an app that rendered content quickly, looked great, and had customizable hotkeys – features not offered in the products available at the time.
After Kraus finalized his outline detailing his specifications, he began looking for the best contract software development firm. Kraus met with several firms, but he was especially impressed with Mercury Development. During the selection process Mercury Development displayed not only an understanding of the business concept, but offered suggestions that improved on the original idea. Based on his specifications, the Mercury Development team worked with Kraus to develop a detailed proposal highlighting all aspects of the app's functionality. Learning that Mercury Development's other Mac OS X customers included Symantec and Comodo, a leading provider of antivirus software, further solidified Kraus's impression of the company and understanding of its capabilities. Mercury Development captured his vision better than the competition and offered an attractive price.As a result, Appatit contracted Mercury Development to develop the app.
The Solution
The Mercury Development team worked hard to deliver on its promises, maintaining active communication throughout the project to ensure that all expectations were met. The customer's vision was to generate the illusion that a real loupe was hovering over the screen. Mercury Development's in-house designers and developers worked with the Appatit design to team to create one with a natural look, featuring realistic borders and added gloss effects. Developers further implemented the designer's vision by paying special attention to optimizing processing time and delivering high frame per second (FPS) speed – an extremely important feature when the content behind the loupe is changing, or when the loupe moves quickly over the screen.
Another of Mercury Development's valuable additions to the project was the creation and implementation of the customer's concept of a rectangular loupe option, in addition to the planned, standard round loupe. On a computer screen where all windows are rectangular, this extra feature was extremely useful.
After the company developers implemented the core functionality of the app, flexible settings were added.These settings enabled users to create customized hotkeys to ensure that the loupe would not interfere with other applications in use, and to polish the overall user experience.
In an effort to provide even more value to the client and enrich the user experience, Mercury Development built in some optional features in the app. Extra features included an improved instruction screen and added support for multi-display configurations.
Mercury Development ran the application through extensive testing in its lab, confirming that the product met the project specifications. Satisfied, the Mercury Development team managed the cumbersome submission process to the App Store. To further improve the customer experience and streamline submission, Mercury Development worked with Kraus to collect and compile the information necessary to guarantee a speedy approval. Apple accepted Zoom It on the first submission attempt, once again proving Mercury Development's expertise.
The Result
Although the scope of the project increased during development, Mercury Development still met the original two month timeline. Noteworthy was Mercury Development's consistent communication with Kraus and the Appatit team to ensure the project exceeded expectations. Active discussions throughout the app's creation, in combination with Mercury Development's expertise in app development, resulted in a best-in-class product designed quickly and efficiently.
“Although your Mac will already have a zoom function built in, Zoom It is much sleeker and lets you magnify areas without losing the rest of your screen.“
“It has plenty of customization options. I've wanted a program like this for a very long time. The older you get, the more you need stuff like this.“
“I'm totally in love with this app!“
“This is really cool.“