Realmac Software has been a pillar of the Mac developer community since the company was founded in 2002. In 2004, they released RapidWeaver, an excellent template-based website editor, to an adoring public. In 2008, they released the much-anticipated LittleSnapper, a fantastic screenshot tool with special support for clipping photos of webpages and design inspirations. More recently, Realmac has been in the news for their acquisition of Socialite (née Eventbox).

Realmac is also notable for being the home of one of the younger Mac devs out there, in the form of one Danny Greg.

Hi, Danny! Thanks for talking to us. How old are you? How did you get into Mac development? Did you develop your own apps before you started at Realmac?

I am 20 years old, 21 next month ¹. So one of the youngsters in the community.

As for how I got into mac development, its a bit of a fairy tale story. When I was 12 I came back from a cricket match with the idea that I wanted to make something on the computer that would keep score of a cricket game with just one press of a key for each ball bowled. My dad is an accountant and therefore pretty awesome with Excel. So we came up with a spreadsheet that would pretty much do it.

At school I had a fantastic computing teacher, once he saw this he started introducing me to programming and giving me tasks to do in my own time. It just so happens that he was a complete Mac addict. This rubbed off on me to such an extent that I started running an OS X 86 box way before I got my first mac.

I learnt to program in REALbasic in and outside of the classroom. We chose that as it produced Mac as well as windows apps to a pretty decent extent. It was around this time, I was around 16, that I started becoming really interested in the indie Mac culture and applications. I also started writing reviews for some Mac websites which helped me start to chat to developers and immerse myself a bit more in the community.

I started my own company when I was 17/18 and created an app called BitClamp. This went pretty well and I ended up licensing the software to FastForward Software to sell which was great as it let me just do the development. I recently ceased selling the software as due to my current commitments I cannot maintain it at all. I also joined the Latitude Browser team with my friends Sebastiaan de With and Leonardo Cassarani.

It was that that caught the attention of a certain Nik Fletcher at Realmac. After a chance meeting in Brighton and subsequent lunch I was invited to the offices of Realmac. After a few more phone calls and chats with Dan (Counsell, founder of Realmac) I was offered a job on the cocoa team.

The Realmac team: [From L-R] Luke Hefson, Danny Greg, Aron Carroll, Dan Counsell, Nik Fletcher, Keith Duncan. [via]

Somehow I had managed to fall into one of the few full time Cocoa jobs before leaving college (I think that’s high school to those in the states) and my career path as a mac developer was set.

Quite the fairy tale story indeed. What’s it like working at Realmac? What does a typical workday look like?

As Realmac is my first real full time job I have no way to compare it to anything but I’m pretty sure it’s damn good :p. I get to work with some of the most talented designers and developers in my chosen field, on a daily basis. It also happens that they have become great friends of mine. So really a day in the life of someone at Realmac is just doing what you love to do with your mates who also happen to have the same passion as you. We also have not-so typical work days when we are in the office to crazy hours, get some food in and make sure we meet that deadline. But that’s another story .

Danny snaps a shot of Dan “The Big Man” Counsell ordering Aarol Caroll around, while goofing around on his own screen. [via]

We like to play hard too though, there is a fair amount of Call of Duty 4 played outside of office hours and we enjoy our trips to the pub where we usually just end up talking about “work” again.

I want to issue a collective congratulations on the acquisition of Socialite. I was a fan of EventBox since day one, so I’m looking forward to seeing what you all do with it. How long has that been in the works, and what brought it about?

Well thanks very much! I would rather not comment about the particulars of the business side of things as that isn’t really part of my job at Realmac. However, I will say that it is an app that we have all followed from the start of its beta period and we are very excited to have the opportunity to put our stamp on it and ensure it has a bright development future.

The acquisition is a big deal. Has the community reacted as well as you hoped?

There were a few unhappy or unsure comments floating about and I can understand that. I think the comment who suggested we were the “new Adobe” was my favourite. Some people seem to think we are some giant software corporation who are going to ruin their favourite app. The reality is we are just 7 guys who love to make Mac software—we don’t intend on ruining anything.

I will also say, to allay some fears, that Socialite doesn’t affect our other applications. We are hard at work writing updates for both RapidWeaver and LittleSnapper as well as Socialite.

It seems like Realmac competes with Apple (as well as Karelia and perhaps loosely Adobe) with RapidWeaver, and competes with Apple and any number of other companies with LittleSnapper. Obviously, you guys are doing pretty well despite (or because of) the competition. What do you think sets your software apart from the competition?

We try and find that spot in the market which isn’t being directly catered for rather than directly compete. We like to think that RapidWeaver offers you a large chunk more flexibility than iWeb for example. LittleSnapper is something that we really wanted, a way to capture and manage your inspiration. Although comparisons can be drawn with other apps because we targeted it at that specific use it means different design decisions get taken and the app tends to fit more nicely in the target workflow.

Enough about the work side of things. You mentioned running an OSx86 machine for a while; when was that? When did you get your first Mac?

I hacked OS X onto my family computer mid-2006 I think… stretching my memory now :p. My first proper mac I got in 2007 I think.

What do you run now?

My main development machine is my Unibody MacBook Pro, which runs a 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo with 4 gigs of RAM and a 320gig HDD. I am very much an advocate for the “1 laptop lifestyle” as it means I can work from anywhere. That said I of course plug it into big displays at home and work :p.

Aside from the other guys at Realmac, who are your favorite Mac and iPhone developers? What are your favorite pieces of Mac and iPhone software?

For companies I have to mention Panic and our friends over at Sofa and Marketcircle. All are similar teams doing what they love and cranking out really great software.

I am a bit of a Mac app junkie as I am sure readers can appreciate, but apps that I use on a daily basis tend to be developer tools so I have a slight bias towards them. Not counting all our software that I use, I really dig Billings for managing the small amount of freelance I do. Changes for file diffing and Cornerstone for SVN working copy and repository management. For web development I shift between Coda and Espresso & CSSEdit. :p I also love Tweetie (on both platforms).

If I remember correctly from Twitter, you’re in a band and involved in theatre. Tell us about that.

Well I have been a musician since the age of 5. My mum is a classical violinist and my Dad… well he just likes The Who… a lot. I ended up learning the guitar. I was member of a band called Silent Disguise (I think that is the one you are referring to) up in London for a few years and as we started getting places I also started working for Realmac so I had to leave fairly recently, which is a shame. However I have formed another local band called “Above our Station” with my brother where I currently play guitar and sing.

Pelting out some tunes with fellow guitarist Carl [via]

The other aspect of my performer life is I am also an actor. Again I started young, I was 7 when I was first on the stage if I remember correctly. I have been involved with various professional, semi-pro and amateur productions but these days I am heavily involved with a local semi-professional theatre company who I usually perform with. They also have a drama school where I teach on saturday mornings.

Well, it sounds like you have a lot on your plate. Thanks for taking the time out of your schedule to talk to me!

Thanks for the interview!

•••

Man, I’m twenty-two and suddenly I feel like an old man. I’m off to go learn Cocoa, join a rock band, and start acting classes. In the meantime, if you’ve got any questions or comments for Danny, you know where to put ‘em! I’ll be back in two weeks with an interview with a rockstar Cocoa dev whose apps tend to put Apple’s development team to shame.

Tagged as: danny greg, interview, littlesnapper, rapidweaver, realmacsoftware