‘A New Chapter for Bartender’

Ben Surtees, the original developer of the Mac app Bartender, sets the record straight about a flurry of reportage about him selling to Applause, whose self-described mission is to “unlock the potential of the iOS indie app ecosystem.” There are a lot of feelings about the whole thing — see Michael Tsai for the greatest hits, along with TidBITS and 512 Pixels.

All that said, I wonder about the underlying reasoning behind him selling in the first place. You have small indies talking about the process of working on an app, like “Under The Radar” and “Core Intuition”, but there’s clearly something missing in the indie scene that would compel someone to sell like that. Is it an indie-focused support shop? Small business support for learning how to grow healthfully or responsibly? A better community for being able to talk about the challenges of being an indie? Something to chew on.