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Mavericks May Be Free but Incompatibility Comes at a Price

Elijah Nicolas

I've spent more than $300 on various aviation logbook programs since the start of my career. It's actually quite ridiculous but when I started an electronic logbook, I was on a Windows PC coupled with my trusty Palm Treo 650. I had my Powerbook Titanium G4 as well, but there was no mobile solution so I looked the other way. Fast forward a few years later when I converted to the better program called LogTen Pro. Since then, I've become a HUGE fan of their creator Coradine Aviation Systems. I love great software and theirs has always been top-notch. It's always been far more superior and ahead of all the other logbook programs and when it comes down to it, it really is a polished Apple-like program. It's one of those programs that I'd like to think would make people switch over to a Mac because of the refinements within. I've even beta tested for Coradine when their mobile products were just coming out back when I had the iPhone 3G and iPhone 4.

When Apple released Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks last Tuesday as a free upgrade, I happen to be out on day three of a four day trip. The plan was to come home the next day, backup my MacBook Air and upgrade as soon as I set foot in my house. Good thing I didn't do it sooner because if I had, I would have had to pay, yet again, $99 to upgrade to version 6 which, by the way, is just over two years old.

There have been periods where discounts were given to upgrade to version 6 but I never felt compelled to continue the 18 month subscription. In this case, I would have been forced to upgrade because there is no fix in the near future nor will there ever be. If I went the high road and didn't pay, I would have been stuck with an awesome operating system and broke logbook. This is not the time either to have a broken logbook with airline applications and captain upgrade. Bad timing all together.

Is it bad programing that an older piece of software can't be made compatible with a new operating system? I'd like to think not, but what is it really? Coradine was very vague in providing details about which APIs or what it was that had changed to make my version of LogTen Pro 5 incompatible. Taken right from their Mavericks Release Page:

What changed?

Changes in OS X Mavericks APIs required us to rewrite a number of core functions within our apps. LogTen Pro 6.0.14 will be a free update!

It's always a free update within version numbers. Nothing new there. I'm glad they had a fix out immediately but now this is where I come in.

What about LogTen Pro 5?

Unfortunately, because of the changes in OS X Mavericks, LogTen Pro 5 cannot be made compatible. Much has changed since OS X Lion (10.7), which was the current Mac OS when LogTen Pro 5 development was completed in 2011. LogTen Pro 5 is supported on OS X Mountain Lion (10.8) and earlier.

What I'm trying to say is that even though Apple was kind enough to provide a huge upgrade to their operating system for free, it does come at a price after all. Unfortunately, I will not be upgrading any time soon to OS X 10.9 Mavericks until Coradine comes out with LogTen Pro 7 or maybe I'll just end up stuck. It's actually quite maddening really.

update: There have been others that were not as fortunate to hold off on upgrading to Mavericks and this is Coradine's response.

And here's a not so nice, in what I read sarcastic, response. Poor form Coradine.

And here's yet another conversation: