# Q. for the Programmer Community, "Naming"



## Adonsa (Nov 16, 2010)

SUBJECT: Software_Application Naming, the "For Mac" Suffix

Greetings,

_Disclaimer: I realize this does not speak for all Mac users.  This is merely a users observation.  This observation applies to programmers of cross-platform apps. _

Reference is made to the Avangate "How to Name a Soft_ware Product" web_page at  
http://www.avangate.com/articles/product-naming-114.htm
which gives programmers guidance as to how to name their softwares.

There seems to be more and more Mac softwares appearing on the MacUpdate web_site with a "for Mac" suffix addendum to the software title, some examples are 

Illium
Wondershare
Tipard

and many others where their IBM-PC ver is default, and carries no suffix, but their Mac version appends the title with "*for Mac*."

Programmers.  it comes across as a bit disrespectful to the Mac community whereby the default title name is just the title, and the Mac version carries the "for Mac" suffix.  It comes across as if software_developers are "doing Mac users a favor" by tossing in a Mac version; almost like, tossing a few crumbs to the Mac community.  I know this isn't your intent, it's just obvious when one looks at your product list.

Software-Developers.  Given the Mac's vast superiority over the PC industry_standard, why not make the default app the Mac_version and add a suffix only to the PC/Win version (ie. For PC, For Win, For IBM, etc)? Or, if that's too much trouble, why not use totally different software titles for each platform?  

Another argument for making the Mac title default without the suffix, consider that M (Mac) comes before P (PC) in the alphabet, A (APPL) comes before I (IBM) or M (Microsoft), "OS-X" comes before W (Win), then, using this argument, if your titles are in alphabetical order, the Macintosh version comes first and so give the PC users the suffix at the end.


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## Giaguara (Nov 16, 2010)

Interesting. I kind of thought when an app had a version available for the other OSes as well, then it would be Someapp_ for Windows_, Someapp _for Linux_, and Someapp for Mac OS X. 
Otherwise that naming convention would be I guess OS-racistic...


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Nov 17, 2010)

A lot of companies don't even distinguish between what software is available for what platform in the software name.

"Acrobat" is "Acrobat" on all three supported OSs (Linux, Windows, Mac), as is the rest of Adobe's fleet of software.  There's no "Photoshop for Mac" -- there's just "Photoshop."


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