The first beta of Antetype was released around the time I got out of school and started my career as a UX designer. A couple years later, growing frustrated with the abysmal state of UI design tools at the time, I started using Antetype more and more as I realized how it fit my mental model of how such a tool should work. Eventually I convinced the startup I was working at to switch to Antetype from Photoshop. Those were fun times. Having my whole team on a cutting edge tool that was 10x better than anything else out there, posting on Get Satisfaction every day almost building the app alongside you guys, early morning meetings with Al Briggs, writing blog posts, almost getting something published in Smashing Magazine (a big regret of mine not getting that done), even speaking at an event in San Francisco to advocate for Antetype.
Then Antetype went dark, I moved onto a new company, Figma debuted, but none of that mattered to me! I kept on using Antetype even as each macOS release threatened to break it in its unmaintained state. Eventually the open-save dialog did break, but Felix sent me a hacked binary that fixed the problem, and I kept on using Antetype. Even not having been updated in years, it still blew the competition away.
Eventually Tim contacted me and let me know you guys were starting to mull bringing Antetype back. I was thrilled but kept on using “Old Antetype” full time while checking in on progress from time to time. Inevitably another macOS update broke things and I was forced to switch to “Antetype Web.” I was quickly enamored with the new version. For the first time, I could do all my prototyping in the same app that I was designing in. You guys blew past the competition yet again. Once again you showed me how design apps should be. Not to mention all the layout tools that Figma still doesn’t have!
For over 10 years, I have used Antetype every day. It has made being a UX designer far more efficient and pleasurable than it otherwise would have been. Part of me believes that if I had had to use Photoshop or Sketch or whatever all this time, I would have left the profession. So thank you, for making a better way and all your heroic efforts to keep things going. The world may never have caught on, but you made the world a better place nonetheless. To Tim, Felix, and the rest of the crew past and present, goodbye and good luck.