Next Version of Growl To Add Notification Center Support

The developers behind the popular notification service Growl plan to actively develop the application going forward, even as Apple includes a similar feature -- Notification Center -- in OS X Mountain Lion.

Growl's lead developer Chris Forsythe explained in a blog post that Growl will be embracing Notification Center rather than trying to compete with it or shutting the project down. Part of the reason for this is that Notification Center will only be accessible by apps sold through the Mac App Store -- standalone apps offered through a developer website won't be able to access the Notification APIs.

Writes Federico Viticci for MacStories:

The introduction of Notification Center won’t necessarily “sherlock” Growl as a notification alternative for Mac users and developers. While Notification Center will undoubtedly provide an excellent native solution for developers of Mac App Store apps — ultimately serving the average user with a notification system that works out of the box, — Growl will still remain a capable third-party app that offers fine grained controls over notifications with several customization options.

One particularly useful new feature, called 'Mist', that Growl is planning revolves around making life easier for developers. The Mist API allows developers to implement one piece of code that will send notifications to Growl, if it's available, and Notification Center if it isn't. Growl has delivered one piece of code to support both its own notifications and Apple's Notification Center.

Growl developer Chris Forsythe:

The one thing that has kept me up at night since the 10.8 release was announced, is that I really want to be able to help developers transition from Growl to Notification Center on their terms. We could have taken an aggressive stance and said "No, Growl is more awesome!", but at the end of the day that isn't us.

Here's the important takeaway. I said this same exact sentence 73 times. I'm going to say it 73 times more today. "It would be irresponsible for us to not support NC and abandon our developers, so we're going to embrace it." And that's just what we're going to do.

Growl is available for $1.99 on the Mac App Store. [Direct Link]

Top Rated Comments

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DarkWinter

56 months ago

...

Rating: 12 Votes

DarkWinter

56 months ago

ended prematurely.
should have another "...when you get notified" at the end there.

Fixed that for you...

Rating: 8 Votes

Cougarcat

56 months ago

Non MAS applications cannot use NC. The API is restricted.

They can use local notifications. It is push notifications that are restricted.

Rating: 7 Votes

OldSchoolMacGuy

56 months ago

Seems the Notification Center basically kills most need for Growl. More developers will likely use Notification Center than Growl.

Rating: 6 Votes

JangoFett124

56 months ago

They can use local notifications. It is push notifications that are restricted.

In that case, this Growl functionality is probably unnecessary for most developers.

Rating: 5 Votes

krishatesworld

56 months ago

If they followed Apple's ruthless business strategy, they would send out cease and disist letters and file intellectual property lawsuits in every country they do business.

Rating: 4 Votes

zorinlynx

56 months ago

They can use local notifications. It is push notifications that are restricted.

Yep. I heard this rumor too, and got scared that Apple was going to start imposing severe restrictions on what non-app store apps can do. Turns out it's just push notifications, which makes sense since you're using Apple's servers.

Rating: 3 Votes

Sky Blue

56 months ago

Its still a pretty early build...you'll see it expand once the API is opened up.

Growl will be dead once ML is released. The developers knew that, which is why they coincidentally started charging for Growl as soon as Notification Center was announced. Cant blame them though.

Nope.
Growl was released on the MAS in October 2011:

//www.macrumors.com/2011/10/03/rewritten-growl-1-3-released-on-mac-app-store/

ML was announced in Feb.

Rating: 1 Votes

Cougarcat

56 months ago

I have been very unclear about how, or whether, NC would work with third-party applications? Will it always work only with Apple ones? Or, like the autosave feature introduced in Lion, will it require specially rewritten apps? Then it would take months or years before my apps become NC-friendly, right?

Developers will have to update their applications, yes. It's easy to do, so it won't take "years" or an app rewrite.

Rating: 1 Votes