Posted By Paul Kafasis on July 7th, 2003

Last week, we released Detour 1.0, our latest product. For those who don’t know, Detour allows the redirection of audio from specific applications. This is most useful for doing something such as sending iTunes to a sweet speaker set like SoundSticks and keeping email and IM noises out of your built-in speaker. It also allows for relative volume switching, for those who only have one audio output. This application was developed after user requests for Audio Hijack Pro led us to the realization that people wanted this.

This brings me to the idea of keeping your ear to the ground. We’ve said it before and we’ll keep saying it – communication with our user base is the most important thing separating us from the big boys. We read and respond to every email we get, with feedback on ideas. We saw several users who wanted AH Pro to send hijacked audio to another output. When we really thought about it, we realized this was useful as its own product and set to work on it. Now, 3 months later, our product line has expanded, along with our user base, revenue and number of employees (this project was actually led by Rudy, our newest worker), and it all came from noticing a few user suggestions and seeing a trend. We’re not visionaries, but so far, we’ve released well-received products reliably. Hell, maybe we are visionaries. If so, the secret to being one is one word: Listen.

Detour Stats:
Development Time: 1 day short of 3 months from concept to release (April 4th – July 3rd)
Lines of Code:
2047 in Detour.ape
3423 in Detour.prefpane
5470 lines total.

-Just 15 days to a fully usable prototype (The most work is never in making it work – the devil’s in the details).