Bubbletrubble
Contributor
You make a good point that software development does have its costs. A company can certainly recoup those costs by charging directly for the software, increasing the cost of the download cable, or absorbing the cost through other business operations.
Personally, I don't use the Suunto Dive Manager software because it's clunky, it's buggy, and it clearly wasn't written as native code for my computer OS. Years ago, I also didn't like the way Suunto Customer Service would string me along when I would call up and inquire about making a version of SDM work on the Mac. They would say things like: "Stay tuned. We're working on something." Or "We're looking into that." Or "Can your computer run a Windows emulator?" It was clear that the company didn't think the Mac OS market was large enough to cater to.
I was very happy to learn about MacDive.It's not very easy to develop download software for Suunto dive computers. Essentially, the developer has to reverse-engineer everything, i.e., capture data dumps, analyze the info, and then organize/save it into his program. Suunto does not offer free and unfettered access to their API to software developers who want to write their own download/dive-logging programs. Other dive gear manufacturers have a much more open approach to permitting third-party developers to do their own work. For example, check out Reefnet's approach to third-party software development. The company makes it free and easy for software coders to write code for downloading profiles from the Sensus Ultra dive-logger.
