Summary

John Gruber offers an enthusiastic endorsement of SuperDuper 4, Shirt Pocket's Mac backup utility, calling it an extraordinary update to an already exceptional app. The new version features a completely redesigned interface that, while unfamiliar at first, proves superior in clarity and modernity. Functionally, it delivers meaningful improvements including copy speeds over 2× faster and more powerful scheduling. Gruber marvels that a solo developer — Dave Nanian — designed, built, and documented the entire thing. Most remarkably, Shirt Pocket has never raised prices or charged for updates in 22 years, with version 4 priced at $44.

Key Insight

SuperDuper 4 exemplifies the rarest kind of software: a solo-crafted, fairly priced, decades-old utility that keeps getting meaningfully better without compromising its defining virtue of clarity.

Spicy Quotes (click to share)

• 4

  SuperDuper feels like impossibly good software.

• 3

  It remains a marvel of clarity, especially when you consider the complexity of what it does.

• 5

  In the 22 years since SuperDuper first shipped, Shirt Pocket has never charged for updates and never raised the price.

• 5

  This too seems impossible, at least for a company that remains in business.

• 2

  I don't know how that's possible.

• 3

  Version 4 costs $44 — an astonishing value.

• 2

  I recommend SuperDuper 4 wholeheartedly.

Tone

enthusiastic, admiring, slightly incredulous