An Architosh reader from New Zealand who signed his email “Architosh Fan” wrote to us recently with the following message: “Thank you very much for all your time and effort dedicated to Architosh, it is a great resource to me. I just wanted to bring to your attention that Chief Architect, Inc., is about to enter the Mac OS X platform with their Architectural Home Design Software.”
Official Forum Comments
Our reader/fan wrote to tell us that Doug Park, the Principal Software Architect, behind Chief Architect, confirmed the company is working on a Mac OS X version back in September of 2012. In this forum post he writes: “At this point we are focused on making a Mac version of Chief that also makes it a lot easier to move to other platforms. Once we have that version we will be focusing more effort on seeing what we can get running on tablets.”
Part of the reason for the Mac version is to get to other platforms like iOS and beyond…and in the future to the Windows 8 ARM market, which in this post Doug Park writes, “is almost nonexistent in comparison to other markets, such as iPad and Android, but we do expect it to grow.”
Park’s comments point to fall 2013 for a beta release of Chief Architect on OS X. And files between the Mac and Windows versions will be binary compatible he writes in another post. Again, part of the goal of the Mac version is to set the stage further for reaching other platforms. We know from many Architosh readers that there are some diehard CA users out there who run the program on Macs under Boot Camp. The company will surely please these users plus be able to reach other markets with a native OS X version.
01 - Room Planner by Chief Architect, Inc., is a iPad application that lets you develop 2D/3D floor plans of homes. The application is currently free.
Last summer Chief Architect released an app for the iPad called Room Planner. It is not clear to us if the company is planning other iOS apps. We have reached out to the company for comment but have not yet received a response. To learn more about Room Planner and Chief Architect click here.
Architosh Analysis
Chief Architect is a leading CAD company in the AEC market with a very large following that tends to be heavily titled towards the builder side of the industry. Many design-building companies also use Chief Architect. As a practicing architect I’ve run into many builders who use the application for several purposes, design being one of them. If you are a practicing licensed architect and use Chief Architect we would love to hear from you, especially if you favor the Mac platform.
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