wow! An excellent behind the curtain look at a small Apple software development firm. A must-read for all Apple junkies and all software developers who aspire to have their own firm, Mac or Windows.

From Panic - Extras - The True Story of Audion via Kottke:

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Is it just me? I mean, do you ever wonder about the stories behind everyday products?

What names were Procter & Gamble considering before they finally picked "Swiffer"? (Springle? Sweepolio? Dirtrocker?) What flavors of Pop-Tarts never made it out of the lab, and did any involve lychee, the devil's fruit? What magical prototype Apple products will never be seen, forever relegated to some giant, Wonka-esque industrial design factory that might exist only in my imagination? ("Oompa, loompa, diggity-dack: come take a peek at this dodecahedron-Mac!"). And honestly, what in God's name is a "Graffle"?

OK, sure, it might just be me. But as it turns out, even something as seemingly mundane as a Mac app can have a few marginally interesting, if not truly nerdy, stories of its own.

When we created Audion, our Mac-only, multipurpose MP3 application, Steven Frank and I had one goal: we wanted to listen to our music CDs on our computers while we worked, and we wanted to it be stylish. We had no indication that MP3s would one day turn the music industry upside down and have it running for cover. We certainly had no idea that something like the iPod would pop up and literally change Apple as a company. And even though we weren't really responsible for any revolutions per se — rather, we rode on the revolution-train with many others — everything that happened to Audion just fell into place, magically and unexpectedly, like so many beautiful moments in life.

But now, after many years of work, we've made the difficult decision to "retire" Audion from active development.

(Hey, wait! Don't worry! We're not going out of business, nobody has left, and everyone here at Panic is hard at work on exciting new projects as well as updating our existing projects. Anyway.)

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