I too totally disagree. The utility of a program does not come to an end if the latest gizmos and interface fashions are not incorporated. Those gizmos may well have nothing to offer the code and the interface fashions I do not perceive as necessarily an improvement.
I have not upgraded to OmniGraffle 6 for that reason, and although I have upgraded to OO 4, I needn’t have done and I find the new interface more difficult to use. OmniGroup has taken the route for integrating OSX and iOS apps by making the OSX interface more like the iOS one as Apple is intent on doing. That is their decision, and we have to accept it or find alternative software. I am happy that OW6 is slowly developing — OW did stagnate, in a way that Scrivener has not — and it is still my favourite browser, though I have to use an alternative for some sites and purposes. However if Omni change the interface in the way they’ve changed the interface on OG and OO, I will probably abandon it.
Literrature and Latte are taking a different route in developing the iOS version of Scrivener, and it has been slow. But just like the Windows version it is a separately coded, not a port — though the iOS and OSX versions may be able to share some frameworks — with much of the work involved as I understand it being in designing a touch interface which works for a structure as complex as Scrivener which works optimally for a traditional keyboard–mouse/trackpad interface.
So stagnating no. Even on the OSX (base development) version — where new versions only come out periodically … if someone encounters a bug that needs squashing, and making changes to make it work seamlessly under each new iteration of OSX — the thrust is working out how to integrate a proper stylesheet system which will work with a structure where each paragraph may be a separate .rtf file in the package and where changing the style definition while working on one file will have to be propagated through all of the others even though they are not open at the time, and without slowing the app significantly. A tough job for a single programmer.
Finally, OO4 is not a “writing app”, it’s an outliner, though you can expand it to write in it. But would you write a 700 page scholarly work in OO? I wouldn’t dream of it. Ulysses 3 is a writing app, but though it shares much in common with Scrivener, they are different. I tried Ulysses 2 before I discovered Scrivener and couldn’t get on with it; others prefer it to Scrivener; and there are those who use both, but they say they use Ulysses for short articles/one-off short stories, but Scrivener for full-length works. But the fact that the Ulysses developer found it necessary to rewrite the code completely as Ulysses 2 was presumably not able to be upgraded without a major rewrite, doesn’t mean the same is true for Scrivener.
So, Scrivener doesn’t suit you? That’s fine. Scrivener suits me down to the ground, and the only change I know I’m looking forward to is the introduction of style-sheets when Keith solves all the problems. Interface change? Well, appearance will change with OS 10.10, but the basic interface structure doesn’t need changing.
DISCLAIMER: I have no connections with Literanture & Latte, other than as a long-term user of Scrivener since just before it went commercial.
Mark