Does Articulate Hate Mac Users?

This is a question I've been searching for the answer to: does Articulate hate Mac users?

If you have to say out loud, "We get it! We love Macs too" I mean, isn't that broadcasting a weird message? I like Articulate Rise 360, their web-based software, but I find it somewhat limiting. So, I recently attempted to move over to Articulate Storyline 360. What a bad idea.

I soon learned that I had to pay for a bridge software, like Parallel, in order to run a virtual Microsoft desktop environment on my Mac. I guess this is because "Storyline isn't supported in client-server environments."

While there is no Mac-native version of Storyline, it's super-easy to use Storyline on your favorite Mac hardware using a virtual environment. All you need to do is get virtual environment software that creates a Windows interface on your Mac. There are a ton of options for creating virtual environments, including Parallels, Apple Boot Camp, and VMware. -David Anderson, Director of Customer Training

Lie: "it's super-easy to use Storyline on your favorite Mac hardware using a virtual environment". There are many issues a user can face when working with virtual environments. One major issue is they all cost, you guessed it, the money. Parallel's trial period was so short, I couldn't finish my test project. There is a steep learning curve to working with these virtual environments and they did not teach this in grad school or give us any software licenses.

People out of work right now trying to get into an elearning career path do not want or have time to fuss with all this other crap, they just need a functioning instructional design authoring tool which in itself takes tons of time to learn because they're all so different. But Articulate says "AlL yOu NeEd To Do" is just...

Give me a damn break. Why would anyone want to pay for a bridge software, on top of the cost of Microsoft Office, on top of the cost of Articulate Storyline 360, on top of anything else they'll need for course building? Oy vey!

I've come to the conclusion that Articulate must have some sort of deal with Microsoft or simply a deep lack of interest to invest in Mac user's experience. Yes, apparently now Windows 10 is 4x more popular than the Mac, but people with Macs still want Storyline! There is a huge market for them! I dug a bit deeper into the situation.

In 2017 they promised to release a version of Storyline for Mac but pulled out because to them, it was a bad investment. I'm super late to the party as this was all decided over 3 years ago, yet... I continue to want answers. Many Mac users are upset that this promise was not kept. Here is a very smart person working out how to disable shared profiles and exiting coherence which I know nothing about.

Articulate Storyline staff writer Ashley Terwilliger has stated that they "had to end the Storyline for Mac project". Indeed, a "vast majority" of their customers use Windows so they cater to their needs first. The Articulate staff member goes on to point us to Articulate Rise 360, the aforementioned web-based authoring tool.

"This decision will allow us to serve the most people in the best way possible." -Arlyn Asch, Chief Technology Officer

Upon further review of this thread I noticed that another staff member, Arlyn Asch, noted that the company "can't share additional details about their analysis, we are completely confident that this decision will allow us to serve the most people in the best way possible." Wow! How interesting!

Articulate claims that shutting users out actually serves the most people in the best way possible.

Let's just give them the benefit of the doubt here and assume their programmers and software engineers just haven't figured out how to do it yet. Upon first glance, you'll notice the ineptitude commonly associated with the US government. Conspiracy! (I'm joking here). Is there some military-industrial complex happening here? In fact, Henry Giroux, one of the founding theorists of critical pedagogy in the US, claims that it was originally "military–industrial–academic complex". Microsoft continues to work extremely closely with the US Military and the Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) initiative that developed the Shareable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) were built to serve the US Department of Defense...

Confronting the Military-Industrial-Academic Complex

I could go into numbers about how US military spending is beyond outrageously exorbitant especially when compared to our investment in the US education budget, but that would take far too long. Simply put, Articulate is cozying up to the tech company tightest with the DoD. I ask you, what if all public education was heavily or partially reliant on elearning software like Articulate and tools like SCORM from here on out due to the pandemic, societal shifts? Former President Dwight D. Eisenhower famously warned U.S. citizens about the "military–industrial complex" in his farewell address:

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military–industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist." -Dwight D. Eisenhower

Um, so anyway, if I'm going to invest in purchasing and learning an authoring software, I will probably look into getting Adobe Captivate 2019 which is available for Mac OS X v10.12.3 or later, running on a multicore Intel processor, and on iOS 10.2.1 or later for iPad. A Captivate subscription is $33.99 per month and it seems like I wouldn't have to fuss with any other software crutches for my computer!

TL;DR Yes, the answer is yes. ;)