Mac-using Witnesses
January 5th, 2010
Since September 2009, the website has seen Watchtower Library for Mac downloaded 7,747 times. I’ve been thinking about what this means.
There are a number of explanations. One might be that there is only one person using the software, and he or she has clicked download 7,747 times just for fun. That is possible, but not likely! Strangely, by the way, the download counter for version 1.2 keeps ticking upward, even though a more recent version of the app (1.3) became available in mid-December.
I originally estimated only 700 Mac-using brothers and sisters based on a finger-in-the-air ratio of 1-in-1000 brothers using computers together with an assumption about Apple’s 1-in-10 share of the OS market. See Vision Statement. These assumptions were wrong on two counts.
First, there must be more than 1-in-1000 brothers and sisters using computers. Our own congregation in Lancaster ordered 26 Watchtower Libraries, 2009 edition. Out of 76 publishers, that gives a ratio of 34.2% or just over a third, 1-in-3. Can we assume that this ratio holds worldwide? Probably not. But without other data, let’s make an assumption that much less than half of that say 10% have a computer.
Second likely-wrong assumption: that the 10% Apple share holds for Witnesses. Reality is likely to be a smaller share, I guess, because most might opt for Windows-based machines because they want to use the library in its native environment. Hence brothers will have all the other reasons for choosing Windows shared with non-Witnesses, plus one more special reason. So the Mac-to-PC ratio might be more like 5% in favour of Microsoft rather than 10%. Let’s assume this is true for argument’s sake.
If 1-in-10 Witnesses use computers then there are about 7.3 million times 10% giving 730,000 “theocratic” computers of one kind or another. If 5% of those run OS X, then there should be about 36,500 Mac-using Witnesses world-wide. Could that be true, I wonder? Somehow I doubt it based on the circa 8,000 downloads. At least one of the ratios must be much smaller than estimated. But if so, which: the theocratic computer ratio, or the Apple ratio, or both? Else, perhaps the remainder use CrossOver, VMware or Parallels!
January 5th, 2010 at 09:17 PM
Roy, WTLib for Mac needs more publicity to increase those numbers. You should request a special insert for the KM !
January 6th, 2010 at 03:47 AM
I agree about the publicity… I only stumbled upon your site after an exhausting Google search when I upgraded to 10.6 and Crossover stopped working for me. Many are probably using Crossover, VMware, Parallels or Bootcamp. Some who are new to mac may still have a PC they keep around just for the Library. I want you to know how much I (and the 3 mac-using families in my hall) appreciate all your hard work! Word will spread, in time :-)
January 6th, 2010 at 11:28 AM
Following your research into the number of WT library requested in your cong. I too carried out an investigation here in Great Yarmouth. We have 96 publishers, but only 17 WT 09 discs requested, giving a % of 17.7, seems quite low to me. Hope these figures help :-)
January 6th, 2010 at 11:32 AM
P.S. Out of the 17, only 2 Mac users or, 2.08% Thanks for all your hard work on behalf of us all.
January 8th, 2010 at 02:18 PM
A lot of our brothers and sisters in our cong. share the cdroms to keep the costs for Bethel low. Lovely!
January 9th, 2010 at 07:42 PM
Thanks everyone for your kind and useful feedback. Interesting points.
So it’s impossible to say in any accurate way how many Mac-using Witnesses are out there. Sander’s point means that even the CD-ROM count does not represent the number! I guess we’ll never really know. Not that it matters. Interesting though! Thanks again.
January 10th, 2010 at 09:24 AM
thanks for creating this program. hope sometimes a program for iphone/ipod comes. thanks again.
tobias
January 11th, 2010 at 03:46 PM
In my opinion, you are only beginning to become known to the Mac base. Also, there are other Mac users who have not yet updated machines to Intel. They will be coming.
January 11th, 2010 at 05:32 PM
About Sander Wessel’s note: That doesn’t affect the costs. We contribute for the litterature, ROM’s etc., don´t we?
January 11th, 2010 at 06:14 PM
Bernie, You could be right!
Dr. Dip, I think Sander is correct. The cost for the materials and processes to manufacture, burn, print and distribute adds up for each CD-ROM sent. Although the cost comes from our contributions, it takes away from resources that could be used elsewhere.
January 14th, 2010 at 12:17 AM
Hey Roy Thanks for the wonderful helper that you have compiled! Have you thought of contacting the Branch Office to see if they would like to distribute the software? Just a thought.
January 14th, 2010 at 05:02 PM
Dear Bob, You are very welcome! I have contacted the branch, offering to donate the software but no response as yet. Thanks for your suggestion though.
January 20th, 2010 at 01:06 AM
Well you never know what will happen, maybe the branch will get interested and pick it up. I mentioned it to a couple of brother at Patterson NY while I was there last week. Even if they don’t decide to use it, you have certainly help a lot of your brothers! Thanks again!
January 25th, 2010 at 08:22 PM
Interesting discussion! I know a lot of Jehovas Wittneses, but have to say that most of them own a PC and only a handful or three owns a Mac. Most of my family does though, myself (2 pcs), my wife, my daughter and son-in-law, my two brothers and their wifes and two kids each – yeah, we are all really “Mac-fans”. So we all love your efforts, Roy. But as other commentators in here mentioned, it was so for me too, that it was just a coincident that I heard about WtLib4Mac. But I do what I can to spread the word!
About Sander’s comment of sharing the WtLib CD, I don’t think that this is legal. Here are some quotes from the Introductory Letter:
“5. May I make a duplicate of my CD-ROM as a backup in case I lose or damage my original? Yes, but this does not refer to duplicating the CD-ROM for others, which would fall outside the realm of personal use.
January 25th, 2010 at 08:23 PM
Continued:
And from the License agreement:
“You may transfer all the SOFTWARE to another party who is one of Jehovah’s Witnesses but only if that party accepts all of the terms of this Agreement, and such party’s possession or use of the SOFTWARE shall be deemed to be such acceptance. If you make such a transfer, you may not retain any copies of the SOFTWARE, and the SOFTWARE may not remain installed on your computer(s) or PDA.”
So it seems to me, that the Society for some reason does not want us to share this CD-ROM’s with each other. It is of course a nice thought, to keep the costs low, but I reckon that the best thing to do in this case is to just contribute some extra dollars. :-)
January 25th, 2010 at 09:13 PM
Thanks Steffen. You make a good point. Duplication for others does therefore contravene the license! I like your solution too.
February 3rd, 2010 at 06:38 AM
I live in Belgium and I only learned today that this site exists. Believe me, there are a lot more Mac’s out there. Just fix the link please, I would like to try it… Best Regards,
Eric
February 5th, 2010 at 01:28 PM
Dear Eric, You’ll find the latest version here.
February 5th, 2010 at 07:53 PM
My husband is in District work in the US, he is very busy. A number of COs are changing over to MAC because it is a lot less frustratiing, so my husband decided to switch also. He asked me to try to get Watchtower Library for MAC on the computers. I do not know coomputers very well. I have tried and tried to download a number of times on three computers. Each failure counts but I am only one person. Does that account for the exaggerated figure of how many downloads???
February 5th, 2010 at 09:34 PM
Dear Dawn, Where are you downloading from? Could you try the link at the top of this page, righthand column. Follow the book icon to the home site and download the latest version from there.
February 5th, 2010 at 09:43 PM
By the way, I have been seeing problems with my ISP. So keep trying. The service provider can’t seem cope with high usage. I’m working on migrating the sites to the cloud (distributed service provision).
February 6th, 2010 at 12:29 AM
How about that, your kind and easy directions worked!! Knowing the correct version was helpful and watching your video made me realize my mistake. This time I followed the directions to drag the icon to the right instead of dragging it to the bottom to the Applications icon on my computer. Also I read, to be patient with what appeared to be a hang up. You also confirmed that just because, when ones clicks the BOX containing the framework, and a black screen comes up saying something like, sight is gone, doesn’t mean the sight is down. One can download the latest version. That was great to know. My husband is thrilled to see Watchtower Library on his Apple Computer. Thank you so much for all the work involved.
February 6th, 2010 at 12:48 PM
Thanks for the program! I was moments away from installing windows 7 too! I’m glad I tried this first. I did load the english and spanish versions and they currently open under the same icon. Is this normal? I’m not sure that I want them to open separately, but is it possible?
February 6th, 2010 at 02:58 PM
Hi Roy, just read your note on your ISP having trouble dealing with your bandwidth requirement. That would explain why your pages were loading so slowly for me earlier. I thought the site was down and I almost panicked! :o)
Hope your ISP can resolve this. It’s a good thing to know that more folks are now using your software and visiting your site but it also might mean that the extra traffic is causing some to give up waiting for pages to load, thinking, as I did, that the site is down.
Earlier today, your page load times for me (down in sunny Devon) were about a minute, but they are now back to loading in a couple of seconds. Other sites (eg. Macintouch and the BBC) were loading just fine at the time, so it wasn’t an issue with my bb connection.
Just thought you might like to know. I’d also like to once again say a big thank you (and your dear lady) for all the hard work you have put in to making this work so well for us all. :o)
PS. I know of several Mac users in local congregations who do not yet have Intel Macs and are therefore not able to use your software. I’m pretty sure that they will be doing so once they feel the need to upgrade their hardware.
February 6th, 2010 at 04:50 PM
Hello Roy, first of all thank you for your good work. I have been using a mac since it support windows operating system through bootcamp since it was the only way to work on a mac and have the watchtower library. Then came parallels. But I only discovered your application because I was looking for a way to put the library on the apple smartphone. A proper way could be: the watchtower society come up with a CD-Rom supporting Mac OS… or if not, could it mention your application on the CD-Rom. This is the only way to know how many mac-users witnesses we are.
February 7th, 2010 at 06:20 PM
Dear Dawn, I’m glad it’s working for you now at last. Sorry about the web problems. I’m working on it. Please let me know if you have any other issues. I’m keen to do what I can to help.
Dear Jeff, When you launch the Watchtower Library for Mac app, it automatically launches any installed library editions. You can control what launches automatically or manually via the Applications>Customise panel.
Dear Lol, Sorry again for the Internet issues. Thanks for the information. I’m experiencing similar problems myself. The ISP operates from Dallas, Texas. So I’m as disconnected and far away as yourself down there in Devon!
Dear David, I like your idea. Ideally, it would be much better if the brothers working for the society take over the project and handle it themselves. They’ll do a far better job than me. Except for kind encouragement from the brothers at London Bethel, I’m working alone in the dark. Maybe the society are developing their own solution! I guess time will tell. I hope so!
Thanks all for your kind encouragement. Wishing you all God’s blessing dear brothers, wherever you are. Love from the brothers here in Lancaster, UK.
February 11th, 2010 at 05:30 AM
I too only found out by Google searching. I work professionally for Apple and have always relied on CrossOver or Parallels. But since then I’ve downloaded the app probably 20 times myself for various brother (I’ve saved it on my hard drive now.) I think that here in the states the Mac/PC ratio is higher. Our internal numbers suggest that the 1-10 ratio that is commonly held is true ONLY if we include the tens of millions of business machines in use. If we just look at home use the numbers suggest about 18% in the US and in some cases, certain cities (college towns) have an even higher adoption rate. With the brothers, it seems that when 1 brother takes the plunge, others soon follow. Whatever congregation I begin to attend usually results in many others adopting the platform. Just my 2 cents.
February 15th, 2010 at 03:06 PM
Don’t forget that it’s entirely possible that one brother may download your app and then install wtlib on the macs of all in their cong.
In my congregation we had about 20-25 CDs requested, and three in congregation have macs (they all have PCs too).
March 1st, 2010 at 12:32 AM
This is my first time leaving a comment at your site, but I would like to thank you for all your hard work. Your contribution is very much valued and as a mac user have enjoyed the wt lib without the complications and problems associated with the windows platform. Again thanks so much. John Q Jefferson Congregation , New Orleans La. Usa
March 10th, 2010 at 03:41 PM
When I first went over to Mac I put the WT library on with ‘Crossover’. It served me well for a year or so. Then, in an attempt to put the library onto my iphone I found meekspace.com and successfully did so in both English and French. It was while browsing ‘meekspace’ that I found the referral to Roy Ratcliffe and subsequently put the 2009 library onto my MacBook using the instructed way. Again, as others have said, the video was a great help. In our congregation there are three Mac users…the other two have the WT Library using Crossover. Thanks for everything and to Rachel too for her input.
June 18th, 2010 at 02:39 AM
I recently learned abut this download at a KH build in Va. I had no idea. We have 2 Mac’s and wanted a Mac version. I tried downloading said it was not available or had been removed. I will try to find my snow leopard disk and install X eleven.
June 19th, 2010 at 03:02 PM
Portia, You might be trying to access the old downloads. Please use the link at the top right of this page to go to the website. Or maybe we had a ‘technical glitch’ for a while!! It’s working now anyway. Hope it goes ok.
August 15th, 2010 at 08:25 PM
If you want the downloads to increase and the program to benefit a large number of friends, ask that people mention the program on Facebook, or include the FB ‘Like’ option on your website. This would be a good way to increase the exposure of this great program.
August 22nd, 2010 at 09:27 AM
Dear Jacob,
Thanks for the kind advice. I suspect you are right. Facebook is a very popular site. Only, I’m a little wary of social networking sites. They can sometimes lead to problems. But perhaps I’m being overcautious. It needs some thinking about. A stand-alone site like http://watchtowerlibraryformac.info and Google searching leads you to the right place relatively quickly. It gets about 2,000 hits a week at present.
September 6th, 2010 at 12:44 PM
Dear Roy,
I just want to say thank you for your excellent job! I changed to Mac last year and I was VERY happy to find your solution. It’s working perfect for me. I guess, your solution is not very known – today. But I’m sure, the user count will increase quickly. I think, everybody with a Mac needs your piece of software :-)
I’m not exactly sure, but I guess, I’m the only one with a Mac in our congregation (approx. 100 persons) :-)
I also joined your mailing list and I see a lot of work you are doing for us.
Thank you again and best regards from Austria (no, without kangaroos :-)), Thomas