Coda 2.5 ⇥ panic.com

Cabel Sasser of Panic, on the status of Coda 2.5:

Coda 2.5 is essentially complete. But, we’re still encountering sandboxing challenges. So, in the interest of finally getting Coda 2.5 out the door and in the hands of you, our very eager and patient customers, we’ve decided it’s time to move on—for now.

In short: Coda 2.5 will not be sandboxed, and therefore will not be available in the Mac App Store.

Please note that this doesn’t mean Coda 2.5 was rejected by Apple, rather that we’re going ahead and proactively making this call since all Mac App Store apps are required to be sandboxed and Coda 2.5 will not be.

There are a few takeaways here:

1. While sandboxing is generally a great security measure, it doesn’t work with all kinds of apps. Coda is a developer-centric app that needs permissions outside of the sandbox; forcing it into a sandbox would restrict its functionality.
2. With (1.) in mind, this doesn’t necessarily mean that sandboxing is a bad thing. Many apps shouldn’t be allowed to read or write outside of their designated boundaries, and will not lose functionality by sandboxing them.
3. Panic is doing a hell of a job transitioning users who purchased Coda via the Mac App Store.
4. It sounds like Apple did a pretty good job trying to find workarounds and fixes for issues with sandboxing and Coda, but all the fixes in the world simply aren’t going to work.