Search Results for: "mac app store"

iCloud Sync Outside of the App Store ⇥ blog.agilebits.com

Kevin Hayes of AgileBits:

At the last WWDC, Apple announced some changes to CloudKit, the technology that enables an app to sync with iCloud. As many of you know, it was previously impossible for non-Mac App Store apps to sync with iCloud. The changes that Apple made to CloudKit have opened up some really exciting possibilities, and today, we’re happy to announce that we have been able to implement iCloud sync in the AgileBits Store version of 1Password.

That’s pretty open for an Apple framework. What’s the catch?

Dave DeLong of Apple clarifies:

The policy is that you can use the WS [web services] as long as you have a comparable app in the stores.

So not entirely open, but arguably open enough. This doesn’t appear to be platform-dependent; that is, you could conceivably have an iOS app available and use CloudKit web services to sync to a desktop app not available in the Mac App Store. But one could not use CloudKit for syncing with, for example, a Mac-only app that doesn’t have an App Store version.

AgileBits says they’re going to ship a developer-friendly implementation, and it appears to be quite clever. Hayes again:

In order to talk to Apple’s servers, we needed a mediator. Adam Wulf and I created a class that takes native CloudKit API calls, translates them to web service API calls, and translates the responses back to native Cocoa code. The 1Password sync code is now completely ignorant as to whether it’s connecting to native CloudKit or CloudKit web services. This means that 1Password can find your data in iCloud, whether you’re using the Mac App Store version or the AgileBits Store version.

I know a lot of developers who are going to be pleased with this, especially considering the current state of the Mac App Store.

Meanwhile, on Apple’s Other App Stores… ⇥ apple.com

Compare and contrast Graham Spencer’s five-year Mac App Store retrospective with the numbers in this press release:

In the two weeks ending January 3, customers spent over $1.1 billion on apps and in-app purchases, setting back-to-back weekly records for traffic and purchases. January 1, 2016 marked the biggest day in App Store history with customers spending over $144 million. It broke the previous single-day record set just a week earlier on Christmas Day.

“The App Store had a holiday season for the record books. We are excited that our customers downloaded and enjoyed so many incredible apps for iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Apple TV, spending over $20 billion on the App Store last year alone,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing.

That works out to over $14 billion paid to developers in the last year alone. Wild. That’s a collective number; I’d be very interested in seeing a breakdown by product.

Five Years of the Mac App Store ⇥ macstories.net

Graham Spencer, MacStories:

In the years since 2012, about the most newsworthy events that took place relating to the Mac App Store were the announcements from high profile developers that they were removing their apps from the Mac App Store (a few listed below). […]

Apple has let the Mac App Store stagnate and become a second class citizen to the iOS App Store and too many developers are leaving or avoiding the Mac App Store. When important apps leave the Mac App Store, it makes the store as a whole less enticing and customers have one less reason to open the Mac App Store.

High-profile developers like Microsoft, Adobe, and Panic can sell apps themselves and don’t need the App Store. Valve’s Steam store has become synonymous with gaming, and EA’s Origin is doing much of the same. Even lower-profile developers can sell their own apps fairly flexibly with the proliferation of content management systems that support selling stuff. The Mac App Store simply doesn’t compete.

That’s a sad reality, especially when it would be preferable to restrict less experienced users’ GateKeeper access to App Store apps only — that way, it’s analogous to their iPhone or iPad and their system is bound to be secure. But when few high-profile apps are available from the Mac App Store and the Store is cluttered with lots of really crappy apps, it’s hard to recommend it.

Bohemian Coding Removes Sketch From the Mac App Store ⇥ medium.com

Bohemian Coding:

There are a number of reasons for Sketch leaving the Mac App Store—many of which in isolation wouldn’t cause us huge concern. However as with all gripes, when compounded they make it hard to justify staying: App Review continues to take at least a week, there are technical limitations imposed by the Mac App Store guidelines (sandboxing and so on) that limit some of the features we want to bring to Sketch, and upgrade pricing remains unavailable.

To be clear: the Mac App Store is not valueless. Last year at Çingleton, Rich Siegel of Bare Bones Software mentioned some really great bundled features: no credit card processing or security to worry about, no licensing, and no hosting fees. That should be an enticing proposition, but it’s spoiled for a lot of developers by the restrictions listed by Bohemian Coding.

But these are not new concerns, and not isolated to Sketch, or graphics software in general. They impact high-quality apps the most, and have eroded the store to a selection of Apple’s software plus a lot of crappy iOS app ports (and Tweetbot). When the Mac App Store launched five years ago, Ryan Block was skeptical of its potential:

Maybe part of the problem is that these app stores themselves no longer seem like the radical innovation they were only a couple years ago, having since become an expected, table-stakes means of distributing software to users’ devices. Is there a huge amount of potential here? Definitely, and if I were the guys at Panic or Rogue Amoeba, I’d be pretty stoked after this week. But as long as some of the most interesting consumer apps are (for one reason or another) kept out, the Mac App Store will be neither the best nor the only place for consumers to get software and developers to sell it.

For what it’s worth, both Panic and Rogue Amoeba have had significant issues with the Mac App Store.

John Gruber:

The Mac App Store is rotting, at least for productivity software. There’s no other way to put it. If this hasn’t set off alarm bells within Apple, something is very wrong.

Something has been wrong for years with the Mac App Store.

A Smarter App Store Search Engine ⇥ techcrunch.com

In happier App Store news, Sarah Perez reports for TechCrunch that Apple has launched a massively reworked search engine:

According to multiple sources, including developers who tracked their own rankings, as well as app store analytics firms, the change that began November 3 included several adjustments. Apps are now ranking in search results on a mix of contextual keywords for the app, including partial keyword matches, along with competitor brand names and other matches.

It’s also the first time the App Store has ranked apps for keywords that are not in the title or the “keyword” slot, we understand.

Historically, Apple’s search efforts have been pretty awful. This is a big step in the right direction, and I hope they apply a similar amount of work to the Maps search engine.

Of note, I’m not entirely sure if this revamped search engine has made its way onto the Mac App Store. Queries like “photo editor” kept high-quality apps such as Acorn and Napkin buried below low-quality, poorly-rated apps.

Not on the Mac App Store ⇥ dancounsell.typed.com

Some of the biggest and best names in Macintosh software aren’t even available on the Mac App Store, and it isn’t so hot for indie software discovery either. I’m struggling to understand why any developer would want to use the Store, particularly with the technical and administrative hurdles it presents.

Apple Patches Mac App Store Certificate Bug ⇥ fortune.com

Philip Elmer-DeWitt, Fortune:

A security certificate Apple installed to protect users from malware had expired on Nov. 11, 21:58:01 GMT—precisely five years after its original creation—and nobody at Apple had thought to renew it.

The company fixed the problem — pushing through a new certificate that expires in 2035 — but not before breaking untold numbers of Mac apps and confusing and inconveniencing countless Mac owners.

So it’s fixed, right? All I have to do is just keep using my computer as normal?

The only way I could get Tweetbot working again was to log back into the App Store, remember my password, re-install something I had already bought and paid for, and re-boot my computer.

It’s not just Elmer-DeWitt who found that a reinstall was necessary — it’s the fix recommended by Jim Matthews, creator of Fetch:

If your copy of Fetch from the Mac App Store does not open, drag it to the trash, empty the trash, and download a fresh copy from the App Store.

For years, I’ve been recommending the use of Mac App Store apps wherever possible to friends and family: updating is easier and the security of the store gives those of lesser technical ability more confidence in trying new software.

This issue bites those people in the ass most. The warning dialog displayed after launching an app affected by this problem is vague and scary, and could give the impression that it’s the developer’s fault, not Apple’s.

If Apple cannot maintain the Mac App Store in even the most basic capacity, it’s time for them to get rid of it or turn it into a glorified Apple updater for their own software.

See Also: Michael Tsai’s excellent-as-usual roundup.

No One Minding the Store ⇥ mjtsai.com

Today’s ongoing certificate expiration issue is yet another reminder that Apple needs to commit more talent and resources to the Mac App Store, or get rid of it.

Update: Craig Hockenberry has a clever workaround for the certificate issue:

Just verified that you don’t need to reboot to work around the Mac App Store certificate problem. Instead:

$ killall -KILL storeaccountd

Previously-Purchased, Discontinued Software Unavailable for Download in Both App Stores ⇥ macrumors.com

Juli Clover, Macrumors:

Apple recently removed older versions of OS X and other discontinued software from the Purchased tab of users who had previously purchased or downloaded them. With the change, it is no longer possible for users to download Aperture, iPhoto, OS X Lion, OS X Mountain Lion, and OS X Mavericks from the Mac App Store.

Even if my beloved Aperture weren’t mentioned, this is still disheartening. And it’s not just the Mac App Store. Panic:

We’ve seen this too. iOS removed-from-sale apps, like Prompt 1, may be unavailable for re-download as well.

This might all simply be a misconfiguration or a mistake, but I’ve long been worried something like this may happen. This is software that was previously purchased; while it’s no longer available for general sale, it should still be offered to those who purchased it to download again. I certainly hope this isn’t a deliberate change.

A Different Take on the Liveliness of the Mac App Store ⇥ gabrielhauber.net

Gabriel Hauber:

Sam Soffes said that he only sent out a couple of tweets about Redacted to announce its launch, although the app fortuitously did end up on Product Hunt and apparently got quite some attention there. The result – halfway decent first day sales. The app itself is rather simple and other apps with quite similar functionality already exist on the store.

This tells me that with a bit of effort and a good product, it shouldn’t be that difficult to generate a half-way decent revenue on the Mac App Store alone. And when you add direct sales into the mix, it looks even more attractive.

Maybe there’s a fair amount of confirmation bias here, but I don’t think the Mac App Store works as a more-or-less upscaled version of the iOS App Store. I buy little one- or two-dollar apps on my iPhone all the time, but I rarely buy new software on my Mac. It’s not as lively an ecosystem, probably because a Mac app is expected to be orders of magnitude more capable and complex than an iOS app.1 It’s also probably true that OS X and Mac apps aren’t evolving nearly as fast as their iOS counterparts.

Mac app developers do have one major advantage over iOS developers: they can offer their apps for sale in both the Mac App Store — with some exceptions — and as a standalone download. The App Store potentially offers a much greater promotional value, but at the price of the infamous 30% cut of all sales.

But that still doesn’t answer the question of how valuable the Mac App Store is to third-party developers. My guess is that it’s a good opportunity for scaled-up iPhone apps and little utilities, but has more of a neutral effect for apps with a power user audience.

  1. And probably also because, as Hauber points out, tens of millions of iPhones and iPads get sold every quarter, compared to “only” a few million Macs. ↥︎

More on the Mac App Store ⇥ twitter.com

Daniel Jalkut points out a caveat with those terrible Mac App Store numbers:

“Top Paid” is a terrible name for that leaderboard, because it implies being paid more money than … everybody. “Trending Paid” is fairer.

With millions of Mac users, though, it’s hard to see how 59 US sales should be enough to make the eighth position in any chart, if most of those millions of users were buying software frequently.

My guess is that people get into a groove on their Mac. They don’t buy software very often, and they’re generally happy with what they’ve used for a long time. My most recent Mac software purchase was Fantastical 2; before that, it might have been the Sims 4. I bought the former on March 25 and the latter on February 17.

Perhaps the iPhone enormously skews our perception of the success or failure of any of Apple’s products. Yes, iPad sales are in a steep decline, but perhaps people have now settled into a more regular and longer update cycle. Maybe the Mac App Store is wildly successful for many developers, who wouldn’t have dreamed of 59 US sales on launch day. It’s certainly working for some developers.

Maybe it just needs a little bit of love.

Ain’t Nobody Using the Mac App Store ⇥ blog.soff.es

In real, practical terms, the Mac App Store is a decent distribution method for Apple’s software. It’s certainly better than the old Software Update function. But for third party developers? Not as much. Not even close. Maybe nobody buys Mac software any more, or maybe all the developers who are actually able to charge for software don’t need the Store. In that case, what’s it really for, apart from Apple’s own software?

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.

“iCloud in Its Current Implementation Is Chock Full of Stupid” ⇥ robservatory.com

Rob Griffiths has some choice words for iCloud:

iCloud has potential—given the size of the iOS and Mac OS X user base, it’d be stupid to claim it didn’t. But to really succeed, especially if Apple wants it to eventually replace the filesystem, I think iCloud needs to address its capacity and pricing disparity; it needs some way to handle documents outside of applications (an iCloud folder with subfolders would work well), and it needs to be available to all developers, regardless of where they sell their apps.

As a sync service, iCloud spans the gamut of frustrating to sublime, depending on where you live and whether Mercury is in retrograde. As a cloud storage service, it’s woefully frustrating. Griffiths mentions three great reasons why.

For me, the single biggest frustration is the inability to edit a single document with multiple applications, because everything is siloed and segregated. This is great for security, but terrible for much real-world use, especially for so-called “power” users. When I write a longer-form article, for example, I like to make changes on my iPhone and iPad using Byword, but I prefer Markdrop or TextMate on my Mac, because I’m hardcore like that. TextMate doesn’t support iCloud (it isn’t sold in the Mac App Store), but even if it did, I wouldn’t be able to seamlessly edit that file using different apps on different platforms.

Even on the same platform, iCloud makes for a frustrating experience. Imagine a dream world where you’d be able to store your iPhoto library in iCloud, so it’s always backed up and safe. Now imagine editing photos in that dream world, and witness how it crumbles: you make a few basic edits in iPhoto, then you want to remove that distracting telephone pole using Photoshop. What do you do?

iCloud has the potential to be a great product, and it needs to be. It isn’t yet, though.

App Store Inconsistencies, Continued ⇥ mactrast.com

After yesterday’s reports that trial, pirated, or non-App Store versions of Apple’s apps were being updated in the App Store, an Apple contact of MacTrast’s J. Glenn Künzler reached out to him:

Rather than maintain separate updates for these in addition to the Mac App Store versions of each app, Apple has decided to eliminate their legacy software update system for apps entirely. Instead, when Mavericks discovers legacy apps installed on your Mac, it provisions them as a Mac App Store purchase using your Apple ID. It saves us a lot of time, effort, and bandwidth. After the provision is complete, it will appear in your Mac App Store history as though you have purchased the Mac App Store version of the app.

Golly, I bet a lot of third-party developers would love to be able to do that.

There is some humanity in this, though. Künzler’s source, continued:

While we are aware that this enables piracy of our apps for unethical users, Apple has never taken a strong stance or action against piracy in the past. We like to believe that our users are honest, even if that belief is in vain.

Kudos.

Another Entry in the App Store Inconsistency Diaries ⇥ 9to5mac.com

Scott Buscemi, 9to5Mac:

For those with boxed/retail versions of iWork, Apple is slowly rolling out the ability to upgrade for free. Keep checking your “Updates” tab in the Mac App Store.

Apple’s own apps are allowed to crossgrade. Non-App Store apps are allowed to upgrade to App Store equivalents for free, with no end-user hassles. Think that functionality is available to third-party developers who would like it? (Hint: no.)

OmniKeyMaster Update ⇥ omnigroup.com

Ken Case of the Omni Group shares the bad news:

So long as we continue to sell our apps through the Mac App Store, we are not allowed to distribute updates through other channels to apps which were purchased from the App Store.

Sounds like a stupid App Store policy. Where the App Store model was a boon on mobile devices, it’s lacking for the desktop paradigm for any sort of power user app.

OmniKeyMaster ⇥ omnigroup.com

Dave Messent, OmniGroup:

OmniKeyMaster is a simple app that finds App Store copies of Omni apps installed on your Mac, then generates equivalent licenses from our store – for free. This gives Mac App Store customers access to discounted pricing when upgrading from the Standard edition to Professional, or when upgrading from one major version to the next. Another benefit: since they don’t have to wait in an approval queue, our direct releases sometimes get earlier access to new features and bug fixes. OmniKeyMaster lets App Store customers access those builds, as well.

A very elegant solution to a problem that simply should not exist, yet does because of some inanity by Apple regarding upgrade pricing, license transfers, and all things required to get approval to sell in the Mac App Store. The App Store model is phenomenal on iOS, and great on the Mac for typical users. But for power users, the Mac App Store is awkward.