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Leaving the Mac App Store

blog.sketchapp.com

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Re: Leaving the Mac App Store

#201

Post by ssutch3 »

makecheck wrote: post #118
kybernetyk wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That must be the most frustrating/annoying thing in the world. Yes, and sometimes it gets even more frustrating when you get rejected for some minor issue like "the app name in the help menu is mis-spelled". An issue that takes you 3 minutes to fix and re-upload. And then you need to wait another 7 days. (If you're unlucky they find something else for 7 days more of waiting time).

If they're doing that level of scrutiny a million times, they should have released a tool (or even built it into Xcode); something like "Consistency Checker". It's silly of them to reject apps entirely over checks that anyone could do in advance, if only they knew what to look for.

There are a lot of automated tests that the upload program and receiving web service already do. But "quality checking" is left up to a human editor.

Re: Leaving the Mac App Store

#202

Post by OSButler »

relaxatorium wrote: post #81

The thing that's craziest about the MAS to me is how bad the actual application is. It's super slow, constantly hangs, and is just such a bad experience from the consumer side that it undermines the (very real) benefits of having a centralized store of applications you've purchased and installed. It'd be one thing (and a fairly standard Apple move) if the customer experience was good and they didn't care about trampl…

The one thing that keeps bothering me with MAS updates is that you cannot see the download/install progress. It will show it at first, but then the progress bar indicator simply disappears after a short time. I have to close the App Store window and reopen it, often multiple times, in order to be able to see the download progress again. This is not an issue for smaller updates, but larger Xcode updates are a pain trying to figure out how much data has been downloaded so far.

Re: Leaving the Mac App Store

#203

Post by mastax »

justinclift wrote: post #186
dreen wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steam is terrible. It requires the whole app to be running and fully up to date before you can launch a game. It has a slow load time. Even on a decent machine, if you haven't played a steam game in a while and you want to run one, you might be looking at a good few minutes before the game even starts to load. In the name of what, stopping piracy? AFAIK most pirated games come from steam anyway. I realise this is sti…

You can launch your games in Offline mode, which stops the need for having to go online/update/contact-the-Steam-servers-before-launch. It's not totally straight forward though. You need to unplug your network device (or turn off wifi, etc) so the initial startup times out, and gives you the option to use Offline mode. There might be a command line switch way to do that too, but I've never looked. ;)

There's also a menu option for 'Go Offline...'

Re: Leaving the Mac App Store

#204

Post by xenadu02 »

The worst part about this is all the problems are easily solved if Apple simply put the resources into it.

* The actual MAS store app itself is a horrible piece of garbage wrapping a bunch of web views. Just make it a real native app and rewrite it.

* Sandboxing is great, but there will always be things that fall outside the sandbox. Have a "Power User / Developer Tools" category and associated checkbox in iTC that says "My app needs to opt-out of these parts of sandboxing". Put those apps through a much more strenuous review process.

* Relatedly, add more entitlements to the Sandbox, even if they also trigger a more in-depth review.

* Both iOS and the Mac app stores desperately need feedback mechanisms and some basic customer support tools. This has been obvious since at least iOS v4. I can only imagine this is due to Apple's inability to do good server-side software (and the organization doesn't value it like they value client software). This should automatically give you at least a private way to send a message to users leaving a bad review, then prompt the user to update their review if the response helped them. Asking users to review is hard enough... getting them to update a 1-star review is nearly impossible.

* Hire more reviewers. There is no excuse for reviews taking so damn long.

Re: Leaving the Mac App Store

#205

Post by SneakerXZ »

eveningcoffee wrote: post #194
SneakerXZ wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you would lose your customers. If my operating system limits me from doing things that I can do on other platforms and I want to do them, I will simply not use the system. Are you realizing Mac is used also by creative people that use Adobe tools, tools for 3D and so on and if everything was sandboxed you couldn't do it anymore.

Are you realizing Mac is used also by creative people that use Adobe tools, tools for 3D and so on. I.e. not programmers but users of software from big software companies. and if everything was sandboxed you couldn't do it anymore. Yes, you could not run arbitrary programs and Apple may see it as a feature. You seem to be in big denial as it would be horrible thing to happen. I still see this as very likely possibili…

Of course, it is a horrible thing to happen. Just to give you some apps from my dock.

Chrome, Spotify, Outlook, HipChat, Viber, Skype, SourceTree, Atom, Sketch, Dropbox.

All these would be not be usable because they are not sandboxed. Basically I would have to install Windows on my Macbook and I would virtualize Mac OS X so I can use Xcode and I would use Windows for everything else.

It would be suicide for Mac OS X and if you think Apple is so stupid to do it, okay then...

Re: Leaving the Mac App Store

#207

Post by integraton »

jasonbarone wrote: post #115
laveur wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brew is not consumer friendly at all. My parents (in their 60's) own a mac that I bought for them. It was a great decision for me as I barely have to support them for technical problems. I only get questions on how to do something. If I was to try and explain brew to them it would be a disaster. Explaining the Mac App Store is far easier.

Brew is not even tech-person friendly. I'm comfortable with the command line and I had a ton of problems getting cask to work. I LOVE the idea and I will use it every time I setup a computer, but there's so many issues to work out. Mainly, some apps not updating correctly, the storage of app versions in cask, settings, licensing. It's a mess. I really hope it gets better. I'd contribute if I was knowledgeable enough…

Be aware that Homebrew Cask [1], which your comment is referring to, is a separate project being built on top of Homebrew ("brew") [2] and it currently has a number of shortcomings that are independent of anything to do with Homebrew itself.

1. https://github.com/caskroom/homebrew-cask/

2. https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew

Re: Leaving the Mac App Store

#208

Post by dperfect »

VeryVito wrote: post #46

I'm glad to see successful apps exiting The Mac App Store, and I hope others will follow. Unlike its iOS counterpart, which is great in many ways (new app discovery not being one of them), the MAS has unfortunately done more harm than good to the once-thriving indy Mac app-development scene. It offers a low cost of entry, but also encourages "pump-and-dump" development, in which developers are actively (though surely…

Just to play devil's advocate: what specific things about the MAS "[do] more harm than good" or encourage "pump-and-dump" development as you say?

I'm not trying to defend the MAS, and I think it definitely needs improvement, but are we really worse off for it?

The two things mentioned by the Sketch developers are app review time and sandbox limits. Those same things exist on iOS, but I keep hearing people say the MAS is somehow worse. From Apple's perspective, the sandbox limits are arguably justified by a desire to provide greater security and privacy controls. The review process is basically a consequence of that same goal - though of course, review time could be greatly reduced.

It sounds like the core issue for people is sandboxing. But what specifically about sandboxing is the issue? Are the sandbox limits really too restrictive for most apps (I guess new APIs/permissions could improve that with time), or are there just a lot of developers who prefer not to rework their apps to deal with the sandbox restrictions? Or is the very idea of sandboxing the problem (or perhaps the default security setting for allowed app installation)?

As long as apps can be distributed outside the MAS, I guess I don't really understand the problem. The MAS adds a lot of convenience, but as usual, the convenience comes at a cost, and thankfully users and developers can take it or leave it.

Re: Leaving the Mac App Store

#209

Post by chrisper »

Jasber wrote: post #108

Two years ago I released a Mac app ( https://heyfocus.com/ ) that couldn't be in the MAS due to sandbox restrictions (tried 3 times—frustrating experience). I sat on it for an entire year because I was convinced nobody buys stuff outside of the AppStore anymore. A year ago, the project still had really good traction, so I decided to try to sell it directly as a test (using Paddle.com). Boy, was I wrong! TONS of peopl…

Good choice. I stopped using the AppStore because I hate how it connects an app to my apple ID. For example, when I came to the U.S. I had to create a new AppleID. So each time I want an app from the old AppleID I have to change to the German app store. Quite annoying.

Re: Leaving the Mac App Store

#210

Post by tjl »

j2bax wrote: post #181
S_A_P wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree- however, if you follow what other DAW upgrades cost(and I agree, forget this monthly subscription crap) Studio One Upgrade from 2-3(highest version) - 149 Reason 8 upgrade from any version - 129(sometimes 99) Cubase 8 upgrade - 75 Logic is pretty expensive to upgrade for what usually amounts to a free plugin or two and minor functionality increases...

I didn't realize they charge so little for their major upgrades. Sorry to assume you didn't do the math.

Another point, Pro Tools HD is $99/year and $199 for the first year. In that case, $199 is reasonable.
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