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Leaving the Mac App Store

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Re: Leaving the Mac App Store

#311

Post by x0x0 »

macintux wrote: post #275
eveningcoffee wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I remember it differently. Here is one example: http://www.businessinsider.com/ios-6-removes-google-maps-201...

A: Business Insider is rarely a source of truth, at least when it comes to anything Apple. "Click bait" seems to be their sole goal in life. B: Apple never precluded Google from putting their own Maps app into the store, they simply replaced the preinstalled version with their own when (if memory serves) Google both demanded too much user information and declined to offer vector-based maps

which google did by sometime in dec '12

Re: Leaving the Mac App Store

#312

Post by odbol »

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…

Low cost of entry? It's actually quite high... my company still has to distribute instructions on how to disable Gatekeeper on your Mac so you can install our app. We don't have the resources to pay the $100/year "Apple tax" and also spend the 2-3 days developer time on figuring out how to sign our app and make it work with sandboxing.

For me, low cost of entry means "you put the app up for download, the user downloads it." Like the old days. No certificates, no Apple tax, no hoops to jump through.

Re: Leaving the Mac App Store

#313

Post by eveningcoffee »

SneakerXZ wrote: post #271
eveningcoffee wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the original question was What if they restrict running compilers? and not What if they remove compilers? . Restriction might be a requirement of special licence. This would effectively remove ability to execute arbitrary code from most of the users. The ones who want to run arbitrary code or develop software will have to pay. If someone complains about this, they would be told to shut up and would be explained…

Apple is going actually in opposite way and you can see it with recent changes on iOS. To run apps on iPhone, you don't need to buy a developer licence for 100$ anymore. They support more extensions for apps. On last Apple keynote Microsoft was presenting Microsoft Office running on iPad Pro. The special licence you are talking about actually exists. You can sign your Mac apps with a certificate and it will not ask a…

I hope it goes better (the future of liberty in computing seems very dim), but I would be not surprised if it goes to the opposite direction accompanied by big ovations.

Re: Leaving the Mac App Store

#314

Post by profmonocle »

stevetrewick wrote: post #132
aerialcombat wrote: post #95

They should seriously do something about the review times. I'm sure they can come up with a plenty of good solutions if they wanted to. I suggest maybe giving developers a bank of a set number of expedited review passes per year or so, so they can use it when they really need it. Damn it.

It actually works like this in theory. You can get a couple of expedited reviews for critical or urgent fixes [0], but Apples definition of 'critical' and 'urgent' don't typically include having just shipped a crash bug that will effect your entire user base unless you are Rovio are a similarly large actor. [0] https://developer.apple.com/support/app-review/

I once got them to expedite an emergency bug fix, and my company was nowhere near a "large actor". But this was waaaay back in 2009 so I can't be sure they're still that willing to help small devs. The expedited review took 24 hours when the average was over ten days at that time.

Still, any review time is really sucks as a developer. Shipping a big release and having to wait 10+ days to get feedback really slowed us down and hurt my enthusiasm as a developer. Honestly, I'm glad iOS development isn't the main focus of my job anymore - the SDK and tooling is fantastic, but provisioning and App Store submission is awful.

Re: Leaving the Mac App Store

#315

Post by mcphage »

xenadu02 wrote: post #204

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 s…

I think the reason it feels so sluggish is that the servers it pulls data from take so long to respond. I don't think a native view would help with that, but it's absolutely something they need to fix.

Re: Leaving the Mac App Store

#316

Post by staticelf »

cmdkeen wrote: post #114
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…

Which is ridiculous when Steam is there as a shining example of what a store could be. Not having to worry about keys and updates is fantastic for me, plus good discovery and upselling opportunities for developers. Someone is going to crack desktop app stores one day and do very well. The cost of entry is high (not necessarily in cash, more in reputation) but there are plenty of players who could do it. There's even…

After Steam, Windows Store is definately the best app store I've used. Normally a Linux fan, but I'm really impressed by Microsofts products lately.

Re: Leaving the Mac App Store

#317

Post by mcphage »

s73v3r wrote: post #270
jacalata wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They pretty specifically said that the inability to charge for updates encourages pump and dump development.

That doesn't explain how, nor really makes any sense.

If you can't make any money for upgrades, and there isn't a new influx of users, then there's not much money to be made by updating your app after release—only the people who would buy it after the update, but wouldn't have bought without it. Everyone else either paid you all the money they could, or will buy it anyway.

Re: Leaving the Mac App Store

#318

Post by toyg »

mrec wrote: post #151
cmdkeen wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is ridiculous when Steam is there as a shining example of what a store could be. Not having to worry about keys and updates is fantastic for me, plus good discovery and upselling opportunities for developers. Someone is going to crack desktop app stores one day and do very well. The cost of entry is high (not necessarily in cash, more in reputation) but there are plenty of players who could do it. There's even…

I use and generally like Steam, but I'd never call its discovery "good". Users are drowning in the number of titles, the recommendation engine is pretty poor, and there's no support for filtering . I'll never buy an RTS or a multiplayer-only game, stop showing them to me. I'll never buy an early-access game or a game with 3rd-party DRM, stop showing them to me. I could cull 90% of the stuff in my discovery queues, au…

>"is this machine actually capable of running this game?" check. Non-trivial to implement, sure,

Quite trivial, actually. They already do the necessary data-gathering at your end (i.e. their periodic automated survey), the only "hard" bit is data-gathering at the other end (when a game is listed).

It's so trivial to implement, in fact, that one has to wonder whether there are commercial considerations overriding the technical aspect. Maybe they don't want to piss off hardware and game vendors, maybe Valve would rather have you buy their console to bypass these considerations altogether... who knows.

Re: Leaving the Mac App Store

#320

Post by toyg »

Orva wrote: post #272
the_af wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. I like and use Steam, but its UI for casually browsing games (aka "casual shopping") isn't very good. For example, when you are browsing a list of games, if you click on one to see additional details and then try going back, you lose your place in the list. This is infuriating for long lists. It kills the browse & shop experience. The web interface for Steam is better than the app's. Then again, this is wh…

Funny enough, when looking at Steam processes tree (and if I recall correctly, also licenses), client is done with Chromium Embedded Framework.

Which is probably why it still looks like shit on Retina screens. Oh, how I love HTML apps...
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