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Leaving the Mac App Store

blog.sketchapp.com

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Re: Leaving the Mac App Store

#361

Post by ThomPete »

joeblau wrote: post #357
ThomPete wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but is it as easy to do? For all it's shortcomings very few things are as flexible and powerfull as being able to use web technologies to layout.

If you know what you're doing(which Apple should since they created the constraint system), then it's not that hard especially with the current constraint structure. There really isn't any technical reason why they shouldn't be able to reimplement iTunes natively and use backend API's to just serve content.

I don't think it's as easy as you think.

Having played around with apples layout and general UI related stuff myself quite a lot I can tell you that it's a lot harder than webviews. We are talking perhaps 50X for the kind of stuff like the App store.

Re: Leaving the Mac App Store

#362

Post by dav- »

ThomPete wrote: post #52

I used to have an app in the MAS but recently removed it and is using Paddle instead. There are so many things wrong with the MAS. Sandbox is the biggest complaint I have. I can understand it with the iOS to some degree. At least there they are constantly providing new features and hardware changes to help apps keep being innovative. To give an example of the Sandbox issue. We are using AppleScript for some of our lo…

I'm not really an OSX developer, but shouldn't it be possible to bypass the sandbox in a way by offering the user to install an unsandboxed auxiliary application via a download from your website which then communicates with the main sandboxed App Store application using some protocol and performs any actions which the MAS version would be otherwise unable to?

For example, perhaps the auxiliary application runs a local HTTP server with a REST API. The MAS application simply makes HTTP requests to the auxiliary application such as `POST /applescript/doStuff`.

Re: Leaving the Mac App Store

#363

Post by ThomPete »

altonzheng wrote: post #360
ThomPete wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but is it as easy to do? For all it's shortcomings very few things are as flexible and powerfull as being able to use web technologies to layout.

Apple totally has the resources to make a great native app experience, even if it's much more tedious. I don't see why they don't go the extra mile, especially since the app store generates so much revenue...

This is not a question of ability but what is gained from making it native vs. hybrid. You don't gain anything from using the native layout model that can't be done via web view.

There is no doubt the App Store is horribly done, but for the kind of content that is going to be in the store I simply don't see why they would choose otherwise.

Keep in mind that the apps also exist on the web. This would force apple to still make a web version and a native version.

Don't see what is gained from this.

Re: Leaving the Mac App Store

#364

Post by ThomPete »

dav- wrote: post #362
ThomPete wrote: post #52

I used to have an app in the MAS but recently removed it and is using Paddle instead. There are so many things wrong with the MAS. Sandbox is the biggest complaint I have. I can understand it with the iOS to some degree. At least there they are constantly providing new features and hardware changes to help apps keep being innovative. To give an example of the Sandbox issue. We are using AppleScript for some of our lo…

I'm not really an OSX developer, but shouldn't it be possible to bypass the sandbox in a way by offering the user to install an unsandboxed auxiliary application via a download from your website which then communicates with the main sandboxed App Store application using some protocol and performs any actions which the MAS version would be otherwise unable to? For example, perhaps the auxiliary application runs a loca…

Against Apple Terms I believe. They will ban you if they find out.

I was talking with apple support and they basically said that if we even offered some extra component to get rid of the spinning gear we would most likely be banned.

Re: Leaving the Mac App Store

#365

Post by greggman »

toyg wrote: post #320
Orva wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

What does that have to do with HTML5 apps? In the browser, when HD-DPI support was added every page started using HD-DPI font rendering, HD-DPI CSS, HD-DPI SVG, only image were still lo-res

Conversely I still have native apps that are low-res only because updating them to HD-DPI meant shipping a new app.

Re: Leaving the Mac App Store

#366

Post by greggman »

overgard wrote: post #349
mrec wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

A machine requirements check would be useful, but I can't think of many companies that would implement something that results in less sales. What's the upside? Maybe some good will? I'm not saying valve wants people to buy games they can't run or anything like that, but it would be an expensive ongoing effort to make less money.

How would that generate less sales? Isn't the whole point that since the recommendations are irrelevant they're getting less sales not more?

Re: Leaving the Mac App Store

#367

Post by greggman »

dperfect wrote: post #208
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…

No non-free upgrades. To release version 2 of your app with a fee you have to release a new app. There's no connection between the two and AFAIK no way to provide a discount for existing users.

As for the MAS harming devs it's the "official store of OSX" so users are arguably being trained to look there and only there for apps. So sure you can look elsewhere but Apple is fighting against you.

30% cut is very high as well. I think existing payment systems for shareware apps were 5% or less. What do you get for your 30%? Support? No. Discovery? Not really. File Hosting? Ok, maybe but is that worth 30%? Easy upgrade and install. That's about it but usually that would be mostly handled by a free library.

Re: Leaving the Mac App Store

#368

Post by brazzledazzle »

vitd wrote: post #217
to3m wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I can tell, it's not universal, but still somewhat common. (My computer has always done it ever since I bought it new in April.) It is a bit annoying. But since I use the MAS so irregularly, I can get by. I do wonder what the cause is, though. I'm less certain I'd like to know how Apple have so far failed to get to the bottom of it.

Do you know for certain that they know about it? You can file bugs here: http://bugreport.apple.com/ .

Radar is bullshit. Apple should make it easy to file bugs and get information about them but they've been using this piece of jank since forever. If I file a dupe I have to inquire about it every now and again because you can't just add me to the original? Yeah, I don't think so.

Re: Leaving the Mac App Store

#369

Post by BinaryIdiot »

to3m wrote: post #102
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…

I dread ever having to run the Mac App Store to get an upgrade. (Luckily, I only have to do it for Xcode and OS X.) It asks for my password literally every 15-20 seconds. Once I tell it to upgrade everything, it selects only one upgrade, and keeps telling me there are upgrades. While the upgrades are going, it keeps asking me for my password. At that point I go off and watch TV. When I come back, it's actually downlo…

> It asks for my password literally every 15-20 seconds.

That's really odd. It's a bad app but I've never seen that (in fact I've almost never need to enter my credentials). Are you sure it's your iTunes password? Maybe it's your keychain password and you have your keychain locked (which therefore you're going to be prompted for its password every time a service needs to grab the credentials stored within).

Re: Leaving the Mac App Store

#370

Post by brazzledazzle »

aeontech wrote: post #177
cpcallen wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This includes breaking updates to the Steam client itself - which stopped working on 10.6.8 in November. I can roll back to an earlier version, but it immediately auto-updates to the latest version. So now I can't update any of the games I've bought through Steam, or reinstall any I've removed. Obviously I can't buy any new ones, either - but, even if I eventually update OS X (breaking many older Apps I depend on for…

Just want to point out that you could upgrade the base OS to latest, and run 10.6.8 in a VM for any older apps that do break in new versions.

Also 10.6 isn't getting much in the way of security updates anymore...
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