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Between a rock and a hard place – our decision to abandon the Mac App Store

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Re: Between a rock and a hard place – our decision to abandon the Mac App Store

#121

Post by seanalltogether »

msbarnett wrote: post #105
seanalltogether wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bookmarks are a working solution, the problem is getting the user to locate those urls in the first place. I'm having many of the same problems that the OP mentions and explaining to the user how to locate folders and files correctly is a usability nightmare. "Click the button below, locate file xyz and 'Open' it to proceed" I would be perfectly ok with a system "Grant permission to xyz" dialog, but the open file dia…

> "Click the button below, locate file xyz and 'Open' it to proceed" Rather than presenting it as some pointless mechanical chore in which you direct a user to a specific file in a known place, wouldn't "Choose where you would like Foo.app to save your XYZ (project/file/whatever)" make a lot more sense?

It's not about saving though, it's about reading files that already exist in certain locations.

Imagine for instance an application that helps you clean up your downloads folder, but wouldn't be appropriate to use on other folders on your system. It's not the best example, but it illustrates how much of a usability mess it is to ask the user to locate the folder for you through an open file dialog, and then have to reject it if they select the wrong thing.

Re: Between a rock and a hard place – our decision to abandon the Mac App Store

#122

Post by batista »

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #91
archgrove wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, far more accurately, "You can get these all apps from the developers directly. We don't support them on the Mac App Store at this time, and we don't discuss future product directions".

Two and half, three years ago, people predicted this move for OS X after the locked down nature of the iPhone really took hold. There are people that swore up and down that signed applications would never come to OS X and that there would never be a walled ecosystem on a non-iOS Mac product. Now we know this to be blatantly false. Apple's biggest money comes from devices that have an exclusively walled ecosystem. It…

Two and half, three years ago, people predicted this move for OS X after the locked down nature of the iPhone really took hold. There are people that swore up and down that signed applications would never come to OS X and that there would never be a walled ecosystem on a non-iOS Mac product.

Actually, nothing of the kind ever happened. Maybe some idiots did, but security experts have been nagging Apple to add signed apps all the time (Windows had them for ages), and people were also interested in a Mac App Store (not to mention developers, who saw it as another gold rush after the successful iPhone App Store).

Besides, from the very first OS X, say, 10.0.1 to 10.8, nothing has been taken away from user freedom. What exactly can't you do in 10.8 that you could in 10.0.1? They only ADDED stuff, i.e not you can also get stuff from the App Store, and in 10.8 you can also run secure, signed, apps.

Plus, why wouldn't OS X have a "walled garden"? Linux distros had one for ages, we call 'em "package repositories". Yeah, you can install stuff in other ways too in a Linux distro, but then again, so you can on OS X 10.8.

Re: Between a rock and a hard place – our decision to abandon the Mac App Store

#123

Post by drivebyacct2 »

batista wrote: post #120
drivebyacct2 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you say they're completely wrong? Every iteration brings in more iOS features, often with no way to opt-out or the option is buried away or hidden in a plist setting. Mission Control versus the old Expose? App persisting (both in memory and) state. Not showing hidden files in Finder. More iCloud integration at seemingly every turn in Mountain Lion. It's clear that Apple is making OS X more and more and more l…

Mission Control versus the old Expose? Yeah, isn't it much better? App persisting (both in memory and) state. Yay, a modern operating system practice finally in OS X. The OS should take advantage of what it can do, to balance apps loading faster and using less resources. For all I care, the ideal would be all apps to be always INSTANT ON. Not showing hidden files in Finder. Hidden files shouldn't be an end user's con…

>We want a modern Cloud service from Apple.

I feel like you're completely and intentionally ignoring the point I'm trying to make.

Re: Between a rock and a hard place – our decision to abandon the Mac App Store

#124

Post by msbarnett »

seanalltogether wrote: post #121
msbarnett wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Click the button below, locate file xyz and 'Open' it to proceed" Rather than presenting it as some pointless mechanical chore in which you direct a user to a specific file in a known place, wouldn't "Choose where you would like Foo.app to save your XYZ (project/file/whatever)" make a lot more sense?

It's not about saving though, it's about reading files that already exist in certain locations. Imagine for instance an application that helps you clean up your downloads folder, but wouldn't be appropriate to use on other folders on your system. It's not the best example, but it illustrates how much of a usability mess it is to ask the user to locate the folder for you through an open file dialog, and then have to r…

That's a fairly niche case, though. Personally I'm comfortable sacrificing it in favor of not giving apps full read-write access to everything on my system by default.

I can see how there are very specific cases in which it would be too cumbersome, but it probably works in > 80% of cases, and it's pretty clear that those 80% apps are who the App Store is aimed at.

Edit: Thinking about this some more: not to pick on your example, but the Downloads folder actually does need to be located by the user, because it's not actually in a fixed location (it defaults to $HOME/Downloads, but that's not where mine is located, for instance).

There really aren't many cases that I can dream up in which you can absolutely be certain of a file or folder's location, such that an Open Dialog is totally superfluous.

Re: Between a rock and a hard place – our decision to abandon the Mac App Store

#125

Post by ori_b »

The problem is that allowing the holes he wants in sandboxing would defeat the security benefits. And that security is the whole point of the ordeal.

I don't know what the best solution is. Possibly allowing non-sandboxed apps in the app store, which go under extra review (possibly with a premium charge to defray the cost of extra review), or requiring the user to select a 'do not sandbox this' option when installing the app.

However, Apple can't give this app what it wants while keeping the integrity of their sandbox.

Re: Between a rock and a hard place – our decision to abandon the Mac App Store

#126

Post by sern »

recoiledsnake wrote: post #106
ramses wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's another kind of applications, besides dev tools, that's going to be affected by this. I'm a user of one of Apple's "pro" applications, Logic Pro 9, a top music recording software (or DAW). I started using it long before it was put in the appstore, and was surprised when they moved it there, as it was a 5 DVD install. Anyways ... the tool interacts with plugins written in a Logic Pro independent standard, VST.…

>Is Apple going to cripple Logic Studio? Or will they also have to take their "pro" software out of the appstore? The answer is simple, Apple's apps will have special access that will make them better than 3rd party apps which have to jump through all these hoops.

The current version of Xcode, released yesterday (two weeks prior to the sandboxing deadline), contains no code signing entitlements and hence is not sandboxed.

Re: Between a rock and a hard place – our decision to abandon the Mac App Store

#127

Post by batista »

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #123
batista wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mission Control versus the old Expose? Yeah, isn't it much better? App persisting (both in memory and) state. Yay, a modern operating system practice finally in OS X. The OS should take advantage of what it can do, to balance apps loading faster and using less resources. For all I care, the ideal would be all apps to be always INSTANT ON. Not showing hidden files in Finder. Hidden files shouldn't be an end user's con…

>We want a modern Cloud service from Apple. I feel like you're completely and intentionally ignoring the point I'm trying to make.

Just wanting to say that what one sees as "problems", other people are perfectly happy with, and even happier than with the old status quo.

Re: Between a rock and a hard place – our decision to abandon the Mac App Store

#128

Post by drivebyacct2 »

batista wrote: post #127
drivebyacct2 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We want a modern Cloud service from Apple. I feel like you're completely and intentionally ignoring the point I'm trying to make.

Just wanting to say that what one sees as "problems", other people are perfectly happy with, and even happier than with the old status quo.

I don't even see them as "problems"; at least not in some altruistic form for the platform necessarily. I just think that a curated, managed platform is something that Apple has been very, very, very successful with (and obviously because people are down with it), and it seems obvious to me that OS X is moving in that direction.

Like I said, I don't think it's fair to imply that they will shut out non-AppStore apps or what not, but it's clear that OS X is becoming part of the LARGER Apple ecosystem in a way that I really don't feel like it was in Leopard or Snow Leopard.

I mean, they're ALL doing it as the app/branding craze comes full circle. Ubuntu is pushing the USC, Windows is pushing Live for login/user management, Apple is integrating iCloud at a very core level in OS X. I guess part of my surprise is from how quickly Apple has thrown iCloud together and integrated it compared to how long Windows has been scrambling with Live and Windows.

Re: Between a rock and a hard place – our decision to abandon the Mac App Store

#129

Post by barryfandango »

Steko wrote: post #108
barryfandango wrote: post #84

When I think of all the articles that have passed through the HN front page about mobile developers' terrible experience with the app store, I can't imagine why a desktop software developer would voluntarily subject themselves to it. Sure, iDevice developers have no choice. But for desktop software there's this handy thing called the Internet. Why kick up revenue to apple, subject myself to submission rules and arbit…

"When I think of all the articles that have passed through the HN front page about mobile developers' terrible experience with the app store" Right, there are no success stories. "Why kick up revenue to apple" People keep saying this like Apple doesn't deliver buying customers and revenue. The app store making a profit on sales is exactly how every other store in the world works. Why does Apple 'kick up revenue' to A…

If the app store can truly compete with an open marketplace, why won't apple let me install arbitrary software on my iDevice?

Re: Between a rock and a hard place – our decision to abandon the Mac App Store

#130

Post by Volpe »

lukifer wrote: post #90
tzs wrote: post #27

Wouldn't security-scoped bookmarks solve some of the problems he describes? From the sandbox design guide: -------------------------------- Starting in Mac OS X v10.6, the NSURL class and the CFURLRef opaque type each provide a facility for creating and using bookmark objects. A bookmark provides a persistent reference to a file-system resource. When you resolve a bookmark, you obtain a URL to the resource’s current…

Thanks for the suggestion, this is very helpful. Do you know if this also bypasses issues of file ownership, or is this only relevant to the sandbox? (Editing of non-owned files using an admin password is a gorram nightmare on modern OS X.)

I'm pretty sure it should stay that way... no?
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