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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

#51

Post by sunchild »

sunchild wrote: post #28
wtn wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're trying to take take take everything away from the user. Soon there will be no filesystem.

Yes, and never mind that just about everything you take for granted about personal computers was "given" by Apple, too. I find this notion that users are entitled to complete device freedom really annoying. If you find it so objectionable, go build your own hardware and OS platform. This isn't a matter of human rights because no one is telling you that you can't make your own.

@cooldeal: Nope, I'm dead serious. There's no fundamental human right that entitles you to tell Apple (or any other device maker) what it can and can't sell you.

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

#52

Post by abruzzi »

grecy wrote: post #10
wtn wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're trying to take take take everything away from the user. Soon there will be no filesystem.

>Soon there will be no filesystem. Is that a bad thing? I'm not saying it will happen soon, or that those of us long in the tooth will go easily, but I honestly think it's the future. Think about young teenagers who will soon be "in charge". They snap a pic on their phone and send it to someone else. Nobody cares where it is in the filesystem, or even what the filename is. I used to meticulously name, tag and organiz…

A hierarchy (i.e. a file system) is for many people the most natural way of classifying documents. There are other ways including tagging and search, and maybe those will become powerful and second nature, but right now classification like Linnaeus makes sense when you are dealing with lots of files.

I saw that iCloud file storage will support folders like the iPhone home screen, but I have no idea if they will support nested folders. This isn't only the case with nerds and geeks. My mother, about as computer phobic as they come, is a minister, and she saves all her sermons for future reuse. They are categorized by specific topic using folders. Also related documents from different applications can use folders to be organized together.

There are a lot of features of filesystems that we take for granted, abstracting it away without providing a usable alternative is problematic.

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

#53

Post by icebraining »

sunchild wrote: post #51
sunchild wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and never mind that just about everything you take for granted about personal computers was "given" by Apple, too. I find this notion that users are entitled to complete device freedom really annoying. If you find it so objectionable, go build your own hardware and OS platform. This isn't a matter of human rights because no one is telling you that you can't make your own.

@cooldeal: Nope, I'm dead serious. There's no fundamental human right that entitles you to tell Apple (or any other device maker) what it can and can't sell you.

Of course there is, it's called Free Speech. There's no right that entitles you to force Apple to do what you want, but then again, nobody's arguing for it.

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

#54

Post by icebraining »

sunchild wrote: post #49
sunchild wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and never mind that just about everything you take for granted about personal computers was "given" by Apple, too. I find this notion that users are entitled to complete device freedom really annoying. If you find it so objectionable, go build your own hardware and OS platform. This isn't a matter of human rights because no one is telling you that you can't make your own.

@recoiledsnake: (for whatever reason, I'm not allowed to reply directly to you) You're comparing Apple's ecosystem to Earth's. Apple is a private company that makes products that are sold on the commercial markets. The Earth is something entirely different. If Apple made planets, then yes – they could decide how to manage the atmosphere. That's how business works.

(for whatever reason, I'm not allowed to reply directly to you)

It's a cool-off period.

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

#55

Post by LaGrange »

zdw wrote: post #22
LaGrange wrote: post #5

I mostly agree, with one exception: "SSH keys and agent configuration are automatically picked up, so access to remotes over SSH ‘just works’" Um, no. If there's one thing that's more private than my address book, it's my ssh keys. The fact that they aren't available to your application by default is a feature. If you need a key, ask me for it. If I want to give you the access, I'll do that.

Under OS X, the Mac Keychain framework hooks into ssh-agent, so you don't have to retype your private key passphrase over and over, just once per session. There are other tools that do similar in other OS's, for example the "keychain" script in Debian. This isn't something weird IMO.

That would actually be (GUI, it doesn't work like this actually, I think, but what I want would look the same) ideal: you don't get my ssh key. You get an ssh session arranged for by the keychain. Too bad it's probably too much work for something not enough people use (and those who use it are generally security-conscious enough to avoid malware on their own).

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

#56

Post by icebraining »

sunchild wrote: post #28
wtn wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're trying to take take take everything away from the user. Soon there will be no filesystem.

Yes, and never mind that just about everything you take for granted about personal computers was "given" by Apple, too. I find this notion that users are entitled to complete device freedom really annoying. If you find it so objectionable, go build your own hardware and OS platform. This isn't a matter of human rights because no one is telling you that you can't make your own.

Yes, and never mind that just about everything you take for granted about personal computers was "given" by Apple, too.

The RDF is on full effect there, I see. You might want to look at systems like the Xerox Alto & Star, both released before the Lisa. The implementation was certainly excellent - and I have a lot of respect for the Lisa and Macintosh engineers - but many of the concepts were invented elsewhere.

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

#57

Post by skymt »

gizzlon wrote: post #13
zdw wrote: post #3

Dev tools don't really have a place in managed environments IMO - they just need too low level of access to a system to be able to do their work. Now, say a game or web browser that runs potentially malicious content, sure, sandbox it. But other things like code interpreters, low level Unix tools, or inter process tools like AppleScript, they're still open to (mis)use by anyone. I'm going to guess that most malware f…

Good point. Every interpreter - and program that loads anything - will have to be foolproof. There was a case some time ago where an Xbox (or was it ps3?) game did not correctly check the saved games before loading them. IIRC people where able to exploit this and get the game to run code on their behalf. In theory, all the games and apps have to sign/encrypt/check everything they load. But I can't believe they will a…

That was the first way Wii owners got homebrew software running: the Wii version of Zelda: Twilight Princess didn't do a bounds check when reading the name of the player's horse from a save file.

http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Twilight_Hack#Explanation

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

#58

Post by Ryanmf »

twoodfin wrote: post #45
Ryanmf wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. By the letter of the law, Mac App Store apps are to be sandboxed, which means no /Library access, which means no plug-ins. In practice, Logic, Mainstage, Final Cut, and others are currently available in the Mac App Store. To me, the only thing that would make these harsh restrictions worse would be uneven enforcement of the rules. We'll see what happens. 2. As of iOS 5, the platform has native Audio Unit support.…

> By the letter of the law, Mac App Store apps are to be sandboxed, which means no /Library access, which means no plug-ins. I don't understand: What prevents an app from having an "Add Plugin..." dialog that uses the sandboxed file browser to locate a plugin library in whatever sensible format?

No technical limitation that I can think of prevents the scenario you've described.

As a practical matter, it would require anything up to and including a full rewrite of every pro media creation app on the market. The standard to date has been that there is a specified folder for plug-ins, and the host scans the folder for installed plug-ins on startup.

One benefit of this arrangement is that the user must install the plug-in only once to have access to it in any application that supports its plug-in format. Let's use pro audio apps as an example. I use Ableton Live and Native Instruments Maschine as my primary compositional tools, but I prefer to mix/master in Reaper. Given your alternative method, when I purchased Madrona Labs' Aalto, one of my favorite virtual instruments released in recent memory, I would have needed to endure three separate installation processes to have access to the plug-in in each app where I might want to use it.

Additionally, Maschine happens to have the ability to run both as a standalone application and as a VST plug-in. Let's say I sketched out a beat in Maschine standalone, using Aalto to produce some cool Buchla bongo sounds. Later, in Live, I insert an instance of the Maschine VST and open my project file for further processing. Do I now have nested sandboxes? Will it work at all?

Things get even more complicated when one considers the plug-in developers who require iLoks (license verification USB dongles). These seem even less likely to be compatible with Apple's new processes. Don't get me wrong, I hate and refuse to use iLoks, and by extension any software which requires them. But many Pro Tools/Waves/Soundtoys/etc users are just used to the inconvenience of a hardware dongle at this point, and the companies I mentioned have many satisfied customers.

It seems to me more likely that rather than rewriting their apps or fundamentally adjusting their license verification practices, many of these developers will simply avoid the App Store altogether. As a consequence, users suffer.

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

#59

Post by feralchimp »

twoodfin wrote: post #45
Ryanmf wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. By the letter of the law, Mac App Store apps are to be sandboxed, which means no /Library access, which means no plug-ins. In practice, Logic, Mainstage, Final Cut, and others are currently available in the Mac App Store. To me, the only thing that would make these harsh restrictions worse would be uneven enforcement of the rules. We'll see what happens. 2. As of iOS 5, the platform has native Audio Unit support.…

> By the letter of the law, Mac App Store apps are to be sandboxed, which means no /Library access, which means no plug-ins. I don't understand: What prevents an app from having an "Add Plugin..." dialog that uses the sandboxed file browser to locate a plugin library in whatever sensible format?

Nothing, and IIRC this is what I've seen recommended on Dev Forum. Browse to plugin, copy plugin to app sandbox (or with 10.7.3 maybe get new security managed context handle to FS object), load. I don't have an app that does this so I can't comment on any possible issues around code signatures.

Sorry I can't point to individual forum threads at the moment.

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

#60

Post by Ryanmf »

feralchimp wrote: post #50
Ryanmf wrote: post #16

Apple needs to do better than this. For the duration of the company's existence, one of their biggest customer segments has been the creative industry. I can't think of a single pro audio/video/graphic/etc app that doesn't make extensive use of plug-ins, another Mac App Store disqualifier. Do the developers of these apps necessarily have a "right" to iCloud APIs, delta updates, and other benefits of playing in Apple'…

MAS applications are not disallowed from supporting plugins.

You're technically correct.

They're just disallowed from supporting plugins in the manner that they have been on every platform for 20 or 30 years.

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