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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

#61

Post by LinaLauneBaer »

I like the idea of a sandbox. Apple promotes the sandbox as a security feature but shouldn't Apple try to improve much more important things (security wise) first which are much less invasive?

Example: The Keychain application from Apple (used to store certificates, private keys and passwords) is using a encryption algorithm that is too weak for what it is used - namely: DES. You can break it with a reasonable amount of money.

Wouldn't it make more sense to improve these kind of things first? We would gain so much more security with a minimal effort.

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

#62

Post by grecy »

joe_the_user wrote: post #43
grecy wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

Once you are dealing with more than, say, two hundred pieces of information, you kind of start needing to classify that information and have definite ways to find it. If tags are a way that you can definitely find and specify a given file, then tags will form part of a new, distributed file system. If tags wind-up just being half-assed, uncertain hints to where files might be, then they will form part of a new, disfu…

I think you missed my point.

I have thousands of photos "in" iPhoto, and I have no idea of any of the file names or their location on the file system.

I don't care what they are called or where they are, I just want to have my photos.

Sure, there might be a filesystem under there, but I have no interest in interacting with it directly.

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

#63

Post by LaGrange »

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'…

Actually, the sandbox seems like a requirement for safely distributing apps that allow plug-ins.

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

#64

Post by mvelie »

jobu wrote: post #29

How could Apple handle sandboxing in Xcode? It doesn't seem possible. Right now they just distribute the installer via the app store, but I thought they were planning to put the whole app in there. I wonder if Apple might give some companies of just distributing the installer via the app store as well.

They just updated xcode today. In the new update they're slightly more in compliance as it is no longer an installer that is downloaded, it's an app package. You can tell they spent some time reworking stuff to get it working correctly within those app store rules.

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

#65

Post by calloc »

LaGrange wrote: post #55
zdw wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

If you call `ssh` on the command line it will use Keychain to unlock your private SSH key.

That part is done. The application shouldn't be asking for SSH keys, it is completed already. Just use `ssh` as you would before.

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

#66

Post by calloc »

jobu wrote: post #29

How could Apple handle sandboxing in Xcode? It doesn't seem possible. Right now they just distribute the installer via the app store, but I thought they were planning to put the whole app in there. I wonder if Apple might give some companies of just distributing the installer via the app store as well.

Xcode was not distributed through the App Store, an Installer for Xcode was distributed through the App Store.

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

#67

Post by calloc »

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?

I was under the impression that dynamically loading code was no longer allowed. Not that apps have to be static, but unless it was part of the .app and signed it won't run in the sandbox.

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

#68

Post by Keyframe »

hemancuso wrote: post #30

The real question regarding the Mac App Store, IMHO, is whether or not it forbids a broad enough class of still-popular applications that it fails to achieve the goal of becoming the default distribution method for applications on the Mac and instead is relegated to games and simple utilities that fit nicely inside this model. Very very popular apps like: Chrome Photoshop/Adobe CS Fusion/Parallels Microsoft Office Te…

The Mac App Store loses a bit of its allure when you get your new MacBook Air [even as a non developer] and can't find basics like Chrome or Dropbox or Microsoft Office in there.

I can testify about that. I just bought MBA recently and opened up App Store out of curiosity, however almost all of software I needed I bought at writer's store (apparently there is final draft now in app store, but I bought directly from Final Draft). Same goes for Office, Chrome, Dropbox, etc...

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

#69

Post by Ryanmf »

LaGrange wrote: post #63
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'…

Actually, the sandbox seems like a requirement for safely distributing apps that allow plug-ins.

Are you suggesting that every pro media application released before March 1, 2012 was not safely distributed?

I guess I should step back a bit and make my argument more clear. I'm not opposed to the concept of sandboxing, I recognize the benefits of these policies as Apple's user base grows and malware becomes a greater concern.

My contention is that the imposition this places on users and developers alike will most likely dissuade pro media software developers from participating in the Mac App Store to begin with, thereby depriving Apple of potential income, depriving developers access to useful features like iCloud file sharing/mirroring, and exposing users to the very risks this policy is intended to shield them from.

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

#70

Post by ramses »

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…

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. It burns CDs. It manipulates midi through wifi, usb, and firewire. It reads third party provided sound samples and loops. It manipulates analog instrument interfaces through firewire ...

Is Apple going to cripple Logic Studio? Or will they also have to take their "pro" software out of the appstore?

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