Popular Mac app 'Bartender' acquired by new unknown developer

What looks odd to me is this silence about acquisition. I've got a lot of emails and read enough blog posts from developers that brags about new owners and new opportunities that goes with it.

Bartender is just utility app, but has permissions to e.g screen recording, so new version from new developer without prior explanation just seems shady

Re: Popular Mac app 'Bartender' acquired by new unknown developer

#8

Post by flenserboy » Wed, Jun 05, 2024, 1:56 PM UTC

This is good reason for why applications should be containerized. The Old OS X way of simply putting a bundle into the Applications directory was a good start.

Re: Popular Mac app 'Bartender' acquired by new unknown developer

#9

Post by sspiff » Wed, Jun 05, 2024, 1:57 PM UTC

> Future plans for the app remain unknown, but users have a right to know what’s going on behind the scenes.

Do they though? You buy a license for a piece of software, and as far as I understand that doesn't include any fundamental rights involving insight into company policies, direction, business strategy, ...

Regardless, this is of course quite a dubious takeover.

Re: Popular Mac app 'Bartender' acquired by new unknown developer

#10

Post by bnchrch » Wed, Jun 05, 2024, 1:58 PM UTC

This was something I learned when owning even a moderately successful github app.

There are a lot of bad actors out there, who end up in your inbox monthly, asking to "acquire" your app for a small sum of money.

I would bet some if not all were looking at it as a juicy attack vector against my users.