[HN Gopher] Going All in on the Mac App Store
___________________________________________________________________
Going All in on the Mac App Store
Author : s3cur3
Score : 58 points
Date : 2020-12-23 20:16 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.unboundapp.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.unboundapp.com)
| sneak wrote:
| This is disappointing and sad. The more people who do this, the
| more difficult it becomes for those who don't.
|
| You can't download even free apps from the App Store without
| providing an email address, phone number, and street address (to
| get an Apple ID). The App Store app also sends the mac's hardware
| serial number to Apple when you launch it, associating it with
| your identity in the logs. The email and phone required are
| verified so you can't just make some shit up.
|
| This means that to get any apps from the App Store, even free
| ones, you must be thoroughly de-anonymized.
|
| Not caring about privacy because you have nothing to hide is like
| not caring about free speech because you have nothing to say.
|
| Developers should reject the App Store on customer privacy
| grounds alone. When this becomes the sole method of distributing
| apps on the mac, as it is on iOS, the world becomes a much worse
| place, as then the US government had permanent access without a
| warrant to every app you use.
|
| Please don't contribute to building that world.
| globalproctd wrote:
| ... you can install apps on Mac without going through the App
| Store.
| s3cur3 wrote:
| Is the implication that I, a random guy across the internet, am
| a better steward of your personally identifying information
| than Apple? I'm not saying you're wrong, but that definitely
| doesn't match my own intuitions.
| sneak wrote:
| The implication is that, regardless of price, making the App
| Store more useful and valuable harms privacy for everyone, as
| it reduces the ability of people to resist Apple restricting
| features or functionality to App Store only, as they have
| already done with VPN apps using the NetworkExtension API.
| These cannot be installed outside of the App Store at all,
| even self-built ones.
|
| There is also the issue of surveillance. Apple processed
| warrantless FISA surveillance orders for 30,000 users last
| year, per their own transparency report.
|
| It's possible that people don't want Apple (and by extension
| the FBI and US military, with no probable cause or warrant
| required) knowing the apps they purchase and use, or when, or
| on which devices.
|
| Being App Store only prohibits that, and requires that your
| users be subject to this surveillance.
|
| It's the same issue with posting to Instagram, for example:
| deciding to donate free content to Facebook there makes the
| product more attractive to Facebook's users and makes it
| harder for small businesses to opt out of using Facebook's ad
| business. Decisions like this make the whole world worse.
| mirthflat83 wrote:
| Lmao. Might as well solely accept bitcoin to protect the
| user's privacy. That would be a fantastic user experience.
| orf wrote:
| > Developers should reject the App Store on customer privacy
| grounds alone
|
| Consumers go where it's most convenient, and sellers follow
| them. Anything else is wishful thinking at best.
| [deleted]
| amelius wrote:
| Plus some things like sexual content are banned from the App
| Store.
|
| The App Store might be safe and all, just like Disneyland is a
| safe place for kids, but I personally prefer the real world.
| s3cur3 wrote:
| OP here, happy to answer any questions. I know Apple gets a lot
| of well-deserved flack, but for a small-time dev like me, them
| taking a 15% cut makes things a lot simpler for me.
| abhinav22 wrote:
| I was thinking about this as well. When you are small, it's
| definitely a lifesaver. When you get big, then you have to
| figure it out.
|
| But when you are small, you have enough problems to solve to
| bring a quality product to market, this is one headache you can
| happily avoid.
| ben509 wrote:
| How does the no paid upgrade issue affect you?
| ummonk wrote:
| On the consumer side I also would prefer 15% higher pricing
| than to have to deal with various different payment forms as
| well as the difficulty of keeping track of and canceling
| various subscriptions.
| thewebcount wrote:
| Yeah, same here. And even when it's a processor I know like
| Stripe, Square, or Shopify, I don't really trust those
| companies very much. I've gotten spam, other people's
| receipts, etc. from them and their tech support is horrible
| for the consumer. And if they aren't a name I know like one
| of the above, I'm really leery of giving them my email and
| credit card info!
| cuddlybacon wrote:
| Same here. The last time I bought software that wasn't thru
| a well known store or processor I ended up with some
| fraudulent purchases on my next credit card bill[0]. Since
| then, I'll never do that again.
|
| [0] - Thankfully my bank handled this without issue.
| offtop5 wrote:
| I completely agree with your direction, having Apple take the
| responsibility to safeguard user data makes things much easier.
|
| For better or worse Apple can do no wrong and the eyes of its
| customers, so even if they did somehow get hacked, you wouldn't
| have hundreds of angry emails headed your way.
|
| I personally really do love the walled garden of owning a Mac,
| when I'm working on a song or music video, I just want it to
| work using final cut and logic. If I really feel like compiling
| the Linux kernel from scratch, I have a PC for that
| smoldesu wrote:
| I'm really sorry to hear you've been forced into this
| situation. I seldom use MacOS these days, but when I do, buying
| an app from the App Store is the one thing I'm least likely to
| do. I hope that one day it becomes viable to distribute your
| app through a less centralized platform.
| blunte wrote:
| Are you not concerned with Apple potentially delisting you or
| rejecting a future update due to some reason which may or may
| not be clear? I suppose you can always go back to direct if
| that happens, but people who bought via App Store will be out
| of luck for updates then.
| s3cur3 wrote:
| Eh, I toe the line as far as policy is concerned. I'm not
| worried, personally.
| fartcannon wrote:
| Please don't do this. You're short term gain is the worlds long
| term loss.
| quesera wrote:
| Are you arguing for a zero-middleman retail relationship? Or
| just anti-Apple?
| RyJones wrote:
| I bought it, I'll give it a whirl. I've been importing my
| photos from Flickr, which has led to thousands of duplicates.
| s3cur3 wrote:
| Sweet! Give me a shout if you run into issues. :)
| sieabahlpark wrote:
| That's precisely the point though. It works for small devs but
| as you grow that 15% is enough to pay a team to build your own
| app store.
|
| That's the problem with the model.
| [deleted]
| W-Stool wrote:
| Some years ago I looked at developing a MacOS app and
| distributing it through the App Store. I came away from that
| experience with two showstoppers:
|
| - Apple does not disclose to you who bought your app.
|
| - There is no mechanism to make paid updates possible. If you
| want to release a big update and get paid you need to release a
| new app. There is no way to contact current users and offer them
| an inexpensive update.
|
| Are these two issues still true of the MacOS App Store?
| layoutIfNeeded wrote:
| >Apple does not disclose to you who bought your app.
|
| Maybe because it's none of your business?
| killion wrote:
| Reeder did a really great job of dealing with this. I use
| Reeder 4 and got a one time modal on launch that Reeder 5
| exists and what the potential reasons to upgrade would be.
| ska wrote:
| > Apple does not disclose to you who bought your app.
|
| This is a feature.
|
| The paid update thing is a bit of a challenge on both sides; it
| does seem like someone should have come up with a better way to
| do this.
| jimbokun wrote:
| Do developers get around the "no updates" problem with "In App
| Purchases"?
|
| Or do "In App Purchases" not really allow for deploying new
| code and features?
| valuearb wrote:
| You can use IAP for upgrades. it's just a bit more work,
| grows your testing matrix significantly and is a bit more
| confusing to your customers.
| gowld wrote:
| That's a janky workaround. You have support both the old and
| new features/behaviors in one app, and push an update that
| wraps the old and new features in code like
| 'if(IAP_X_ENABLED())'.
|
| Any architectural refactorings aren't compatible with that
| model, so you'd have to launch MyApp2019 and MyApp2020, and
| hope Apple lets you do that.
| cuddlybacon wrote:
| Another work-around I've seen is updating the old app that
| has a one-time popup to alert users to the new version. As a
| user, I can live with that as long as it is a one-time popup.
|
| This is really something the store should handle.
| valuearb wrote:
| No upgrades is a lamentable omission, but subscriptions and IAP
| can help replace it (not as well tho).
|
| Protecting purchasers privacy is a great customer benefit,
| which also helps increase developer sales. For example, App
| Store customers never have to worry about being spammed by some
| developer they bought an app from.
|
| You can still find out who is using your apps, just ask them
| within the app. They may not tell you, but again that's a happy
| customers right.
| gumby wrote:
| I buy directly from the publisher whenever that is an option
| simply because I figure they need the 30% more than Apple does.
|
| But I agree that the App Store is a far better experience both in
| purchase and then upgrade. My mum has one non-app store app on
| her Mac and is always befuddled by the upgrade prompt. Even for
| my own use I find the App Store upgrade is almost always better
| than other means.
| camhart wrote:
| A "better experience"? Maybe for a Mac only app. But once your
| product spreads across multiple platforms is much easier for the
| customer to download the app for all platforms in one place--your
| website.
| s3cur3 wrote:
| Indeed! In this case, Unbound is Mac only, and probably will
| remain so for its entire life.
| racl101 wrote:
| As a consumer I hate the Mac App Store so much if only for the
| reason that every time I want to do something I have login again
| and again. The Mac App store is quite buggy. Sometimes I have to
| log in two times in a row. I hate it so fucking much that I
| almost consider not buying a good product just to avoid the Mac
| App Store's shitty app.
|
| I also hate that the purchase is tied to my Apple ID, especially
| for a utility that I'd like to use in another computer. Say a
| workstation where I might have a different Apple ID.
|
| If an app, for example, can be installed in two work machines, I
| don't want my Apple ID to dictate which machines.
|
| Anyways rant over.
|
| I get that for the seller's point of view the Mac App Store's
| updated policy is a boon.
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| For what it's worth, the "log in repeatedly" bug has hit me
| too, but I discovered that if I sign out and then sign in
| again, it remains fixed for weeks if not months. Worth a try.
| redkoala wrote:
| Steam is a desktop App Store done right. If only they would
| move more into the app space rather than game space.
| sleepyhead wrote:
| The App Store is great for products from unknown developers and
| in other cases where I'm not to sure if I fully trust the
| software/developer. In other cases I prefer to buy direct.
| SomeHacker44 wrote:
| I get it worse. Sometimes it goes in a permanent loop asking
| for my password infinitely many times and doing nothing, until
| I Force Quit, which does not usually help the problem.
|
| It truly sucks and I regret the few purchases I made with it.
| But, the light is at the end of the tunnel: Windows 10 and WSL.
| smoldesu wrote:
| I think the light you're referring to is Linux, and the
| tunnel is Windows :D
|
| On a more serious note, you shouldn't be so dismissive of
| open source desktop environments, KDE 5 is quite usable
| today, and GNOME 40 looks to be pretty good too. Give it a
| whirl, you might just like it.
| qz2 wrote:
| Grass is not greener on the windows and WSL side. It's
| yellowed and littered with turds to stand in. I run both
| platforms side by side and the Mac is by far the least
| painful. Windows 10 on an average day is like gargling sand.
| I mean for two months now alt-tab is broken on 20H2 release.
| No fix incoming yet. Zero days unpatched for 90 days etc. On
| WSL it's a networking and HyperV encrusted nightmare. Have
| fun trying to get anything vaguely complicated to do anything
| even remotely sane. Total shit show.
|
| A fine comparison is the windows App Store which is genuinely
| like playing Russian roulette with a gun made of butter. The
| Mac App Store is much much much less crazy.
|
| The Mac has its fair share of suck but my word at least they
| actually tried to put something cohesive together.
|
| Going to put it honestly but I don't think Microsoft are
| earning my respect or attention, just shouting about how
| wonderful their product is while it's falling to pieces in my
| hands.
| manderley wrote:
| There are two versions of WSL, one is Hyper-V based, the
| other isn't. If you have trouble with Hyper-V, simply
| switch to WSL1.
| fartcannon wrote:
| Don't? For the sake of the future, don't use app stores that are
| monopolies.
|
| Do both, at the very least.
| judge2020 wrote:
| The Mac App Store is further from a monopoly than the Play
| store is on Android. AFAIK even new Macs from Apple come with
| the gatekeeper setting allowing apps from both the Mac App
| Store and identified developers.
|
| You could say that the developer account + notarization
| requirement is still a way for Apple to have a monopoly, but
| there aren't many stories of legitimate (ie. not adware)
| applications getting their certificate revoked or being
| rejected by notarization.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| Thank you!
| tunesmith wrote:
| Does the 15% have a shelf? Like... if a business makes
| $1,000,001, do they owe 30% on the entire amount, or just the
| extra dollar? In other words, is there a disincentive to go above
| a million until you're above two million?
| ghshephard wrote:
| I've asked that question of five or six Apple/IOS developers,
| some of them well known, and they've all just laughed at me.
|
| Worrying about coming close to $1mm/annual sales is something
| precisely zero of them were worried about.
|
| The answer to your question is, according to what I've read,
| yes - at $999,999 you owe $150K. At $1,000,001, you owe $300K.
| But - if you can get to $1mm, it's highly likely that $1.5mm,
| $2.0mm+, etc... are coming soon enough.
|
| Many developers are focussing on $50k, $60k, type scenarios,
| where the 30% to 15% means enough money in their pocket to
| afford new development hardware, etc...
| s3cur3 wrote:
| As I understand it, if you make $1 more than $1M, it's not
| that you suddenly owe an extra $150k in "back taxes," but
| rather that going forward, you'll be in the 30% "tax
| bracket." It's still a tax cliff, and therefore kind of
| problematic (if it's November 2021 and you've made $950k,
| you're strongly incentivized to shut down sales until the new
| year!), but as you say, that's a problem 99% of devs would
| love to have.
| ummonk wrote:
| How is it a tax cliff? My understanding is that after you
| hit 1 million they will start taking 30% of money that
| comes in after that for the rest of the year.
| chongli wrote:
| The issue is that if you cross the $1m threshold in the
| current year then the next January you don't go back to
| 15%, you stay at 30% for the whole next year.
|
| So if next year your sales fall slightly below $1m, you
| end up paying $150k in extra Apple tax. Then the
| following year you go back to the 15% rate.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| That's one thing MS got right.
|
| If an App is found through external marketing they take a
| minimal fee. But if it's discovered through the store they take
| the full commission.
| alextheparrot wrote:
| If I recall the news release correctly it is:
|
| a) If you currently make under 1$ million your rate will now be
| 15%
|
| b) If you to over 1 million you will be charged progressively,
| so each additional dollar you now only get 70%
|
| c) If you go over, the next year your starting rate will be 30%
| for every dollar
| ncw96 wrote:
| Yep, this is how the program works. One thing I would add is
| the $1 million threshold is based on your net proceeds after
| Apple's cut, not your total sales.
|
| https://developer.apple.com/app-store/small-business-
| program...
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| dfabulich wrote:
| https://developer.apple.com/app-store/small-business-program...
|
| > _If a participating developer surpasses the 1 million USD
| threshold, the standard commission rate will apply for the
| remainder of the year._
|
| If you make $999K from January to June, your July revenues will
| be charged at 30%. That's pretty close to a progressive fee
| structure, but not quite exactly progressive.
|
| In no case will they claw back $150K from the money they
| already paid out.
| jasamer wrote:
| Nitpick: you'd have a disincentive in the, roughly,
| 1.000.001-1.220.000 range. Above that, you make more money
| anyway.
| 0xEFF wrote:
| Isn't it just like a progressive tax and there's never a
| disincentive to make more money?
| Lt_Riza_Hawkeye wrote:
| Just the extra dollar, the first year it happens. Starting next
| year you will be paying 30% on everything.
| john_alan wrote:
| That's insane. It should be like taxes.
|
| So you can make 1MM and keep 850k or make 1.001MM and keep
| 660.001k?
| [deleted]
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| Agreed - that's going to have some very weirded unintended
| consequences. It would be in someone's interest at 950k
| sales that year to basically stop selling. You would need
| to be sure you can make 150k of sales absolutely the next
| year or you actually lose money.
|
| I suppose it's a first class problem to have but it's odd
| why Apple would make (a small number of companies
| admittedly) have it all.
|
| I suspect it's a policy that will change after Tim Cook
| reads the viral blog post in 2022
| quesera wrote:
| That _would_ be insane, but it is not accurate.
|
| Only the marginal fee goes to 30% -- there is no
| retroactive application to the first $1MM of income. The
| new rate applies to future income only.
|
| And unfortunately, triggering the rate increase is
| _sticky_. If you go over $1MM is 2021, the 30% rate will
| apply to all of your income in 2022. (If you are under $1MM
| in 2022, the rate will reset to 15% for 2023).
|
| This is the actual confusing part. Surely Apple could just
| apply the 15% rate to the first $1MM of every developer's
| income in each year instead. It's simpler, and it doesn't
| create the weird incentive to depress earnings at the end
| of the calendar year if they are approaching $1MM.
| bengale wrote:
| Yeah it works like the sort of startup programs you can get
| from a lot of providers. If you're income is under a threshold
| for that year your rate is discounted. It's not a tax so
| doesn't work in levels, if you no longer meet the requirements
| for the program then the next year you're no longer on a
| discount.
| mmastrac wrote:
| FWIW, I refuse to buy stuff from the Mac App Store because it's
| just not compatible with my life. I don't have any i-devices. I
| have a handful of iCloud/iTunes accounts of which I'm not sure
| which is technically the one I want to use (one of them is even a
| legacy pre-email one).
|
| I never connect my OSX box with my personal email and I will not
| in the future. I get it, but I just won't buy software from that
| store, hands down.
|
| Maybe I'm just in the dwindling minority of Mac users.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| What's a legacy pre-email one? Does that date back to before
| iTools or something?
|
| I'm pretty sure I'm on my original Apple account from back when
| it was iTools and then .mac and finally iCloud. If one of those
| transitions didn't carry over, then maybe it's from 2004ish
| when I needed an account to redeem Pepsi caps for iTunes
| downloads.
|
| But I've heard the "I accidentally have purchases on 8
| different Apple accounts" story from enough people that the
| account/license management is clearly a problem that needs
| dealing with.
| mmastrac wrote:
| I can (or at least could - haven't tested for a while) sign
| in with my "apple username" that doesn't contain an @ sign at
| all.
| thewebcount wrote:
| If you care about it, you should try again, as they
| recently sent me an email about purging such usernames. I
| don't recall what the deadline was, but it's coming up.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| Ah, perhaps mine was that way at once point and switched
| over when I changed email addresses.
| s3cur3 wrote:
| Out of curiosity, do you buy software from small devs at all?
| It seems like, whatever the privacy/security implications may
| be when buying via Apple, they're worse when dealing with a
| totally unknown party.
| mmastrac wrote:
| Yep. Bartender, DaisyDisk, NoCrash for my MBP, and a few
| others.
| s3cur3 wrote:
| Huh. Cool! As I said elsewhere in the thread, my personal
| intuition is that Apple is a significantly better steward
| of my information (and credit card!) than a random small-
| time dev on the internet, but I realize not everyone
| agrees.
| mmastrac wrote:
| The security of my credit card is really up to Visa or
| Mastercard to deal with. I'm more likely to have it
| stolen by a random fast-food worker than entering it into
| a PCI-compliant website (out of all the times it's been
| compromised, they've nearly always been because it was
| handed over to someone to scan in the USA).
| xoa wrote:
| FWIW, most small time devs aren't going to be "stewards
| of information" to any significant degree unless they're
| actively trying. Handling finance will be outsourced
| either way, using Stripe or one of many other 3rd party
| services, you wouldn't be processing any of that
| yourself. I buy a ton of 3rd party indy software on my
| Mac and always have, and nothing from the MAS, and
| typically the only "personal info", kind of, is an email
| and maybe my name (and it's not as if that's verified
| somehow, I could just put in whatever). I also have
| plenty of email accounts and can trivially make more, as
| well as developer-specific aliases.
|
| Plus there are other tools to further layer if it was
| ever a problem, like virtual credit card numbers. In
| practice the very nature of credit cards means it doesn't
| seem to generally be a problem, has been less of a real
| world risk than hacks of physical retailers. If I see a
| bad charge, I just report it and get a new number.
|
| Also FWIW, I've seen plenty of sites starting to offer
| Apple Pay as an option at checkout, I assume it's getting
| built into more payment systems now. That itself is solid
| defense, at least as good as the MAS though sometimes the
| checkout flows seem a bit wonky still.
| jonpurdy wrote:
| I, too, vastly prefer purchasing outside of the App Store to
| the point where I'll often not bother if I don't absolutely
| need the app.
|
| Too many times I've tried to run App Store apps and been
| bothered with my Apple ID. I prefer the decentralization and
| not relying so much on Apple's cloud services.
|
| Trivial to pull up old license info from 1Password or email
| if necessary.
| sneak wrote:
| Fun fact: the modern NetworkExtension signed Apple entitlements
| that are required to be a VPN app on the macOS are app-store-
| only. (There is one root-based workaround to make VPNs work on
| macOS without these entitlements, for now, which will likely be
| removed in the near future.)
|
| This is why you can download a wireguard installer from
| wireguard.org for Windows, but have to provide your identity
| (name, phone, email, address) and device hardware serial number
| to Apple to get the Wireguard app on that platform.
|
| Show ID for privacy software.
| mmastrac wrote:
| Yeah, and this is why I've been tempted to bootstrap a de-
| Apple-ified OSX project. I'm getting sick of Apple's
| intrusiveness.
|
| I was staring at a red dot on the System Preferences because
| Apple decided that logging in with iCloud was important
| enough to remind me of daily.
| sneak wrote:
| Due to the signed system volume, doing so is now impossible
| without disabling system integrity protection, one of the
| main platform security features of macOS.
|
| I made an effort to do this for Mojave, but macOS is not
| designed to be modular, and after a week of chasing weird
| bugs related to interdependencies of system services, I
| stopped my efforts. If you'd like to collaborate, reach
| out.
| mmastrac wrote:
| It would be a "respin"-style project without Apple's keys
| at the root.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| I didn't realize you could actually leave SIP on but use
| a different chain of trust! Would you be recompiling XNU
| to do this?
| comex wrote:
| The chain of trust on macOS is... complicated. Too
| complicated. Apple binaries are validated in at least
| _three_ different ways:
|
| 1. By the kernel using a root certificate hardcoded into
| the CoreTrust kext;
|
| 2. On Apple Silicon only, by the kernel using a trust
| cache that's supplied to the kernel by the bootloader;
|
| 3. By userland (amfid) using a root certificate hardcoded
| into Security.framework.
|
| You'd have to modify or intercept all of those things,
| and key components aren't open source (e.g. the
| AppleMobileFileIntegrity kext which is responsible for
| querying CoreTrust, the trust cache, and amfid). Probably
| best to do some targeted function hooking rather than
| recompiling anything.
|
| Of course, you would still have to turn off Secure Boot
| in order to load a modified kernel in the first place.
| But that's largely orthogonal to SIP.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| > Due to the signed system volume, doing so is now
| impossible without disabling system integrity protection,
| one of the main platform security features of macOS.
|
| No, macOS is _fine_ without SIP! SIP just defines a set
| of actions that Apple thinks no user, including root,
| should _ever_ be able to perform. Consequently, disabling
| SIP empowers root users to do whatever they want, which
| is _exactly_ what root is supposed to mean! You 're still
| protected by the standard UNIX permission system--just
| don't grant root to software you don't _absolutely_
| trust!
|
| Security is all about layers--but in the case of SIP, the
| security comes from delegating control away from the user
| in favor of Apple. If you're a power user, I'm not
| convinced this is necessarily good, because you're giving
| Apple almost absolute trust. What if _they_ get
| compromised?
|
| And, if you're the sort of person who would want a de-
| Apple-ified version of macOS, I would think you'd have
| _already_ disabled SIP.
| sneak wrote:
| > _No, macOS is fine without SIP! SIP just defines a set
| of actions that Apple thinks no user, including root,
| should ever be able to perform._
|
| I agree with Apple here.
|
| > _Consequently, disabling SIP empowers root users to do
| whatever they want, without Apple having a say in the
| matter--but you 're still protected by the standard UNIX
| permission system._
|
| It also empowers malware. The Creative Cloud, for
| example, installs as root and installs admin-permissioned
| services. The standard POSIX permissions system is crap,
| and SIP is a huge improvement and valuable tool against
| malware.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| > The Creative Cloud, for example, installs as root and
| installs admin-permissioned services.
|
| So don't use apps that do that! Creative Cloud has no
| business installing itself as root.
|
| I realize that's probably not feasible if you e.g. need
| Creative Cloud professionally, and that's a perfectly
| valid reason to leave SIP on, if applicable. Although
| Adobe and similar vendors still need to be yelled at.
|
| I think SIP--like Gatekeeper--is a _great_ default
| setting for novices, who _should_ trust Apple over
| themselves. But if you 're a power user, turning off SIP
| is not going to spell disaster. It leaves you with
| equivalent security to most Linux distros like Debian.
|
| More importantly, there's no way to have a feature like
| SIP while also granting users full control. I get really
| frustrated when I see people say they're switching to
| Linux because macOS is too locked down. If you want to
| switch to Linux, that's wonderful, Linux is great! But if
| you otherwise prefer macOS, just go ahead and open it up
| for yourself.
| [deleted]
| cercatrova wrote:
| I actively disable SIP on every Mac I own.
| my123 wrote:
| You can add them for apps outside of the App Store. See: http
| s://developer.apple.com/documentation/bundleresources/en...
|
| > To add this entitlement to an iOS app or a Mac App Store
| app, enable the Network Extensions capability in Xcode. and
|
| > To add this entitlement to a macOS app distributed outside
| of the Mac App Store, perform the following steps:
| sneak wrote:
| I'm told by people trying to do just that that that doesn't
| work.
|
| Did they change it recently? Have you tried it? I don't
| have a developer subscription so I can't test it.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| I use it for free stuff when I have the option because it's
| convenient to have the centralized install buttons and software
| updates, and I've bought some software for actual money
| (Affinity suite for example).
|
| But given the option I'm perfectly happy to buy from devs. They
| don't have to give Apple a cut, there's no "drag the whole hard
| drive on to the window" sandbox workarounds, and they can
| structure their upgrade pricing however they want instead of
| not being allowed to do it.
| mmastrac wrote:
| To be honest, I don't use it for free stuff either. Why do I
| need to provide an account to download something that's free?
| If you're offering a free app, there's really no reason why
| you shouldn't have it on your website as well.
|
| IIRC there used to be a way to get things like Garageband and
| Numbers from the store without providing credentials, but
| sadly that appears to no longer be the case.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| I'm already in my account so I've never even considered
| that as an issue for getting free apps from the app store.
| You're right though, no other way to download Numbers, etc.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| Semi-related note for apps outside the store: please copy
| paint.net's update prompt, which gives me the option to
| install the update when I _close_ the app, instead of either
| right now (while I 'm trying to use the app) or asking me
| again next time I launch it (when I'll also be trying use the
| app).
|
| It's been 15+ years and this still hasn't caught on. Not
| interrupting whatever I'm trying to get done with software
| updates and relaunches is one of the major reasons I'd rather
| just get things from the Mac App Store.
| valuearb wrote:
| Dwindling minority? Mac sales have grown to nearly 20% of
| industry revenues. With the M1 it looks likely they will get
| close to 10% of industry units, and blow by 20% of revenues.
|
| Most independent software developers should not care about
| units sold, because it comprises far too many $200-$400 PCs
| that don't buy much software.
|
| They should care about the $1,000+ PC market, those are your
| best customers, and where Apples market share by units is at
| least 25%, and surging higher with the M1.
| mmastrac wrote:
| Dwindling minority of Mac users that want a low Apple
| experience
| xoa wrote:
| > _Maybe I 'm just in the dwindling minority of Mac users._
|
| I mean, I'm sure you are, but you're not alone. Same boat here.
| In principle Mac App Store could have been a really wonderful
| thing, I think Apple in the 00s had a real opportunity to do a
| great service to their users by creating a unified, solid and
| flexible licensing system for all devs (and then offering a
| fully optional vetted software store beyond that).
| Unfortunately they didn't do that and the MAS sucks. There is
| no upgrade system which is just absolutely fucking insanity.
| There are huge restrictions on useful functionality, so it can
| never be a one-stop place. The licensing and Apple ID
| management is a total fucking mess too, can't consolidate or
| transfer licenses like just about every previous Mac system in
| existence, all sorts of normal concepts like vol or other
| discounts are a pain/non-existent. I have an old iTools
| account, and I'm not even allowed to change the primary email
| address!
|
| The MAS experience, and Apple's online service experience in
| general over significant time, is just miserable, completely
| unnecessarily too. Maybe they'll fix that someday, but it
| doesn't seem to be a priority so here we are :(.
| Razengan wrote:
| FWIW, I love buying stuff from the Mac App Store and I wish all
| my favorite Mac apps were available there. I love the automatic
| updates, I feel safer with the sandboxing, and I appreciate the
| convenience of visiting a single point to download almost
| everything I want to put on a new Mac.
|
| I also cherish having control over subscription renewals from
| one list and the Apple's easy refund process in the event of a
| third-party app not turning out to be worth the money (or an
| outright scam).
|
| And as a dev I like knowing that anything _I_ publish will be
| available to all Mac users.
|
| I do hate the crappy App Store.app UI though. Feels like
| navigating a clunk web page, and why the fluff did they remove
| the download progress stats?? You have to hit F4 to see the
| actual size/downloaded numbers in the Launchpad (or in the
| Applications folder I guess).
| thewebcount wrote:
| Yeah, that's definitely not the norm that I see among macOS
| users. I do the same thing but with Steam. If I can find it
| anywhere else, even for more money, I'll buy it elsewhere,
| including the Mac App Store because the experience of using
| Steam is so awful. So to each their own, I guess.
| webwielder2 wrote:
| I don't have much to say about the move to the App Store except
| that given that there is apparently a market for a standalone
| paid indie photo browser, the Mac market may be more vibrant than
| popularly assumed.
| s3cur3 wrote:
| There are fives of lattes per month to be made in this market,
| it's blowing up! ;)
| Hamuko wrote:
| Looks like more of an organizer than browser. There's
| definitely a need for image browsers considering how bad
| Apple's Preview is for that. I'm still using my old and trusted
| Xee3 for any sort of image browsing on macOS because of that.
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