Jason Snell, longtime lead editor for Macworld, has a new site, Six Colors, covering all things Apple. This weekend, Jason was in Montreal for, sadly, the very last Cingleton conference. Rich Siegel, founder of Bare Bones Software, gave a talk about not selling future versions of BBEdit via the Mac App Store.
Siegel crafted his presentation as a list of reasons that weren’t the reason Bare Bones was abandoning the Mac App Store. It wasn’t Apple’s 30 percent cut, he said, because while that’s a lot of money, developers get a lot of service from Apple in return. It wasn’t the complete severing of his relationship with his customers, even though it’s frustrating that only Apple really knows who is buying the software and it doesn’t share that data. Nor were it the marketing challenges, the difficulty conforming to Apple’s submissions guidelines (including sandboxing and forcing some features in to add-on downloads), or the numerous problems involving the development tool chain—including the one time that a BBEdit update silently crashed the App Store’s submission tool.
Bottom line, it wasn’t any of those things, it was all of them. Is BBEdit leaving the Mac App Store a canary in the coal mine?
Hardly. BBEdit has never been a big seller in the Mac App Store. I don’t think it’s ever been in the top 100 paid apps.
Funny, I just purchased a license and decided inadvertently to purchase it directly from the developer. Honestly, I purchased it for JavaScript development and in certain areas, Dreamweaver still has it beat.
Panic Coda is also leaving the MAS.
Does Betteridge’s Law only apply to headlines?
I don’t think it is a canary in a coal mine. I think it is more likely that this will lead to changes in the Mac App Store, making it easier for apps like BBEdit to come back.
I’m a long time user of BBEdit. Like it a lot. Others have made their apps work with the App store. Siegel should try it too. the App Store version is hobbled.
Other text editors live on the app store and do just fine.
Last BBEdit I’m buying. Sorry, rich.
It really doesn’t matter. Textmate 2 will be released real soon now.
BBEdit caters to people who know a bit more about software than the average person, so I’m sure it will do just fine completely outside the app store. As for the specific gripes, the one that irks me from developers is the sandboxing. I understand that some apps want to integrate more in order to do particular tasks, and for that you just need to sell the software yourself and let people who understand the ramifications of installing unsigned or approved-but-non-appstore software handle buying and installing your stuff. Griping about something that a majority of computer users either appreciate or don’t even understand (but would appreciate how it protects them from a host of viruses and problems) sounds a bit like sour grapes to me.
meh
No.
There are some things that you can buy in supermarkets and department stores. And there are some things where you can’t. Everyone has their own requirements and rules (and drawbacks).
And besides – if he thinks the software and the company will be better/best suited outside of the apps walled garden – then go for it.
I’d be more worried if the whole experience have soured him completely and he’s taking it off OSX completely.