Dan Counsell:
The Mac App Store has been around for 6 years, but is still lacking some of the best software the Mac has to offer. You might be wondering why this is. Sandboxing certainly has a lot to answer for, but it’s not the only reason. There’s also paid upgrades, sustainability, quality of life, and the Mac App Store just generally being half-assed.
Oh, and then there’s that minor certificate issue that happened last week and cost developers and users millions of dollars in lost time and productivity. Not surprisingly, Apple didn’t even acknowledge the issue.
Don’t let all that get you down though, there’s plenty of benefits to selling software outside of the Mac App Store. I’ve compiled a list of over 60 apps that are all world-class and seem to be doing just fine without it.
Follow this link for the list. Be sure to let Dan know if you think there’s an app that should be on the list.
https://www.panic.com/blog/coda-2-5-and-the-mac-app-store/ isn’t on Mac App Store anymore.
Let’s hope Apple is listening (hah). I can totally understand why developers point this out, but:
Despite all the warts, I still only buy apps from the MAS if at all possible. The experience, especially when reinstalling a computer, is so remarkably superior it makes it worth it to me. I do have a few of those apps, but the list is getting shorter and shorter. I hope developers do realize that, except for a few exceptional apps, people do prefer having an easier purchase experience as an option.
Yep. This is why I wish Apple would take their online retail presences more seriously – it’s incredibly easy to setup a new machine if you’ve bought most things from the MAS Obviously if you clone the old machine this isn’t an issue, but some of us like to install fresh and the MAS makes it so you enter one credential and off you go.
Looked at the list. it’s good, but he includes a lot of free stuff (Firefox, Chrome) and things that are apps which front end services (Spotify, Dropbox). It would be a more compelling list if he broke those out and had a list of things that are true sold elsewhere.
I don’t like cloning. I’m obviously old-school, as cloning has gotten good, but at the same time, a fresh install often cures things; most recently, my Instant Hotspot issues were fixed by fresh-installing El Cap over a machine that was previously updated to Yosemite. Using the MAS made this a surprisingly quick breeze.
Far cry from my old Windows (or Mac) shareware days where I’d spend a day setting up software. I have fewer serial #s to dig out from 1Password or my email.
Because of Sandboxing, and limiting abilities of applications to do many useful things, I refuse to buy anything at the Mac App Store unless I can’t get it anywhere else, and there aren’t better alternatives. It’s completely ridiculous that Apple has these arbitrary rules that prevent applications from doing things (that are part of public-facing APIs, I’m not talking about private and deprecated APIs) that are perfectly reasonable and are not security risks in the least.
Sure the MAS sucks. I really want to return back to the Good Ole Days where I have to keep a spreadsheet of arcane license. I want to be forced into buying Family Packs to get access to apps across multiple computers. I want more slipstreaming and malware added. /s
The MAS doesn’t suck because of Sandboxing, or lack of paid upgrades and developers can always offer demos on their own websites. Apple simply has not unified their stores to bring the proper type of consistency across MAS, iTunes and iBooks. In setting up a new Mac nothing is easier to get it up and running save for something like a cloned drive.
Notice that most of the complaints are coming from developers or friends of developers. Consumers love the buying process of iTunes, iBooks and MAS. You don’t hear them complaining. Rarely do the Cons outweigh the Pro from a consumer standpoint.
“generally being half-assed”
Totally!
And what’s up with the super small screenshots?
Rich Siegel from Bare Bones talking about leaving the MAS:
Short description from Jason Snell:
https://sixcolors.com/post/2014/10/bbedit-at-max-q/
Nonsense. I know lots of people who don’t like the limitations placed on applications sandboxed into less functionality. Why can’t Better Finder Rename create droplets if it’s from the Mac App Store, but it can when you buy it directly from the Developer? Well, in this case you can buy it from the MAS and then run it once and the downloaded version will accept that activation and work just fine. What developer wants to go through that convoluted process?