8 ms·

I guess it a good thing hardly anyone uses the Mac App Store.

by valine 11y ago

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
zuck9 11y ago
Almost all OS X apps made by Apple are available exclusively through MAS. MAS distributes lots of very popular apps like Xcode, Keynote, Pages, Numbers. Imagine a non-techy user trying to open Pages and getting that error message.
- kyrra 11y ago
  Xcode you can download from the developer portal for Apple. It's definitely not exclusive to the AppStore.
  - zuck9 11y ago
    Right, edited parent.
- mikeash 11y ago
  Or imagine any user, techie or not, trying to open Keynote to give a presentation and getting that error message. It's completely ridiculous and has me vowing never to buy (or get for free) anything from the Mac App Store again. Unfortunately I have little choice on iOS.
  - danieldk 11y ago
    This hit me yesterday, I use ScreenInk from the app store to draw on slides with my Wacom tablet. Five minutes before my lecture I get this error. Not amused!
    - mikeash 11y ago
      Yeah, that's bad. It's one thing to put stupid DRM on your entertainment products. If a movie doesn't work, well, that's irritating but not a serious problem. Watch another one or read a book or, worst case, talk to your family. Definitely not something you want to happen, but I can deal with it. Software gets used for practical purposes, and spontaneous breakage causes real problems.
      - eridius 11y ago
        Better go uninstall Chrome and anything else that has started doing silent auto-updates in the background too then, because that has the potential for spontaneous breakage as well. I also think you're perhaps extrapolating a bit too much from this incident. Did the MAS breakage really truly suck? Yes, it did. Was it really embarrassing for Apple? It probably was. Did it cause grief for a lot of people? Yes. But the big question is, does this mean we can't trust the MAS to not accidentally break all our apps again? No, I don't think this incident means that at all. I can't think of any other reason for all my MAS-installed apps to suddenly break besides an expired certificate, and Apple's now renewed the certificate. Worst-case, maybe it'll break again in a few years when that certificate expires, but I bet they're putting in place some procedure or mechanism to guarantee that this won't happen again. All that said, there are certainly plenty of legitimate ongoing grievances with the MAS. I won't dispute any of that. But vowing to never again acquire any app from the MAS over this one incident seems somewhat absurd.
        mikeash 11y ago
        If I used and depended on Chrome, I would at least have the power to fix such a problem myself, by downloading an old version manually, or downloading Chromium instead. There's a qualitative difference here between spontaneous breakage I can fix myself, and spontaneous breakage where the only solution is to wait for others to fix. Before this incident happened, I thought that App Store apps which existed on your computer and had the proper credentials (verified by running the app successfully at least once) were permanently good to go. Verification happens offline, after all, so there's no room for error and no need to trust anybody. Turns out, no, all of these apps come with a built-in expiration date, and you need Apple's cooperation to extend their life. They've fixed that. What else lurks in there? If they didn't actually intend to build a system which is once-and-done, then I really have no idea, and I can't trust that. I don't see why it would be "absurd" to decide not to patronize a system which has demonstrated that it can't be trusted. I mean, what exactly am I losing by no longer buying there? Virtually all of the good apps are available outside of the store anyway. Used to be that I'd lean towards the App Store version because of convenience. Now I see that this is the wrong choice, so I won't do that anymore. So how is this "absurd"? Because it's not the choice you would make?
- bsder 11y ago
  I will not use iPreach for exactly this reason. Period. Which is sad, because Keynote is a very nice piece of software. I had a combination of things happen where I installed an upgrade, and it effectively locked me out of my files. I had to pay for a new Keynote version to get around the problem (I no longer remember all the details ... I think it had something to do with an iLife subscription vs. standalone and auto-upgrading my data file version). I was REALLY pissed off. And vowed I would never buy software again where I didn't control the physical copy.
toyg 11y ago
I'm "hardly anyone". Despite some misgivings on security policies, it's extremely convenient to have a "Steam for apps". At the end of the day, homebrew is the same thing, except it uses the command line and it doesn't remunerate developers. I have an issue with the concept of MAS as a monopoly (the same I've had with Windows Update), but MAS as a tool is undoubtedly a good thing.
- mikeash 11y ago
  It was a good thing, until it turned out that every app you get from it can simply expire with no warning. I used the Mac App Store because it really is just very convenient. But I also thought it worked. Now I see that it doesn't, so I will not be obtaining software from it again.
- valine 11y ago
  Oh I wasn't questioning the value of the Mac App Store. As a tool for installing free apps it's fantastic. However as a developer if you want to make money off of an application the Mac App Store is all but useless. Even if your app makes it into the top charts your profits will be almost non existent. The user base for the store is simply far too small. Source: http://www.macrumors.com/2015/05/07/redacted-mac-app-profits/ http://www.macrumors.com/2015/05/07/redacted-mac-app-profits...
  - mangeletti 11y ago
    Wow, that's terrible. It's really too bad, because the idea of being able to just browse for cool apps is very appealing to me. I use the Mac App Store. I bought Pixelmator, Relax Melodies (2 versions), and a few other apps this way. Pixelmator was the only one that I would have bought anyway, so the App Store is definitely a way to earn extra revenue, if Apple could fix whatever it is that's keeping people from using it (perhaps just awareness?).
    - valine 11y ago
      I believe that they have made attempts to increase its visibility. I don't recall when the change happened, but Apple routed all system updates through the Mac App Store, pretty much guaranteeing that every Mac user will have to open the store at some point.
headmelted 11y ago
I'm not a Mac user anymore (keep waiting for my "perfect" macbook to jump back in, which is perpetually six months away), but this is genuinely news to me. Is the Mac App Store really not popular? One of my reasons for wanting to get away from Windows again is that I miss my central package management from linux, which is what I kind of thought the App Store did (besides collecting Apple's cut).
- therein 11y ago
  I would say homebrew is closer to give you what you want than Mac AppStore is.
  - headmelted 11y ago
    Good to know for the future, thanks. There's Chocolatey on Windows. The best I can say about it is that.. erm.. their hearts are in the right place.
drinchev 11y ago
Yep I try to use `brew cask` everywhere I can, but sometimes auto updates doesn't work when you haven't installed the app from the mac store. Or for example 1 password can't connect with it's Chrome's extension if it was not installed via AppStore.
- jasonbarone 11y ago
  That, and the settings syncing and licensing situation which I think is far more inconvenient than a quick removal and reinstall of cask apps. I love Cask but I'll choose App Store apps over their counterpart until the app devs can improve licensing and settings syncing.

I guess it a good thing hardly anyone uses the Mac App Store.

by valine 11y ago

I guess it a good thing hardly anyone uses the Mac App Store.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

zuck9 11y ago

Almost all OS X apps made by Apple are available exclusively through MAS. MAS distributes lots of very popular apps like Xcode, Keynote, Pages, Numbers. Imagine a non-techy user trying to open Pages and getting that error message.

kyrra 11y ago
Xcode you can download from the developer portal for Apple. It's definitely not exclusive to the AppStore.
- zuck9 11y ago
  Right, edited parent.
mikeash 11y ago
Or imagine any user, techie or not, trying to open Keynote to give a presentation and getting that error message. It's completely ridiculous and has me vowing never to buy (or get for free) anything from the Mac App Store again. Unfortunately I have little choice on iOS.
- danieldk 11y ago
  This hit me yesterday, I use ScreenInk from the app store to draw on slides with my Wacom tablet. Five minutes before my lecture I get this error. Not amused!
  - mikeash 11y ago
    Yeah, that's bad. It's one thing to put stupid DRM on your entertainment products. If a movie doesn't work, well, that's irritating but not a serious problem. Watch another one or read a book or, worst case, talk to your family. Definitely not something you want to happen, but I can deal with it. Software gets used for practical purposes, and spontaneous breakage causes real problems.
    - eridius 11y ago
      Better go uninstall Chrome and anything else that has started doing silent auto-updates in the background too then, because that has the potential for spontaneous breakage as well. I also think you're perhaps extrapolating a bit too much from this incident. Did the MAS breakage really truly suck? Yes, it did. Was it really embarrassing for Apple? It probably was. Did it cause grief for a lot of people? Yes. But the big question is, does this mean we can't trust the MAS to not accidentally break all our apps again? No, I don't think this incident means that at all. I can't think of any other reason for all my MAS-installed apps to suddenly break besides an expired certificate, and Apple's now renewed the certificate. Worst-case, maybe it'll break again in a few years when that certificate expires, but I bet they're putting in place some procedure or mechanism to guarantee that this won't happen again. All that said, there are certainly plenty of legitimate ongoing grievances with the MAS. I won't dispute any of that. But vowing to never again acquire any app from the MAS over this one incident seems somewhat absurd.
      - mikeash 11y ago
        If I used and depended on Chrome, I would at least have the power to fix such a problem myself, by downloading an old version manually, or downloading Chromium instead. There's a qualitative difference here between spontaneous breakage I can fix myself, and spontaneous breakage where the only solution is to wait for others to fix. Before this incident happened, I thought that App Store apps which existed on your computer and had the proper credentials (verified by running the app successfully at least once) were permanently good to go. Verification happens offline, after all, so there's no room for error and no need to trust anybody. Turns out, no, all of these apps come with a built-in expiration date, and you need Apple's cooperation to extend their life. They've fixed that. What else lurks in there? If they didn't actually intend to build a system which is once-and-done, then I really have no idea, and I can't trust that. I don't see why it would be "absurd" to decide not to patronize a system which has demonstrated that it can't be trusted. I mean, what exactly am I losing by no longer buying there? Virtually all of the good apps are available outside of the store anyway. Used to be that I'd lean towards the App Store version because of convenience. Now I see that this is the wrong choice, so I won't do that anymore. So how is this "absurd"? Because it's not the choice you would make?
bsder 11y ago
I will not use iPreach for exactly this reason. Period. Which is sad, because Keynote is a very nice piece of software. I had a combination of things happen where I installed an upgrade, and it effectively locked me out of my files. I had to pay for a new Keynote version to get around the problem (I no longer remember all the details ... I think it had something to do with an iLife subscription vs. standalone and auto-upgrading my data file version). I was REALLY pissed off. And vowed I would never buy software again where I didn't control the physical copy.

toyg 11y ago

I'm "hardly anyone". Despite some misgivings on security policies, it's extremely convenient to have a "Steam for apps". At the end of the day, homebrew is the same thing, except it uses the command line and it doesn't remunerate developers. I have an issue with the concept of MAS as a monopoly (the same I've had with Windows Update), but MAS as a tool is undoubtedly a good thing.

mikeash 11y ago
It was a good thing, until it turned out that every app you get from it can simply expire with no warning. I used the Mac App Store because it really is just very convenient. But I also thought it worked. Now I see that it doesn't, so I will not be obtaining software from it again.
valine 11y ago
Oh I wasn't questioning the value of the Mac App Store. As a tool for installing free apps it's fantastic. However as a developer if you want to make money off of an application the Mac App Store is all but useless. Even if your app makes it into the top charts your profits will be almost non existent. The user base for the store is simply far too small. Source: http://www.macrumors.com/2015/05/07/redacted-mac-app-profits/ http://www.macrumors.com/2015/05/07/redacted-mac-app-profits...
- mangeletti 11y ago
  Wow, that's terrible. It's really too bad, because the idea of being able to just browse for cool apps is very appealing to me. I use the Mac App Store. I bought Pixelmator, Relax Melodies (2 versions), and a few other apps this way. Pixelmator was the only one that I would have bought anyway, so the App Store is definitely a way to earn extra revenue, if Apple could fix whatever it is that's keeping people from using it (perhaps just awareness?).
  - valine 11y ago
    I believe that they have made attempts to increase its visibility. I don't recall when the change happened, but Apple routed all system updates through the Mac App Store, pretty much guaranteeing that every Mac user will have to open the store at some point.

headmelted 11y ago

I'm not a Mac user anymore (keep waiting for my "perfect" macbook to jump back in, which is perpetually six months away), but this is genuinely news to me. Is the Mac App Store really not popular? One of my reasons for wanting to get away from Windows again is that I miss my central package management from linux, which is what I kind of thought the App Store did (besides collecting Apple's cut).

therein 11y ago
I would say homebrew is closer to give you what you want than Mac AppStore is.
- headmelted 11y ago
  Good to know for the future, thanks. There's Chocolatey on Windows. The best I can say about it is that.. erm.. their hearts are in the right place.

drinchev 11y ago

Yep I try to use `brew cask` everywhere I can, but sometimes auto updates doesn't work when you haven't installed the app from the mac store. Or for example 1 password can't connect with it's Chrome's extension if it was not installed via AppStore.

jasonbarone 11y ago
That, and the settings syncing and licensing situation which I think is far more inconvenient than a quick removal and reinstall of cask apps. I love Cask but I'll choose App Store apps over their counterpart until the app devs can improve licensing and settings syncing.