6 ms·

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

by 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?
  - arm 11y ago
    Ugh… yeah, this is exactly why I actively avoid any software with DRM (to the greatest practical extent that I can). Thankfully, there are OS X developers out there that actually do sell DRM-free software¹, and I support them wholeheartedly. ―――――― ¹ — http://sites.fastspring.com/helftone/product/monodraw http://sites.fastspring.com/helftone/product/monodraw
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.

by zuck9 11y ago

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?
- arm 11y ago
  Ugh… yeah, this is exactly why I actively avoid any software with DRM (to the greatest practical extent that I can). Thankfully, there are OS X developers out there that actually do sell DRM-free software¹, and I support them wholeheartedly. ―――――― ¹ — http://sites.fastspring.com/helftone/product/monodraw http://sites.fastspring.com/helftone/product/monodraw

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.