10th Anniversary of the Mac App Store
Apple announced that the Mac App Store was “open for business” in a press release timed with the launch. “With more than 1,000 apps, the Mac App Store is off to a great start,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s co-founder and former CEO. “We think users are going to love this innovative new way to discover and buy their favorite apps.”
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Since its inception, the Mac App Store has attracted its fair share of criticism from developers. Apple has addressed some of these complaints over the years by allowing developers to offer free trials via in-app purchase, create app bundles, distribute apps on multiple Apple platforms as a universal purchase, view analytics for Mac apps, respond to customer reviews, and more, but some developers remain unsatisfied with the Mac App Store due to Apple’s review process, the lack of upgrade pricing, the lack of sandboxing exceptions for trusted developers, the absence of TestFlight beta testing for Mac apps, and other reasons.
Thinking back to the early days of the Mac App Store, I remember how its introduction killed a nascent third-party effort to build a similar store. And I recall how, just months after the store opened, Apple changed the rules to require that apps be sandboxed. Apps accepted under the prior rules were grandfathered in but not allowed to add any major features. As a result, in categories where sandboxing is impossible, searching the Mac App Store today only turns up results of apps that have been abandoned or haven’t had a major new version. At the time, most people expected that the sandbox capabilities would expand with each version so that eventually nearly all apps could be included. Instead, as with the rest of the Mac App Store, they have changed very little over the years.
Previously:
- Mac App Store Updates Failing on Mojave
- iPhone and iPad Apps in the Mac App Store
- App Store Small Business Program With 15% Fee
- Where Is TestFlight for Mac?
- Allowing Bug Fixes and Challenging the Guidelines
- Phil Schiller Steps Down From SVP
- How to Improve the App Store
- Apps That Can’t Be Transferred
- Which OS Services Are App Store–only?
- Receipt Validation and AirPlay 2
- Apple Developer Survey
- Software Before the App Store
- BBEdit 12.6 to Return to the Mac App Store
- App Store Refunds and Reviews
- Customer Support for Failing App Downloads
- Is There Hope for the Mac App Store?
- Sandboxing Deadline Arrives
- Sandbox Deadline: June 1
- Why the Mac App Sandbox Makes Me Sad
- Mac App Store
