Archive for June 16, 2021

Wednesday, June 16, 2021

Tightening the Mac App Store Screws Again

Timo Perfitt:

caching server utility is henceforth REJECTED from the app store. calling an apple command line tool to call another apple tool via XPC is FORBIDDEN and just because we have a TEMPORARY EXCEPTION it does not it should be USED.

i should appeal. i literally have no idea when temp exceptions are appropriate. is it when app wants to show preferential treatment to a specific developer?

[…]

i call an apple tool as a normal user and get back json about caching servers on the network. i then format the data and display it to make it a useful IT tool. NOT ALLOWED.

I can see where Apple’s coming from because it probably didn’t intend this XPC interface to be public API. But it would be nice to have a clearer policy of when you can use the com.apple.security.temporary-exception.mach-lookup.global-name entitlement and when you can’t. There are definitely apps in the store that use it (including Microsoft Word). This particular use seems harmless, and the app sounds useful.

Maxwell Swadling:

Unfortunately Apple is no longer accepting updates to Max Inspect, my app for inspecting entitlements, signing, etc. of Mac apps all in one place.

Max Inspect also uses that entitlement and has been in the Mac App Store since 2018. Now it can no longer be updated due to an unannounced change to an unwritten rule. As far as I know, there is no other API for checking an app’s notarization status. (Apparency uses it, too.)

Remember when Phil Schiller suggested that the Mac App Store should be the “go-to place” for developer tools? That can’t happen if the existing tools get kicked out.

Previously:

macOS 12 Removes PHP

Developer Tools Engineer:

PHP has been removed in macOS Monterey.

Perl, Python 2, and Ruby are still there. Python 3 is only available if you install Xcode. Emacs was removed a release or two ago.

Previously:

Update (2021-06-16): Tcl also remains.

Update (2021-06-18): See also: Hacker News.

Stripe Tax

Stripe (tweet, Hacker News):

Stripe Tax lets you calculate and collect sales tax, VAT, and GST with one line of code or the click of a button. Know where to register, automatically collect the right amount of tax, and access the reports you need to file returns.

Internet businesses are required to collect taxes in over 130 countries and in most US states. Staying compliant can be challenging, especially as your business scales. Tax rules and rates change constantly and vary based on what and where you sell. If you ignore these complexities, you risk paying penalties and interest on top of uncollected taxes.

We built Stripe Tax to simplify tax compliance, so you can focus on growing your business.

They only charge 0.5%, but the catch seems to be that you still have to actually send the money to each jurisdiction multiple times per year. Apple, Paddle, and FastSpring will handle that for you.

See also: The untold story of Stripe (via Hacker News).

Previously:

iMessage State Not Syncing

Philipp Defner:

After waking up the computer, messages from hours ago stay unread until I click on each conversation to make the badge go away. Restarting Messages.app doesn’t fix that. Clicking on a conversation sometimes replays the messages with a “new message arrived” notification sound for each message.

iMessage stopped syncing my conversations’ unread status around the time I updated to Catalina. So I have to view each conversation on each device to clear the notification number.