Apple Cutting Off Mac App Store Hotkey Apps as Sandboxing Requirement Goes Live on June 1? [Updated]

laaaame

Gen said:

laaaame

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so stupid apple is reducing the functionality f the OS at a tie when we are all getting bored of IOS and want new cool functions and features... typical large corporate attitude..

So the days of apps inter-working with each other is over? What about utilities like TextExpander and things like that?

Guess I'm late to the train on learning about this...

Could anyone please tell me what exactly a 'hotkey' refers to? Is it like if you pressed F5 it would bring up an app?

Glad that my hokey apps are not on the Mac App Store.

So I'm guessing this is like where Words With Friends calls up Facebook to log in, rather than making me log in manually? Too bad... I bet there are much cooler examples than the one I just listed.

While I agree that this is pretty lame, keep in mind it only affects the Mac App Store.

Great news! I'm so happy Apple continues to lead the way in promoting world class security features across its technology platforms.

aurichie said:

Great news! I'm so happy Apple continues to lead the way in promoting world class security features across its technology platforms.

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This isn't a world-class security feature. I would prefer for Apple to fix the security holes in the operating system, than doing this.

Can someone explains what hotkeys are?

WTF is going on at Apple. Idiots ...

Dumb.

If they ever force third-party programs to be App Store only, I'm going back to Linux

GorgonPhone said:

so stupid apple is reducing the functionality f the OS at a tie when we are all getting bored of IOS and want new cool functions and features... typical large corporate attitude..

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YEAH!!! EVIL STUPID APPLE.
How DARE they make the OS more secure!

Or do you think that they should simply carve out great big holes in the only security measure (Sandboxing) that is proven effective in fighting malware?

The 99% of us who want a secure system frankly don't give a rat's ass about mildly inconveniencing a few lazy users. Sorry for the devs, but times move on.

GQB said:

YEAH!!! EVIL STUPID APPLE.
How DARE they make the OS more secure!

Or do you think that they should simply carve out great big holes in the only security measure (Sandboxing) that is proven effective in fighting malware?

The 99% of us who want a secure system frankly don't give a rat's ass about mildly inconveniencing a few lazy users. Sorry for the devs, but times move on.

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And this relates to security how exactly?

Wait wait, would this affect apps like 1Password?

GQB said:

YEAH!!! EVIL STUPID APPLE.
How DARE they make the OS more secure!

Or do you think that they should simply carve out great big holes in the only security measure (Sandboxing) that is proven effective in fighting malware?

The 99% of us who want a secure system frankly don't give a rat's ass about mildly inconveniencing a few lazy users. Sorry for the devs, but times move on.

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Probably only effects a few users. The rest don't know what we are talking about or care.

Non issue, don't like it, sell (or buy) your apps someplace else, next!

funnyboy88 said:

Can someone explains what hotkeys are?

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Hotkeys are where apps "listen" for a certain key or combination of keys to be pressed. When they are pressed, the app does a certain action. It doesn't matter what app you pressed the keys from, the app listening will take action.

e.g. TextExpander listens for shortcuts to expand, it doesn't matter if you are in Firefox, Word or TextEdit, when you press the keys it is looking for, it does what you told it to.

You can still download apps from outside of the MAS. Everyone can calm down. This is just about being able to say how safe the system is. If you aren't a geek then you probably don't use Keyboard Maestro or Better Touch Tool, but its cool if you are, because it just means there will not be a MAS version of them.

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theSeb said:

This isn't a world-class security feature. I would prefer for Apple to fix the security holes in the operating system, then doing this.

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They are doing one better. They are making access to your system by unauthorized means, worthless as it won't be able to control anything. Thereby discouraging people from even writing malware and viruses for OS X.

GQB said:

YEAH!!! EVIL STUPID APPLE.
How DARE they make the OS more secure!

Or do you think that they should simply carve out great big holes in the only security measure (Sandboxing) that is proven effective in fighting malware?

The 99% of us who want a secure system frankly don't give a rat's ass about mildly inconveniencing a few lazy users. Sorry for the devs, but times move on.

Click to expand...

So you'd be happy if Apple removed the TCP/IP stack to make the system more secure ? After all, without all those nasty TCP ports being open and those IP addresses and other transport protocols, no malware or exploit can talk to your machine!

Even better, how about Apple makes it so the Bootloader never actually loads the kernel. Without the kernel, userspace can't start, so all those nasty programs can't be loaded with their shoddy code to cause buffer overflows that may result in privilege escalations and denial of services!

But then again, the best would be a blank disk, so that the EFI can't even find a bootloader to begin with...

Or...

The problem with security and functionality is you can't have both. Sandboxing kills IPC. IPC is useful. Which would you rather have, a useless system with tons of security or a useful system where you have to be more careful ?

I'd rather be educated and careful and have an actual system I can use for something. Otherwise, I'd own an iPad.

I think I understand this in theory, but do any posters have an actual real-world example of a program they use with this?

r.j.s said:

e.g. TextExpander listens for shortcuts to expand, it doesn't matter if you are in Firefox, Word or TextEdit, when you press the keys it is looking for, it does what you told it to.

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EDIT: Ok, I guess, but isn't this the same as Command-tab? I guess I'm just having trouble figuring out who is really hurt by this change.

WhoDaKat said:

They are doing one better. They are making access to your system by unauthorized means, worthless as it won't be able to control anything. Thereby discouraging people from even writing malware and viruses for OS X.

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One better than what ? Sandboxing has been around for decades. It's not a novel concept. BSD Jails ? HP-UX SRPs ? Solaris Zones ? Heck, plain old chroot jails ?

Welcome to yesterday's security measures.

You don't need an app for hot keys; you can configure them with Automator. People don't need to make a big deal over this

Menopause said:

Could anyone please tell me what exactly a 'hotkey' refers to? Is it like if you pressed F5 it would bring up an app?

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Yes, that's one possibility. TUAW believes that this will apply only to "universal" shortcuts, i.e., ones that work regardless of what application you are in (i.e., not app-specific shortcuts like Cmd+B for bold in your favorite rich text editor). Examples from OS X are the "old" shortcut keys like F12 for Dashboard and whatnot (although most people probably don't know this anymore and just use the Dashboard function key on their keyboards)--but I'm guessing the OS itself gets a free pass here.

QuickSilver was one app I could think of that used this--you could configure any hotkey (Cmd+Space was default, I think) to bring up the app's "search" window at any time. I'm sure there are more. (KeyRemap4MacBook also comes to mind with some of its features, but it's definitely not an MAS app, and I think it's actually a kernel extension that could get around this somehow anyway.)

The one advantage I see to this is to prevent malware from hijacking other app--but at least it's just an MAS restriction (for now?).

KnightWRX said:

So you'd be happy if Apple removed the TCP/IP stack to make the system more secure ? After all, without all those nasty TCP ports being open and those IP addresses and other transport protocols, no malware or exploit can talk to your machine!

Even better, how about Apple makes it so the Bootloader never actually loads the kernel. Without the kernel, userspace can't start, so all those nasty programs can't be loaded with their shoddy code to cause buffer overflows that may result in privilege escalations and denial of services!

But then again, the best would be a blank disk, so that the EFI can't even find a bootloader to begin with...

Or...

The problem with security and functionality is you can't have both. Sandboxing kills IPC. IPC is useful. Which would you rather have, a useless system with tons of security or a useful system where you have to be more careful ?

I'd rather be educated and careful and have an actual system I can use for something. Otherwise, I'd own an iPad.

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It’s no shame to have an iPad you now. You can confess now, but otherwise i agree completely. This is ******** to begin with and adds nothing to actual security.