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macOS App Store for MAC OSX Applications?

I personally think it's going to be easier to be accepted in the Mac App Store than in the iTunes App Store. I posted a blog post about it yesterday. :p.

While OS X and iOS are built almost the same graphically/same developing tool/etc, they have two different audiences and usages. I think a lot of new developers will be hit with those kind of rejection letters once they try and adapt stuff like Angry Birds/Tap Tap Revenge to OS X. It just doesn't work.

Maybe we have just indeed lost a lot of freedom, but I think we're headed in a good direction. Especially as more and more people start moving to the Mac system, we need to keep hacking as minimal as possible. With so many old packages of software floating around out there still and new users not aware of PowerPC, it needs to be made simpler for them to find the software they need.
 
I think the Mac App store, could be huge for the Mac.

It'll be great for promoting small indie Mac apps.
It'll bring a lot of activity and hype back into Mac software.
It could bring a lot of 'micro transactions' into the Mac market. Does a shareware developer want to get a few hundred paid users via their own website, or perhaps tens of thousands (at a cheaper price) through the Mac App Store.

It all depends on if the Apple Hype (or should that be iPe) takes off.
 
A few toolkits exist out there to make cross-platform development easier. I'm not talking about Java, but about things like Qt's C++ framework, which makes it pretty easy to make an app and compile it for Windows and Mac, and both look and feel like a native application. What I can't seem to find out(without paying $100) is if an app written in Qt and C++ would be allowed in the App Store. Does it need to be statically linked, or is a .app package with the necessary DLLs good enough? Is it even allowed? I don't see the point of paying for a developer's license only to find out that I can't. They really need to post more information about this.
 
Hamshrew said:
A few toolkits exist out there to make cross-platform development easier. I'm not talking about Java, but about things like Qt's C++ framework, which makes it pretty easy to make an app and compile it for Windows and Mac, and both look and feel like a native application. What I can't seem to find out(without paying $100) is if an app written in Qt and C++ would be allowed in the App Store. Does it need to be statically linked, or is a .app package with the necessary DLLs good enough? Is it even allowed? I don't see the point of paying for a developer's license only to find out that I can't. They really need to post more information about this.
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1) Don't kid yourself. It doesn't feel like a native app. It feels 90-95% like a native app and then you hit a jarring inconsistency

2) The entire pre-release approval guidelines are public: http://www.cultofmac.com/apples-mac-app-store-approval-guidelines/65022

So reading the link from 2) you might be able to get away with using something like QT as long as you don't need the libraries to be outside the application bundle (embedded frameworks should be OK). But note you must (see condition 6.1, 6.3) fully comply with the HIG and use system provided buttons/controls. If QT is using some sort of image-based skin instead of the real controls it might not be allowed.
 
robbieduncan said:
1) Don't kid yourself. It doesn't feel like a native app. It feels 90-95% like a native app and then you hit a jarring inconsistency

2) The entire pre-release approval guidelines are public: http://www.cultofmac.com/apples-mac-app-store-approval-guidelines/65022

So reading the link from 2) you might be able to get away with using something like QT as long as you don't need the libraries to be outside the application bundle (embedded frameworks should be OK). But note you must (see condition 6.1, 6.3) fully comply with the HIG and use system provided buttons/controls. If QT is using some sort of image-based skin instead of the real controls it might not be allowed.
Click to expand...

Thanks, that link in point 2 is exactly what I was looking for. I'll have to read carefully about the HIG stuff, but I don't think 6.3 is a problem. Qt uses the native widgets of the system it's on, that's one of its touted advantages.
 
After reading the guidelines, almost every product I work on will not be allowed in, and these are major products.

Apple is really forcing the self-contained app idea now, devs can't get away with installing random crap onto your machine (although for certain things this is a requirement, hence several apps not being allowed in).

I've got an open-source game I've been tinkering with on and off for a while now. If the App Store was free I'd be 100% in on using it as another distribution source, but at $99? This will just force devs to start integrating iAds into their freeware apps (when they become available). Don't think anyone wants that on their desktop.
 
My biggest disappointment is that they didn't offer a way to port iOS apps directly to MacOS via some kind of resolution independence and packaging x86 code in with the arm code.
 
jared_kipe said:
My biggest disappointment is that they didn't offer a way to port iOS apps directly to MacOS via some kind of resolution independence and packaging x86 code in with the arm code.
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NO, NO, NO, please no. If Lion was truly multi-touch, YES, but it's not. It'd be like using Android on a PC in a sense that everything's HUGE.
 
As an indie developer with registration protection on my apps, I'm interested in:

1. Since apps cannot be copy protected on the new Mac App store, how will Apple protect apps from being copied to multiple Macs?

Anyone know?

Brian S.

Also, while all my code is CF, CG and written in C ( compiled with gcc or clang ), the UI is carbon nibs. I've yet to read Apple guidance on whether the Mac app store will reject based on carbon nibs.
 
Jessica Lares said:
NO, NO, NO, please no. If Lion was truly multi-touch, YES, but it's not. It'd be like using Android on a PC in a sense that everything's HUGE.
Click to expand...

Not every developer ties their user interface in heavily with multi touch. In fact my apps are very usable in the simulator just with mouse and apple's scrollwheel integration (for scrolling down tableviews). You can even pinch gesture holding down option not that I'd ever want to force people to do that.

Why would everything be huge, if the app supports any size UI let the user resize the window. If the app supports iPad size, make the window the same size as an ipad (ala the simulator), and if not just make the window the same size as an iOS 4 simulator either size.
 
Jessica Lares said:
I don't know, I find that it would look a bit weird. It's something that would work on Dashboard, but not as a standalone application.
Click to expand...

It would be something the developers could opt in for, meaning they would write their software around the paradigm of running on both MacOSX and iOS (provided apple gave us the ability to do that)
 
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