I have Sketch and fortunately I purchased it directly from the developer, as I always do given the choice. I never liked the MAS from it's inception and I resist purchasing anything from there unless I have absolutely no choice. It's just a middle man that has inserted itself in-between the developer and the end user. To any developer listening - If you must be on the MAS, give us the choice to buy direct as well.
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Popular Design App 'Sketch' Leaves Mac App Store Due to Poor Customer Experience
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I would love to know what their sandboxing issue is. I bet they want to make a few extra dollars collecting and selling customer data and the app store won't let them do it, at least not without telling the customer so they are leaving so they can sell through their own site, collect customer data and sell it off to the highest bidder.
No, what people are saying is that it's not worth the price of the app, not that $99 is inherently too expensive.
Three reasons to leave: (1) don't like sandboxing and want to access customer's private data more. (2) want to get more money (3) was unhappy with customer's reviews.
To be fair, not having the ability to reply to users having issues with your product is a huge problem. It's a problem for both the developer and the users of the application. I really hope apple fixes this soon for both the iOS App Store and Mac App Store.
I don't see why Apple and devs are headed for a showdown at all. iOS is a managed system. OS X is not. Forcing all devs into the app store would spell disaster. Indeed, Apple was very emphatic that apps don't need to be on the MAS.
After reading 100 comments, I finally catch on to what MAS means...
Wouldn't new purchasers have to pay the in-app fees as well, as opposed to just the people upgrading? Or does MAS support options like that?
Nothing is going to Apple's head and certainly they do not intend to frustrate developers or consumers.
(I know sometimes they do via warped logic or directions we do not agree with)
They just have certain guidelines for security reasons and of course to make money. The app store is a platform for developers to show their product. They are not forced to be there.
Don't get what "feels wrong" about the app store. Log in find what you need (or not ) buy, download (or not) pay, leave. Can't be made much easier.
Updates are shown when available, no disk to lose or worry about what the last version is.
Are they perfect, no , made by humans, so it can't be.
What???? Apple is not forcing people away. If they don't want to live up to the standards of being listed in the App store, then have it on your own. I think they will find, it's not all rosy trying to sell software without channel partners.
Although there are some valid limitations to the Apple app store, I'm guessing most people who complain here about it have never worked on the sales or the marketing side of the house in a software company.
For me the big advantages of MAS are family sharing and automatic updates. Call me cheap if you like, but part of my justification for this app was that other members of my family could try it out and use it. If I now need further licenses for my family members this reduces the benefit I received when I originally purchased and limits my desire to use, learn and recommend this solution.
I bought Sketch and Sketch 2 but in no way was it worth the "upgrade" price of $99 for relatively few enhancements over Sketch 2, especially when others could walk in and buy the app for that price without having bought and supported the developer previously.
The developer got greedy and jacked up the price too much which pissed off existing customers who couldn't get an upgrade discount. Previously the app was priced at an upgrade price but I refuse to be fleeced by developers that want to release relatively minor updates to an app, rebrand it as a major new release and charge their existing loyal customers full price to buy it again.
The app is decent but it's not professional in the way that Illustrator is considered professional. I liked it and was supportive of this company back from the DrawIt days but I feel that they lost their way by getting a bit arrogant and the App Store's limitations didn't help.
Bottom line is you shouldn't be buying expensive "professional" software you expect to be able upgrade through MAS with its current limitations, but for everything else it's great.
Don't get me wrong. I'm definitely not a cheap skate: I have multiple expensive apps on my system. The most expensive of them ZBrush (currently around 700$). The difference is they are WORTH their price. 99$ for Sketch is a bad joke considering what for example Affinity Designer provides for half the amount.
That's their choice and I'll still look for competitors that'll be living in the MAS. I get almost all of my apps through MAS and I have zero issues with it. I also get less spam this way as well. Each time I had to buy an app from their web store, I get spammed with several emails that I didn't approve of, stupid BS offers that I don't care about and so on. Never had this issue with MAS apps.
What is there not to understand? Everything that isn't on the App Store must be bought elsewhere. What good are Apple's 'standards' when the best applications are not there? It becomes as mundane as the Dashboard widgets gallery. The criticisms expressed by Bohemian resonate widely among the bigger fish in the App Store. They don't need to care about the App Store, their reputation existed even before the App Store existed and I'm sure they'll do well. This is ultimately a loss for the consumer and a loss for the App Store as a central hub for third-party software.
So examples from that article are:
1) global keystroke logging
2) Game Center exclusivity
3) code injection of other apps (listed as audio or screen capture capabilities)
4) plugins (I assume binary form, which would break code-signing protections baring a new framework on top)
5) whole disk scanning
Most of those are extremely problematic feature sets from a security standpoint. And while useful functionality can be made on top of them, they should give users pause. I like that those sorts of things are blocked, and they should be by default for most apps.
And I still don't see how those limitations are either unreasonable or should be hitting their app.
didn't apple essentially do away with 'upgrade pricing' since the MAS, by its very nature, does away with full retail pricing altogether? and not just in the apple ecosystem, the thing pretty much rejiggered a whole industry. software that used to cost say $1000 upon release is almost non existent nowadays, so a version 1 at $200 and then a version 2 at $200 means you're just always paying upgrade costs, at least in terms of how it used to be.
i can understand younger customers being upset since they don't realize this past, but really, are younger (i.e. angry, impatient, whiny) customers paying hundreds of dollars for professional apps that often? i feel like pro apps should just learn to adapt and be grateful for the exposure and streamlining some of the process for both dev/customer. or maybe i don't know enough about this, i'd love to see facts and figures about it. who really loses out, and how often?
i can understand younger customers being upset since they don't realize this past, but really, are younger (i.e. angry, impatient, whiny) customers paying hundreds of dollars for professional apps that often? i feel like pro apps should just learn to adapt and be grateful for the exposure and streamlining some of the process for both dev/customer. or maybe i don't know enough about this, i'd love to see facts and figures about it. who really loses out, and how often?
It's okay. The MAS isn't ideal for every sort of software. Some kind of software ( especially for niche markets or very specialized pro software ) isn't a good fit for it and should be bought directly from the publisher.
Most pro apps don't gain much by being on the MAS in terms of marketing anyway, since the kind of users it's made for, usually get their information from specialized blogs/website related to their profession.
Most pro apps don't gain much by being on the MAS in terms of marketing anyway, since the kind of users it's made for, usually get their information from specialized blogs/website related to their profession.
It doesn't cost Apple much to run it, as it likely runs on the same infrastructure as the multi-Billion dollar revenue iOS App store. So as long as a few developers upload slightly desirable freeware and other utilities, it will stick around.
Are you volunteering to develop an app for everybody that does more and sell it for less? What's your time worth? How soon will you be finished?
Good. Hopefully the entire notion of app stores will die over the next few years - Apple's root control has made them fat and lazy, and promoted bad products and bad teams in a place where they have done significant damage to the company.