Popular Design App 'Sketch' Leaves Mac App Store Due to Poor Customer Experience

[MLMcMillion]

Are you aware that on average retailers take 40-50% of your sales? The 30% that the App Store takes is a steal for developers.

Retailers? What decade are we in?

You're also totally ignoring other parts of that trade off. Being in the App Store means that you get yourself in front of millions of eyes that you aren't likely getting on your own website. The visibility is huge. It means tons more sales simply by people being able to find you easier and being in a more credible place.

This is mostly valid.

It also means Apple pays for the bandwidth. Downloads and updates take up a lot of bandwidth which costs money but developers don't have to foot the bill if they use the App Store.

Bandwidth is cheap. Way cheaper than that 30% cut.

Apple also deals with the payments meaning you don't have to pay a monthly fee plus a percentage of every sale you process. Additionally, setting this up securely and maintaining that security is not only a big time consuming process for developers but also a liability should anything ever happen to their customers information (and it can mean they're sued out of existence if something happens).

Again, what decade are we in? People use things like Square.

As I said above, 30% is far lower than what developers are typically use to. Anywhere from 10-20% less than everyone else takes.

I still don't know where you're getting this from. Are you still buying software in a retail store somewhere?

 

[Icaras]

Hooray. Close the MAS. It is nothing but a freebie search site.

Er, please keep it open. Just bought Sim City 4, Pillars of Eternity, and Homeworld Remastered over the thanksgiving holiday. I love the Mac App Store and will continue supporting it.

 

[yojo056]

They cite:
1. Review times of one week or above;
2. Sandboxing limiting possibilities;
3. No upgrade pricing.

My opinion:
1. Don't see this being a problem if more attention was given to testing and software quality which is a well-known problem with Sketch. Facebook and many others are able to deliver features and bug fixes with a 2-week review cycle;

2. Would be nice to understand what possibilities they're referring to, but my opinion is: fix your bugs first, improve the current workflow next, focus on adding features when Sketch matures;

3. Heard this complain multiple times, never seen an opinion on alternative revenue models such as the one Adobe employs (subscription).

Not to mention the fact that 'sandboxing' is a security feature... mine as well read "we hate security, die app store!"

 

[nuckinfutz]

Look at the apps that have left: all professional, coding or professional graphics apps. Perfectly all right. Theoretically, they would have more sales in the App Store, but there comes a point, with pro apps, that really don't want the exposure. They need to behave according to the laws of the vertical market. How many apps are in the App Store?

By end of 2016 MacAffinity will have a Vector, Photo editing and Publishing suite that rivals almost anything. In 2017 they'll have a DAM (Digital Asset Management) companion. MAS is not for every company but there are enough gems from up and coming developers that keep it something I check and monitor daily.

Funny how it's the Old Guard that constantly complains about not being able to do things while new fresh upstarts are simply getting the job done. Pixave is succeeding on the MAS where Pixa, Inboard and Ember are failing.

Apple simply needs to clean up their stores across the board. It's the young developers that are going to make the difference not these burnouts in progress that we see flaming out the store.

 

[mdriftmeyer]

The folks writing Inkscape ever get it to 1.0 and write a native OS X version they'd decimate the market for vector drawing apps.

 

[APlotdevice]

I agree that the App Store (in general) should have an option for upgrade pricing. (It's better than the subscription models many mobile suites are turning to)

 

[MLMcMillion]

Not to mention the fact that 'sandboxing' is a security feature... mine as well read "we hate security, die app store!"

This isn't true at all. If you don't know what's actually involved with the software development process, please don't comment.

 

[nt5672]

Never buy from the Mac App Store unless its free or trivial.

 

[OldSchoolMacGuy]

Retailers? What decade are we in?

This is mostly valid.

Bandwidth is cheap. Way cheaper than that 30% cut.

Again, what decade are we in? People use things like Square.

I still don't know where you're getting this from. Are you still buying software in a retail store somewhere?

Based on your responses it's clear that you aren't in the software industry, have no idea how it works, and have no idea how ecommerce works as a whole.

If you believe that all software companies only sell their product on their own websites then you're delusional. You also don't understand the fees that Square and others charge. We'll just end it there. You have no grasp on the software industry.

 

[Hastings101]

Do people even use the Mac App Store for anything besides updating? Everything on there is always like 2x the price it is on Amazon or other places to purchase software.

 

[Michaelgtrusa]

Realmac has made a career out of this. Bought an app called Courier for them. They abandoned it. Bought Little Snapper which was basically abandoned and replaced by Ember which appears to be abandoned now as well as they flog Typed and their blogging service. How am I really supposed to trust them when they cannot sustain their own apps they had customers buy into?

They sold Typed Mac app.

 

[Icaras]

Do people even use the Mac App Store for anything besides updating? Everything on there is always like 2x the price it is on Amazon or other places to purchase software.

Yep, I do. Read my post a few posts up from the page.

I own dozens and dozens of paid apps on it and would miss seeing it go.

 

[Zwopple]

By end of 2016 MacAffinity will have a Vector, Photo editing and Publishing suite that rivals almost anything. In 2017 they'll have a DAM (Digital Asset Management) companion. MAS is not for every company but there are enough gems from up and coming developers that keep it something I check and monitor daily.

Funny how it's the Old Guard that constantly complains about not being able to do things while new fresh upstarts are simply getting the job done. Pixave is succeeding on the MAS where Pixa, Inboard and Ember are failing.

Apple simply needs to clean up their stores across the board. It's the young developers that are going to make the difference not these burnouts in progress that we see flaming out the store.

I've used Affinity's apps and they're not nearly as polished or featured as Sketch or Adobe Creative Suite in the grand scheme of things. They leave left to desire.

 

[Michaelgtrusa]

By end of 2016 MacAffinity will have a Vector, Photo editing and Publishing suite that rivals almost anything. In 2017 they'll have a DAM (Digital Asset Management) companion. MAS is not for every company but there are enough gems from up and coming developers that keep it something I check and monitor daily.

Funny how it's the Old Guard that constantly complains about not being able to do things while new fresh upstarts are simply getting the job done. Pixave is succeeding on the MAS where Pixa, Inboard and Ember are failing.

Apple simply needs to clean up their stores across the board. It's the young developers that are going to make the difference not these burnouts in progress that we see flaming out the store.

Pixa and Ember are done but Inboard?

 

[firewood]

It seems like many devs though great at building software don't have a clue about running a business. When you see calendar/todo apps being priced for over $100 and sometimes $200 it makes a person scratch their head.

Sometimes they have more of a clue than you might think. One might think that a lower price always increases downloads enough to offset, due to work-of-mouth, etc. But, for some low volume apps, raising the price, sometimes to a very high level, actually maximizes the point on the revenue elasticity curve. A very few sales at $99 (to the people who really care about some minor added feature) can make more money than even 10X more sales at $4.99, etc.

I've tested the elasticity curve with a few of my apps, and ended up leaving some of them priced near the highest price point tested.

 

[eoblaed]

Sketch is among a growing number of apps that are no longer sold in the Mac App Store, including professional HTML and text editor BBEdit and web development tool Coda.

EDIT: (I now realize I was confusing the Mac App Store, which this article is about, and the iOS App Store ... le duh):

(emphasis mine)

Uh, I downloaded Coda from the App Store yesterday. Just checked, it's still there.​

 

[developer13245]

At least those of us who develop for Mac have a choice for how to distribute our apps.

Unfortunately, those of us who develop for iOS and apple TV are forced into distributing via Apple's App stores.

The App Review teams / processes have gone down hill lately. Their App Review "sandbox" system does not even hand out proper receipts (nor does it behave correctly with StoreKit APIs). So if your app does receipt validation, expect to get improper rejections.

 

[Bleeny]

Here come the cheap skates. My advice is to get a better paying job. This is a professional app and the price is totally reasonable. Don't buy it if it's too expensive. But please stop trying to suggest that $99 is a lot of money for a professional app. That's just bull.

I think it needs to not crash every 10 minutes for it to be called a professional app. I remember the "sooorry" I got when they did a 'minor' update that got rid of the style palette (which had about 100 different styles on it that I was using for a yearlong project). I had to recreate them all. And, as someone else rightly mentioned, what about their various font apps that promised everything but were quickly abandoned? Shiny interface and good marketing, yes. Pro? Sadly, no. I don't mind paying $99, I just want it to work.

 

[firewood]

You don't see how being able to keep an extra 30% on each sale may result in employees being able to provide a higher quality of service to the customer?

That depends on how much time (and money!) it might take to market the app well enough to get the same exposure and ease of purchase for as many customers that Apple provides in their MAS. It could easily be well over 30%, if even possible.

Big developers can afford to hire social PR, marketing, and e-commerce support staff and consultants. For a small/hobby developer, that time might be larger than their entire budget of spare evening development time. They would rather spend their time coding good solutions.

 

[Zwopple]

(emphasis mine)

Uh, I downloaded Coda from the App Store yesterday. Just checked, it's still there.

You sure you didn't download the iOS app? It's definitely gone from the MAS and has been for quite some time.

 

[Eightarmedpet]

Who cares, still it was a stupid app. Better they are off.

You Sir, are obviously not a Digital Designer. Sketch is by far the best app for Web/Mobile Design, far better than Adobe's bloated archaic offerings.
Take it from me, a person who uses the App, professionally.

 

[Stella]

Are you aware that on average retailers take 40-50% of your sales? The 30% that the App Store takes is a steal for developers.

Apple's and Oranges. Retailers are physical / AppStore is Digital - with a lot of automation. You cannot compare a physical store vs digital store. Different beasts.

 

[eoblaed]

You sure you didn't download the iOS app? It's definitely gone from the MAS and has been for quite some time.

Whoops. Crap. I somehow missed that little detail (Mac App Store vs iOS App Store) after reading that entire friggin' article.

Derp.

 

[Quu]

The sandboxing on the Mac App Store is very annoying. Even video players like Movist have to ask permission just to access folders where your video files are even if I just double clicked a file in the finder to launch Movist it still has to ask me permission.

Lots of apps are requiring users to do permissions for what they can and can't do and some apps that modify the operating system in some way simply don't have a way to do what they're intended for.

I honestly feel that Apple's sandboxing on the Mac store has been the completely wrong approach. They should allow developers to specify if their software can't work with sandboxing and write a small paragraph why which would then appear on the Mac App store so users can make an informed decision about whether to run a non-sandboxed application, taking the choice away from us and demanding all apps be sandboxed is ridiculous on a desktop class operating system.

 

[Zwopple]

The sandboxing on the Mac App Store is very annoying. Even video players like Movist have to ask permission just to access folders where your video files are even if I just double clicked a file in the finder to launch Movist it still has to ask me permission.

Lots of apps are requiring users to do permissions for what they can and can't do and some apps that modify the operating system in some way simply don't have a way to do what they're intended for.

I honestly feel that Apple's sandboxing on the Mac store has been the completely wrong approach. They should allow developers to specify if their software can't work with sandboxing and write a small paragraph why which would then appear on the Mac App store so users can make an informed decision about whether to run a non-sandboxed application, taking the choice away from us and demanding all apps be sandboxed is ridiculous on a desktop class operating system.

Totally agree, people think Sandboxing is 'just a developer annoyance' but in reality it alters the entire UX of an application because of 'workarounds' to play in the sandbox.