Two years ago, we began the process of building a simple, open-source MacOS app as a side project, but this turned out to be a much more challengin...
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It always amazes me how many simple, one-action apps there are for Macs because doing seemingly simple things is made prohibitively difficult by the OS.
Are some of these things not simply artifacts of switching to a paid model? The GitHub README would do just as good a job for the Onboarding screens and website for most people. The integrated payment functions are their own problem - kind of like how adding fuel to a rocket means you have to add more fuel to compensate for the fuel you've just added. The update functionality problem goes away if you distribute using a package management system; homebrew is used by a lot of people these days. Do you mean you had to put in your own "check for updates" button?
The problem it looks like your app solves is one of confidence - I have no confidence that my Mac has the microphone muted at any time. I don't trust Apple and I don't trust any proprietary messaging system not to be listening in at any time. Having a big red icon telling me I'm safe would be a big confidence boost, though obviously I'd be more confident if it was free software.
Webcam is easier. I have a sticker of a dinosaur on it my son gave me ;)
Do you have confidence in your workarounds though? I have a feeling it could not be trusted to be bulletproof from what you're describing. Maybe some other app turns it on without your app registering it.
I saw this the other day: project alias which is a physical solution for always-on devices but obviously that would be more difficult to make for a variety of different laptops.
Yeah, it would be difficult to work with a parasite on my laptop. Good idea though.
Hi Alex,
I've noticed you decided to host the app for download on your website, but didn't publish it on the App Store.
Will you skip the App Store completely or are you planning to publish there too?
Hi Johny,
Yes we published it on our own, however we signing the app and passing Apple notary service, since it will be required for app installation in the new macOS release.
We did not publish to App Store for few reasons:
1 - Fees are high
2 - No promo codes functionality
3 - We did not want to rely on Apple from perspective of App publication, since Apple does not like and could reject App because it duplicates existing functionality in their OS. And you could mute app or see the noise level through the settings.
Yes the fees are very high, but maybe it gets you more purchases because people search for stuff in the app store. I'm having the same dilemma about my app.
I'm interested to hear how you marketed your app, if you're looking for a topic for your next post :)
App Store from my perspective on macOS still does not work well and promote Apps. I don't remember when I last time searched something through it and the same for my friends. Mostly I'm searching in Google, then website of the app and only then if there is a link to app store I'm installing/buying through it.
Marketing will be the interesting part, will definitely write an article about it.
Did you see the news about Flutter : github.com/flutter/flutter/wiki/De... ?
Interesting news, even if am not sure to want to work on Google's language.
I have not, but it's very interesting. Having something which could be converted to a completely native code for macos,windows, linux would be very interesting.
For example it's possible to use Electron, but the size of the app and memory consumption will be terrible, and for small apps it's very sad.