Mac App Store
As you might know the Mac App Store is about to launch. Latest rumors set the presumed release date to Dec 13, 2010. That would be next week. I just want to take the time and tell you about where we are right now in regards to the Mac App Store and the App Store in general.
As many of you know our flagship product “Snowtape” is also available as an iOS app on the App Store. We released the first version 1.0 on March 28, 2010. Bringing the app to the App Store was a big struggle for us. We wanted to give our users the full Snowtape experience on the iPhone which turned out not to be a good idea, since Snowtape has been rejected at first, despite having a product that did not violate the iPhone Developer argreement. After a discussion with Apple we had to remove the ability to export audio files to external storage. This changed the main purpose of the app dramatically and the end product was not quite what we hoped it would be. This problem could never been resolved.
So we thought what about Snowtape for Mac? Should we even care to bring it to the Mac App Store? Short version: No. One reason is that there are a couple of features integrated into Snowtape Apple is not very fond of, e.g. music file export or AirPlay streaming. We are also using some private API to create the dark application interface. The only option for us would have been to create some sort of light or crippled version of Snowtape if you will for the Mac App Store. But what’s the point? Who wants to use a crippled application? Nobody. It would also take a lot of time which is better invested in our current apps.
I don’t say Snowtape won’t ever make it into the Mac App Store, but right now our best option is to stick with our current distribution method and invest our manpower into improving application quality and to create new features and products. Nevertheless we are excited to see the Mac App Store launch. It’s a great thing for end users to buy the latest and greatest Mac software.
December 6th, 2010 • Permalink
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