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Posts tagged with "macappstore"

The Mac App Store and “Half-Available” Updates

Panic, the developers of popular software for the Mac like Coda, Transmit and Candybar, wrapped up a critical update to their FTP client / file manager / all-in-one solution Transmit 4 on January 6th to fix “important bugs” and correct issues with the Transmit Disk feature and Amazon S3 connection. As they explain in a post on the company’s blog, their original plan was to submit the update to Apple and release it on their website as well once the Mac App Store version got approved.

Apple didn’t approve the update after two weeks, so Panic went ahead and posted the update on the application’s website so that users who didn’t buy the app through the Mac App Store didn’t have to wait any longer to have the bugs fixed. In their own words, Transmit 4.1.5 is now “half-available” as the app in still “in review” for Mac App Store approval. Read more


Microsoft Is “Looking At” The Mac App Store for Office

Microsoft Is “Looking At” The Mac App Store for Office

How times change:

Microsoft says it continues to be pleased with sales of the Mac version of Office, but has not yet decided whether to offer the product or any of its components in the Mac version of the App Store, which launched earlier this month. Similar to the iPhone store, the App Store for Mac puts Apple in the position of retailer, taking a 30 percent cut of sales.

“It’s something we are looking at,” Microsoft’s Amanda Lefebvre told Mobilized. However, the company said its product is already available in lots of places as well as via the Web–including in a new, free 30-day trial version.

“It’s something we haven’t ruled out,” she said. “We just have to see how that relates to our business.

Or: “We have seen the success of other developers in the Mac App Store, and we would like to have Office in there. It’s just that we’re Microsoft, and it takes months (years) for us to take a decision.”

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Autodesk: Mac App Store Doubled Sketchbook Pro Sales in 20 Days

The Mac App Store isn’t even one month old and we have already heard several stories of success from Mac developers. The most notable one comes from Pixelmator, which grossed $1 million in less than 20 days into the new store; we have covered other experiences from developers in our Mac App Store hub. Autodesk (makers of AutoCAD) announced in a private event in San Francisco that the Mac App Store version of Sketchbook Pro, a painting and drawing application, has sold twice as many copies as the regular version did in the entire year. In 20 days. That’s quite an achievement, I would say.

The Loop reports Autodesk also had to ship a different version of Sketchbook Pro in order to be approved by Apple:

For example, Mac App Store apps aren’t supposed to use private APIs, can’t incorporate their own end user licensing agreements, and can’t employ separate copy protection. As a result, sharing code with the iOS version made the process easier, though SketchBook Pro is scaled up to take advantage of the increased processing power and memory footprint of the Mac.

Last year, Autodesk also released a new version of AutoCAD for Mac with an entirely redesigned interface and graphic engine, and shipped a mobile counterpart called “AutoCAD WS” for iPhone and iPad.


Cubetastic, A Superb Puzzler Now On The Mac & iPad App Stores

Which one of you was the jerk who’d take a Rubik’s Cube, mix it all up, and make it almost impossible for the average human being to solve? I have terrible memories of those things – spending hours trying to figure out what it would take my senior high buddy about five minutes. Of course, fate would have it that some awesome group of developers would take the Rubik’s Cube and completely base it on one of the most twisted brain teasers ever. When we say twisted, we literally mean these puzzles take a few turns to solve.

The folks from doPanic have created a multidimensional puzzle game that focuses on getting a glowing orb (your light) to a goal. It sounds pretty easy, and skilled players will solve puzzles in as few moves as possible, but once you start spinning the cube…things get a little Cubetastic.

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AppShopper.com Now Mac App Store Friendly

All of us at MacStories love AppShopper.com, I use it every day, along with MacAppDeals.com, to help grab the best deals for our #MacStoriesDeals posts. Although it’s not been officially announced, I noticed this evening that there have been a few exciting changes for us app hunters. First, there is a new set of buttons on the far left, “iOS / Mac”. You guessed it, AppShopper is now listing Mac App Store apps into their stream! Also, they have slightly changed their OS category descriptions. They now separate into “Mac OS, and iOS iPhone, iOS iPad or iOS Universal.” Subtle but greatly improved. Read more


The AppSumo MEGA Mac Sumo Bundle Giveaway

We’ve given away some AppSumo bundles as of late that include everything from productive power plants to apps that allow you to just sit down and relax. What if we combined all of those previous bundles, and added must-have utilities like Skitch, Yummy FTP, and IconBox2? The MEGA Mac Sumo Bundle might initially sound like a character out of Mega Man, but it’s really just the latest bundle we’re giving away to another five lucky readers.

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CleanMyMac’s New Feature: Mac App Store Uninstaller for Apps

An update to MacPaw’s popular cleaning and maintenance software CleanMyMac (our review here) was released a few hours ago to include an interesting new feature: an uninstaller for applications installed through the Mac App Store. The new update also includes iOS firmware cleanup and a new “Ignore list”.

The uninstaller feature works as expected: you drag an app into CleanMyMac’s window and MacPaw’s app finds all the associated files and preferences to put them into the trash. It is unclear what exactly did MacPaw implement into CleanMyMac to introduce official Mac App Store support, but it works. As you may have noticed, the current version of the Mac App Store doesn’t provide an option to uninstall apps, only a neat feature to easily re-install apps on all your machines. If you want to delete apps on your Mac the old way is still good: just manually drag one from /Applications to the Trash. With this easy method, though, is very likely that additional files like preferences and databases will be left behind. MacPaw’s app now takes care of everything.

In the future, I’m pretty confident Apple will implement easy and complete uninstallation into the Mac App Store. For now, you should give CleanMyMac a try.



Pixelmator and Mac App Store: $1 Million in 20 Days

The first stories of success in the Mac App Store are starting to come in. First came Evernote, with its impressive Mac adoption rate thanks to the new Store; then Compartments, from a developer who went from 7 sales a day to 1500. Now the Pixelmator developers have posted a new entry on the company’s blog announcing that their graphic editing app has grossed $1 million in less than 20 days into the Mac App Store.

Taking Apple’s 30% away out of the equation, that leaves $700,000 to the Pixelmator team. Or maybe it’s $1 million after Apple’s cut? We don’t know. Either way, it’s an impressive result that we’re sure wasn’t possible back in the days when there was no Mac App Store.

This is a well-deserved milestone for the Pixelmator devs and we’re looking forward to what’s next for the app. The Pixelmator team, for instance, implemented a clever Mac App Store transition policy that forces existing customers to buy the app again, but will give them Pixelmator 2.0 for free once it’s released later this year.

Pixelmator is available at $29.99.