Mac Store Problems. On this episode of iPhreaks we have panelists Gui Rambo, Erica Sadun, Andrew Madsen, and Jaim Zuber. Check in to hear the crew talk about Mac store problems and a bit about the differences in developing Mac OS apps vs iOS apps. Gui Rambo gives us some insight about writing Mac OS apps from iOS apps and the panel digs into the potentials of Apple TV. Don’t miss this one. Gui How did you get started converting iOS apps to Mac? Gui talks about being a fan of Mac and being a Mac user and when the iPhone started having apps he didn’t have an iPhone so he started developing for Mac. Soon after he started developing for iOS as well. What are some examples of apps you’ve converted? He talks about the most famous being the WWDC app. He is in the process of working on it now. He talks about how the code is old and clunky, being that he wrote it on Swift 1. It was inspired by Apple’s WWDC app. Gui reversed engineered it and brought it to the mac. Instead of looking at source code Gui reversed engineered the application using HTTP proxies and looking at what API they were using. He found that it was mainly JSON hosted on AWS storage, and the app downloads them and parses them and that’s about it. Erica adds that the application has been a huge contribution to the development community and for WWDC attendees. Can you tell us about your design philosophy? Gui mentions that it depends on the app itself. Sometimes the iOS app is a companion to the main Mac application while other times it’s the opposite. In some cases apps are independent of each other. In most cases the iOS is just a remote version of the main Mac OS app. Sometimes the Mac OS app lacks. Gui likes to see both apps to be full of functionality. What apps are less featured on the Mac vs iOS? It’s most common that there is no Mac app at all. Using features of the iOS app in many cases will only have a web browser version for the Mac. In many cases this is happening because it’s harder to develop apps for the Mac OS. The frameworks are older, the foundation is the same, but taking a Mac OS app and making an iOS app isn’t easy or simple. What are your thoughts about developers and the decision of publishing outside the app store? Gui mentions that he sells an app called Browser Freedom that he sells online as well as in the app store. The application uses a set of rules to decide which browser it should open, along with other features. He decided to do both to find which would sell more. Despite that Apple takes 30% of sales from the app store, he is selling much more from the app store. Another consideration is if the application was made before sandboxing it may not work and may restrict some features you may want to add that won’t work. Applications for Mac OS must be sandboxed, making it so they are not allowed to write on the disk. A common issue that comes up for apps would be any application that has a built in file browser. In many ways Mac OS apps are more restrictive than iOS apps Is it fair that Mac developers are moving away from the Mac App Store? Gui talks about it being fair. If the Mac App Store is lacking features then it make sense for developers to move away. One thing that is missing is the Test Light system. The Test Light System is something that Apple provides for the iOS store that allows the developer to create a beta of applications via invites before the full release. The Mac App Store still does not have this feature. The app store lacks features more for the developer than it does for the user. Can you tell us more about upgrade pricing? Upgrade pricing has been an important price model since software exists. You pay for the application initially and then over time if you want to upgrade or add feature you pay some small price for that. Allowing for cashflow from existing customers. Some developers found ways around it by making new versions a completely new app on the store but it’s still very messy. Whats the...