Download apps and games. Browse, purchase, and download apps for your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, Apple Watch, or Apple TV in the App Store. Mac App Store - Tips, Tricks and Hacks for Doing Everything Better Lifehacker. Jettison is a handy Mac utility that runs in the background and automatically unmounts external drives when. Unbound for Mac blog: With the announcement of the App Store Small Business Program, I’ve stopped selling Unbound directly via the web site. I thought it would be worth explaining how I came to that decision. This is an interesting read, mostly for developers, but also for folks interested in Apple’s business practices. The Mac App Store makes it simple for customers to discover, purchase, and download your apps, and easily keep them updated. Organized around the specific things customers love to do on Mac, along with insightful stories, curated collections, and videos, the Mac App Store beautifully showcases your apps and makes them even easier to find.
With the announcement of the App Store Small Business Program, I’ve stopped selling Unbound directly via the web site. I thought it would be worth explaining how I came to that decision.
The original motivation for selling the app directly was simple: Apple took a 30% cut of sales, whereas Paddle, the payment processor & authentication tool I was using to sell directly only took [not-publicly-disclosed-but-substantially-less-than–30]%. With the drop in Mac App Store fees, that gap has shrunk considerably… to the point that it’s no longer worth keeping Paddle around.
1. Direct sales are a worse experience for customers.
From a customer’s perspective, every direct sale is its own little special snowflake, and you have to figure out how to get your license key, where in the app to enter it, etc.
For the most tech-savvy users, this is pretty much a non-issue (until, of course, you migrate to a new computer and have to dig through your email to find your product key—good luck!). But a substantial percentage of users had trouble with this, and it was the #1 source of support requests for me.
In contrast, virtually every Mac user is familiar with the Mac App Store. (And even if they aren’t, it can’t be a worse experience than trying to figure out a third-party platform!) Moving installs between machines is a non-issue, and there’s no such thing as an activation problem.
2. Direct sales increase the overhead of each release.
Unbound is not my day job, and revenue-wise, it probably doesn’t have any conceivable path to become my full-time income. (I’m measuring my income here in lattes per month!) That means I can only work on it during nights & weekends—a rather limited amount of time.
For that reason, I want to maximize the time I actually spend shipping new features. Selling directly meant that I had to cut two builds, and go through two release processes, every time I wanted to ship an update. (And of course I’ve already mentioned the support burden of direct sales—support takes time directly away from development!)
3. Direct sales are a security and privacy liability.
If Paddle suffered a data breach, suddenly I would be on the hook for exposing people’s emails or (God forbid) credit card data. While this has not happened, and I have no reason whatsoever to think Paddle is anything but competent, I’m still much happier trusting Apple’s security practices than any third party. (And if Apple has a security breach, I feel like I’m unlikely to take the blame from customers—the vast majority of them have done business with Apple directly in the past, whether for their computers, phones, or even just iTunes purchases.)
Even apart from a data breach, removing all third parties from the equation is a privacy win for customers—I can proudly tell people the app collects no data whatsoever, whereas Paddle had to “phone home” to validate product keys.
It’s just not worth it any more.
Given all that, the math just doesn’t work out in support of doing direct sales any more. Even if I moved sales to accepting credit cards directly, a 3.5% fee with all those downsides is substantially worse for both me and my customers than a flat 15%.
Onward and upward!
– Tyler
Let me know what you think—find me on Twitter @TylerAYoung or email me at my first name at unboundapp.com.
Unbound for Mac
After giving Parler 24 hours to introduce new content moderation policies, Apple announced todaythat Parler has officially been kicked off the App Store. This means the app has been removed from the App Store for new downloads.
Apple bans Parler from the App Store
In a statement to 9to5Mac, Apple said:
We have always supported diverse points of view being represented on the App Store, but there is no place on our platform for threats of violence and illegal activity. Parler has not taken adequate measures to address the proliferation of these threats to people’s safety. We have suspended Parler from the App Store until they resolve these issues.
This comes after Apple threatened to remove Parler yesterday evening. At the time, Apple said that Parler had 24 hours to implement measures to address the objectionable content on its platform. Apple now says that Parler failed to address these concerns in an adequate manner.
The removal of Parler from the App Store will stop new users from downloading it, but the app will likely continue working for those who have already installed. However, this does mean that Parler will be unable to release updates to the app, and that future iOS updates could render it obsolete.
Below is the communication that Apple sent to the Parler developers today informing them of its intentions to kick Parler off the App Store. Apple says that Parler’s proposed solutions to address the “dangerous and harmful content” on the platform is not sufficient.
Thank you for your response regarding dangerous and harmful content on Parler. We have determined that the measures you describe are inadequate to address the proliferation of dangerous and objectionable content on your app.
Parler has not upheld its commitment to moderate and remove harmful or dangerous content encouraging violence and illegal activity, and is not in compliance with the App Store Review Guidelines.
In your response, you referenced that Parler has been taking this content “very seriously for weeks.” However, the processes Parler has put in place to moderate or prevent the spread of dangerous and illegal content have proved insufficient. Specifically, we have continued to find direct threats of violence and calls to incite lawless action in violation of Guideline 1.1 – Safety – Objectionable Content.
Your response also references a moderation plan “for the time being,” which does not meet the ongoing requirements in Guideline 1.2 – Safety – User Generated content. While there is no perfect system to prevent all dangerous or hateful user content, apps are required to have robust content moderation plans in place to proactively and effectively address these issues. A temporary “task force” is not a sufficient response given the widespread proliferation of harmful content.
For these reasons, your app will be removed from the App Store until we receive an update that is compliant with the App Store Review Guidelines and you have demonstrated your ability to effectively moderate and filter the dangerous and harmful content on your service.
Jettison Mac App Store Apps
Note that Apple’s communication to Parler says that the app is banned “until we receive an update that is compliant with the App Store Review Guidelines,” which could mean the app returns in the future. Nonetheless, Parler has publicly touted that it will forever take a hands-off approach to moderation.
Parler was also removed from the Google Play Store on Android yesterday, as our colleagues over at 9to5Google reported at the time.
Jettison Mac App Store Settings
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