Mac App Store

Upsetting to who?

Java on the Mac is/was crap.

Apple went to great lengths to make sure it was one of the easiest ways to get your app 64-bit compatible, and practically no one took advantage of it. Apps made for Java seldom worked on the Mac, and when they did, they looked like PC apps.

I think Apple maintaining Java was a crappy idea. But they had to, because the other companies who were working on Java at the time exhibited zero interest in making it a viable solution on the Mac.

If Oracle wants Java on the Mac, let them maintain it for the Mac, just like they do for Unix and Windows. Personally, I got out of the Java game a long time ago. It was slow as molasses, and despite 'platform independent', it looked like absolute crap.

-Chilton

 

cocos2d have added Mac App Store support already.

http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/archives/1102

 

Does anyone have any idea about what is allowed to be submitted? Do your apps have to be built in XCode?

 

we are not the only devs concerned or wondering:

Mac App Store: What Do Apple’s A-List Developers Think?

This is my favorite part of the article:

 

It seems that we need to build with Xcode like Unity iOS:

http://www.9to5mac.com/31691/developers-get-your-apps-ready-for-the-mac-app-store

 

this will definitely be interesting.

 

FFS, I hate Apple more and more each month. On the bright side, it makes killing apples between the teeth that much easier.

 

I love Apple more and more each month for making my life easier. I do FaceTime conferences with my investor daily, can play my game on the iPad and iPod with one button compile from Unity to Xcode to the iDevice, and will be able to Facetime daily with our AI programmer, a thirty year friend..so awesome! Unity is right in there as well. I made a good investment in the Pro versions AFAIC. I have a one stop shop to sell at with major traffic with one click to compile for each. All I have to do is do it well and i am paid. OS X AppStore is a very valuable place to sell console level games at and do well. I wonder who is more restrictive.. The dedicated box game companies (PS3, XBox, Wii) or Apple?

Best
BTH

 

Wii then the other two consoles, then Apple
After all, apple earns themself stupid already with the dev subscriptions, not considering their share on the sales and iAd that will surely get a desktop counterpart rather soon

 

Sorry,only Chinese..

---------------------------------------------
这不是最终版本。。。随 Apple 随时改变。。。。。
首先大家都知道的就是必须加入 Mac Developer Program ，一年 99 USD会费。
加入后跟iDP 一样，先去制作一个凭证请求待用，然后在Developer Certificate Utility 页面中选取取得凭证功能，就会要求你上传刚做的那个凭证请求，接着照流程走下去，可以取得两份Apple 颁发给你的 凭证，3rd Party Mac Developer Application 与 3rd Party Mac Developer Installer。接着选择管理Mac App Id 功能产生你要的 Mac App Id （要填产品名称，与 bundle identifier ），这样就可以。
接着就好好 看 Mac App Store Review Guidelines ，当个好宝宝，写出一个合乎要求的Mac App。
然后在你的该 Mac App 的 Project 中设定用 3rd Party Mac Developer Application 凭证来Sign ，然后可以用 Xcode 上的 Build and Archive ，接着打开Xcode Organizer 用 3rd Party Mac Developer Installer 凭证 来Sign Installer Package ，最后 点击 提交按钮 提交到Mac App Store。
要在 info.plist 中设置好 Bundle Identifier 跟 LSApplicationCategoryType 键值（就是分类。。。。 比如 game 。。。etc）基本跟 App Store 相同，但是少了 Navigation 多了 Video 与Developer Tools 。
你的 App 要尽量符合 Apple 要求的文件系统使用法，比如只用 ~/Library/Application Support/app-identifier 还有几个，如果特定分类的App 还可以用 ~/Music ,~/Photos ...这些。
提交到 Mac App Store 除了用 Xcode Organizer 外还可以手动，自己命令列用 3rd Party Mac Developer Installer 凭证 来Sign Installer Package 然后用 Application Loader 去上传到 Mac App Store 。
提交前自己可以用工具测试安装是不是没问题。

上次有提到收据。就是一般用户在 Mac App Store 购买之后，App 下载安装候会产生一个Apple 产生的合法的收据，我们在App 中必须自己去验证那个收据的真伪。那个收据会放在你的 App 文件夹结构的某个位置你可以去检查。
当然检查收据的方法Apple 有一个简单流程，不过大致还是要自己“聪明一点“做些保护。

大致就是这样了。 简单说说 大家也简单看看。详细请自己去看看 Dev Center 的那些文件。
反正还不急，先了解下就好了。

转自:http://www.cocoachina.com/bbs/read.php?tid-35726.html

 

Apple are not even in the same league as the consoles. Sony TRC and Microsoft TCR documents detail everything down to the text you have to use in many situations. And some of the decisions made on what projects they will allow make Apple seem incredibly consistent and easy going.

 

I find the mac app store interesting as another outlet for developers. I neither see it as generally bad thing like some do, nor as the wicked awesome thing that will suddenly make all developers earn well with their apps.
I find it especially weird when some people speak about way more or way less exposure for content.
Looking at the iOS app store its clear that there´s a good bunch of people who becomes very rich thanks to it and a probably massively bigger bunch of people who doesn´t earn the dev costs back.
So there´s totally the option for both and likely it will be similar with the mac app store.

The side i see as critical is the pricing structure, the prices for developing mac apps will probably be higher than for iOS apps because besides basic ports people will probably have higher expectations for things they run on their bigger screen/ desktop.
Whether the pricing situation works out better than on the iOS app store or prices are dumped down quickly on the mac app store,too to me largely depends on if Apple still in time manages to get a propper trial and preview system in place for apps.
Because i imagine it would be considerably more difficult to sell apps for larger sums if there´s no way to try them out beforehand, as can be seen on the iOS market, that´s problematic.

I think Apple would do good for both developers but also themselves to get something good going on that end, because unlike with iOS developers have more options to get things out for the platform, if the majority who tries it doesn´t make a lot of money back, i don´t see hwow it could be anywhere close as popular as on the iOS devices where its the main/only option (besides browser driven stuff) to get paid content out in masses to non jailbroken devices.

Sadly as far as i can tell they go with no demo/ trial support again.

 

Agreed, the trial system and especially a not laughable DRM are fundamental for it to be a reasonable place to life in as developer unless you spit out $0.99 to $4.99 lowquali massware

The iOS DRM is that laughable that selling games there for higher values only makes sense cause the piracy is still bound to jailbreaking which to most is a "I don't touch that" thingy luckily. But on osx its a matter of just downloading it in the current "OSX World" and I'm 100% sure that apple will reject your apps if you roll your own so having a global standardized solution like BigFishGames has it that also works, will have a serious impact on its spreading.

 

In any case i'm confident that Unity will support Mac App store as soon as possible.

 

As far as i know only a minority is getting rich by the Appstore, obviously those are the ones you're getting a lot of noise about, the rest is hoping somehow getting there, works a little bit like lottery whilst the chances theoretically are a lot better. Anyway the myth a.o. helps selling Unity.

I think it's shortsighted seeing the Appstore only as an alternative. Without competition Apple most probably would fully lock OSX sooner than later. Giving away almost 40% of the sales volume here, Apple dealing the customer data, ...it all adds up but it's always interesting to see what people applaud to, for the prospect of earning some money.

 

vich is the new launch product of apple???

 

Flipping burgers costs money for the gas or public transit to get to work. Seems to be a given that when dealing in the world of commerce people are going to make use of transactional insertion, much as you do in your posting style. After 40 years and some pretty big projects I am used to other getting a cut for the bulk of work I carried out. However, because they were often acting in an Agent capacity I had no qualms about their cut and they generally stayed out of my way once the production or artworks were begun. I recently went from doing R&D Flash for large agencies and fighting all the media school kiddies for web jobs on the various boards to Unity and the Apple Dev Program for iOS and subsequently a fully funded and equipped LLC I run. I look forward to just sitting here doing what I would do anyways and not have to troll one single board for the next freelance job. The OS X app store is a bonus AFAIC.

Best Regards
BTH

 

So when will Unity support new Mac program ?
Thanks

 

@dreamora: Yeah, totally agree with you, too, offering demos, trials and having a proper drm system are key, let´s see if Apple takes it serious or if it ends with forced 99 cents pricing for most things again.




and yeah, besides that, looking forward to unity supporting this soon of course

 

Of course everything will be 99 cents.

 

I wouldn't be so sure; the iPad market has a higher average price for apps than the iPhone market. I'd expect the Mac market to have a higher average still.

--Eric

 

Yeah, but sales figures for apps on the iPad market are also way smaller numbers than on iPhone/iPod touch. Now of course this is to a large degree due to there just being way more iPhones and iPod touches out there than iPads, but hey, it will be similar with desktop macs, too.

And yeah, besides the number of devices being a factor it is pretty reasonable to expect that a lot of people are not into spending a lot of money per app if they can´t try it beforehand, so i see it as critical if Apple really again goes with the no betas,demos and trials manner. And yeah, that it will be much easier to copy mac apps if Apple doesn´t think of some clever way to do the drm side would sure not help with sales either, especially for things which cost more money when bought.
Then there are also things like the ruleset for what kind of content they allow on there and what kind of system and app features it may use.
Such a strict rule set flies better on the iOS market because there are no alternatives for non jailbroken devices, if something can´t make it into the app store it just doesn´t exist for most users. On the mac the apps released through the app store can´t do a lot of things which usual mac applications can do, so there´s a direct comparison there which might limit the mac app store apps to some degree.


Overall i want to see this as good thing it hs great potential for becoming a good option for developers and consumers, but yeah, i hope Apple takes a long hard look at all the things steam does well and uses the remaining days till launch to improve their setup and rule set, then this might work nicely.

 

Hi all,

I may be wrong, but do we really need to wait for an Unity update to submit apps next week? You can create a universal MacOS .app in Unity, package it to into a .pkg file using PackageMaker (stand-alone tool part of XCode) and then you can sign booth, the app and the installer, using the codesign commandline tool: http://developer.apple.com/library/...l/CodeSigningGuide/Procedures/Procedures.html
Sounds not to hard to me. I tried this now and no problems at all. Eventually the info.plist needs some modifications to meet the new appstore categories.

But I wonder if Apple will approve Unity apps as in the "about" window it is stated that the app is running using the Unity player. Hopefully this is no problem: "# 2.5 Apps that use non-public APIs will be rejected!"

 

the definition of nonpublic api on a open OS is a bit extremely vague anyway ...

 

Yes, it is. Lets see...

The packaging / signing process without XCode is even easier then I thought: http://developer.apple.com/devcente...//apple_ref/doc/uid/DontLinkBookID_1-CH16-SW3
Should be no problem. But you will have to install XCode 3.2.5 seed at first...for the right tools I guess.

 

Cool thing, thanks for sharing

 

I agree with Eric
I would guess games will actually crystalize towards 4 tiers: $4.99, $9.99, $14.99 and $19.99 with a few using the appstore as "steam 2" on osx pushing the really expensive stuff assuming apple will let multi GB stuff in at all

 

i hope that Apple will set the minimum price at $4.99 for Mac App Store

 

@AxelIF Thanks for sharing this information. I was assuming that Unity would need to be updated to allow for code signing.

As for the non-public API worry, this does have anything to do with Unity... that is referring to the use of non-public Apple Cocoa APIs.. the APIs that are in Cocoa but marked as private... a developer would have to hunt these down to use them (they aren't in the official documentation). The same non-public API restriction exists for the iOS App Store and Unity built apps are readily accepted there.

 

I'm haven't paid the $99 Mac Dev license yet. Could someone verify that Unity apps can be packaged and signed?

 

for more information see this thread...
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/64...-Apple-s-MAC-appstore?highlight=mac+app+store

 

This may be interesting to some.

From Cliffski's Blog.

 

If anyone gets their Unity game approved for the Mac App Store, please let us know. Will gladly hire you as a consultant.

 

The problem with this is we still can't add the Apple DRM to a Unity game as it is not possible to interrupt a Unity game (via a plugin) before the window pops up (stubless game) and with the launch stub, it's impossible to prevent that from loadng at all.

We have a game ready for submissions with Apple DRM, but the Game Window appears for a split second before DRM shuts it down and that will fail Apples approval process, so right now, unless you want to release a game with NO DRM, you cannot use Unity.

No DRM is not an option for us.

 

Then the Mac App Store is no option for you :

2.19 Apps that require license keys or implement their own copy protection will be rejected.

 

So pretty much no major software developer is ever going to sell their tools on this platform.

 

As he said, "We have a game ready for submissions with Apple DRM". Clearly it is an option and wouldn't be rejected, if/when Unity implements the necessary code to make it work.

They would if they think the Apple DRM is sufficient. (That would leave Ubisoft out for sure....)

--Eric

 

Eric is correct... we have Apple's recommended DRM implemented and working fine. The problem is that a requirement for approval is that the DRM kicks in BEFORE the app window launches... which we cannot do if we use a Unity plugin bridge for the DRM as the app has to start before the plugin can work. And we get that window flash before its shuts down.

I think we are going o try to submit anyway and see if Apple accept this. I'm doubtful, but you never know.

 

There is no way Microsoft/adobe/autodesk etc etc etc are going to drop their drm/serial number systems for apple i can't see that happening.. Heck even a lot of games on steam require an additional serial number...

 

Ok, we have submitted out DRM version of our game for approval..... and guess what!!! We are told that our code signing for our Installer Certificate is invalid. Great.... we have tried 4 times now, including deleting our keys/certs and re-creating them. Every time we finish uploading to Itunesconnect and then we get an email saying...

Any ideas? Has anyone successfully signed their Unity app and managed to upload and have it accepted?

 

Ignore my last post... all good now. App is awaiting review... will let everyone here know how we go!

 

Hello Seon

Would you mind sharing how you implemented the Apple DRM within your game?

How are you managing the preferences .plist file? The path and name accepted is not the one used by Unity.

 

Mac App Store will open January 6:

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/12/16macappstore.html


So i'm interest in Seon Solution too!

I would just inform that we have two threads on this topic:

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/64...-Apple-s-MAC-appstore?highlight=mac+app+store

 

I have my game 4x4 Offroad Racing waiting for review since some time. I only used the app and code signing parts.

I'm also pretty confident that Unity games will get accepted. Matthew from Flashbang posted that Apple contacted them about one of their games for launch promo material. They wouldn't do if they reject all Unity games because of the private API usage of some of the libs Unity uses.

 

He has Apple's DRM wrapped up in a plugin I imagine, which would require Unity Pro. I think everyone is waiting with baited breath to see how Seon's submission turns out.

The curious thing about the Mac App Store, is that it appears they still have a very arbitrary ban on violent or offensive content in the guidelines. I can somewhat understand that on the Iphone being a closed system, but on the desktop?

 

I used the manual signing steps described in the documentation. However, my app just got declined:

2.14 Apps must be packaged and submitted using Apple's packaging technologies included in Xcode - no third party installers allowed.

I don't know what this means and already sent a mail to the Apple support. I hope you will be more lucky.

 

We submitted four apps, although all four are still pending. We were contacted by Apple about providing some promotional art assets, but even that email was careful to mention no knowledge of the submission process:

We didn't check receipts (DRM) at all, so that isn't an issue. Unity is writing a file to ~Library/Preferences, which isn't in their whitelist of locations, but it's also a sane location, so hopefully won't be rejected on those grounds.

I'll post something to the Blurst tech blog about the process, although it's pretty straightforward.

Good luck to everyone who submitted!

 

I wonder if ANY Unity app has been approved yet? My two games are still in review..for about a month each.

 

Sorry for the long delay... Busy getting our latest game ready to ship.

Ok, we made our own plugin in XCode to use Apples DRM and call it from Unity. Seems to work well. Pretty basic stuff but requires Unity Pro.

***

We also just got knocked back from submission, but not from any guideline issues, but because our app when installed exits with an Exit Code 1. Grr...

We can reproduce this here, but have no idea how to fix it as it seems to be a permissions error when the app is installed using...

Code (csharp):

1. sudo installer -store -pkg ####.pkg -target /

If we manually fix the permissions, the game runs fine. We have tried building/signing this game on 2 machines and both produce the same issue.

Anyone successfully built, codesigned, productbuilt and installed a game on their mac?

 

Ignore me... major lack of sleep effecting my brain. grrr