Mastodawn

Radu Dutzan Apr 16

I have some free time, so I’ll use it to bitch about App Review.

Man, fuck App Review. @doppi for Mac has been stuck there for two weeks. First of all, it takes them at least five full calendar days to review a Mac app. Deplorable.

But not just that, they’ve rejected the app twice, and for the dumbest shit. The second time, they cited one of the same reasons I had already explained, making me feel like it’s worthless to spend any effort trying to treat the process as rational.

Radu Dutzan Apr 16

This is by far the worst part about shipping on the Mac. It’s not even that Catalyst makes simple standard conventions hard to accomplish, I can deal with that — it needs extra work, but it’s up to me.

I’m someone who cares a metric shit-ton about making good software for your platform, and this is how you treat me? With a complete and utter lack of respect?

Radu Dutzan Apr 16

I so wish I could say “fuck you” and take my stuff elsewhere. Instead, I’m on the receiving end of that same insult, and really can’t do much more beyond whining online, before lubing up and bending over for the next round.

Radu Dutzan Apr 18

See you Wednesday

Radu Dutzan Apr 21

The bad news came in early! Props to the review team

Radu Dutzan Apr 25

This is what came on Tuesday:

Radu Dutzan Apr 25

This is my reply, and their reply on Thursday.

I’m at a complete loss. I can’t tell why they can’t see the big-ass Buy Doppi button, or how I should explain that a legacy feature isn’t available to new users, but removing the entitlement will fuck over existing iOS users.

Radu Dutzan Apr 25

Earlier in the thread, I sent these hopefully clear, if a little visually violent, images regarding each of these items:

Radu Dutzan Apr 26

I think my next step might be to escalate. Honestly, this is draining 100% of my willpower to work on @doppi, which is sad

Radu Dutzan May 3

6 days since sending a message to the App Review Board. No response.

Radu Dutzan May 5

They replied today, the ball is on my court now. Looks like the app gate isn’t working, the app reports itself as unlocked across several fresh installs. This is a huge relief; it’s a bug, not a product change I didn’t wanna make.

Radu Dutzan May 6

Submitted a new build with a fix. Here’s hoping that the issues the Review Board friend correctly didn’t flag this time don’t get flagged once again by the regular reviewers, and that it gets reviewed again this week.

Radu Dutzan May 7

It got reviewed again earlier today, apparently the bug persists. So I persist (and also I get massively derailed)

Radu Dutzan May 9

Submitted a new build yesterday. This was a real bug that I could have found and fixed weeks ago, were we not getting distracted by discussing how my app has entitlements that aren’t exposed on the main window

Radu Dutzan May 9

Let’s also remember how entitlements aren’t direct permissions; they’re permissions to potentially ask the user for their explicit permission to access something if, and only if, they ever decide to use some feature that’s disabled by default.

Radu Dutzan May 9

Still, I am excited for @doppi to come to the Mac. I guarantee 100% that it will be one of the Mac apps of all time

Radu Dutzan May 10

I am at a complete motherfucking loss

Radu Dutzan May 14

Alright, I’m done. I no longer care about discoverability or revenue, I just want to release this thing. Mac apps have existed for 42 years without this “App Store” bullshit.

Doppi will be a free download for Mac. Self-hosted.

To close out this long and grueling thread, one last thought:

f u c k
A p p l e ‘ s
A p p
R e v i e w

Max Wheeler May 14

@radu @mattro I’m noodling with a Mac app and thinking I’ll try https://amore.computer

Amore - Self-Publish Your Mac Apps

Self-publish your macOS apps outside the App Store. Amore handles Sparkle updates, code signing, notarization, and DMG creation.

@maxwheeler I'm not really into the idea of replacing one app store with another because it could easily just end up with a similar situation of one party having too much power over other parties. Independent app distribution is the way

Max Wheeler May 20

@maxoakland Amore is intended to be what you describe AFAIK (see https://amore.computer/help/s3-bucket/)

Self-Managed S3-Bucket - Amore

Host your macOS app updates on your own S3-compatible storage (AWS, Cloudflare R2) with Amore. Includes custom domain and appcast.xml migration.