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MplayerX Leaving Mac App Store
New submitter technonono writes "MplayerX, a popular and free video player app on Mac OSX, is now leaving Mac App Store 'after arguing with Apple for three months.' The developer claims that Apple's sandboxing policies would strip the app into 'another lame Quicktime X,' which is unacceptable. The app is releasing updates on its own site, where users who bought it from the App Store would most likely never notice them. The situation was 'foretold' by Marco Arment, at least for one app."
and if they had an auto-update mechanism (like sparkle) people wouldn't need to check their website for app updates because (drumroll) in soviet russia, app checks website for updates!
I stopped at a local coffee shop the other day and noticed a bunch of hipsters with their macbook airs "writing a novel" or whatever the fuck they pretend to do. But when I passed by, I noticed a tux icon on the desktop. I looked again and noticed they weren't using OSuX, they were using OpenBSD with xfvm. In fact, a couple were even using emacs from the console. I started talking to them and they told me that Apple is too popular now (and mountain kitty dumbed everything down) so they need something less popular. And they can spend all their time finding on the perfect X window manager. Also, they like emacs on the console because it lets them focus on the words, not on the fonts. I invited them to the LUG meeting but I don't think they're into bears. But you never know.
He claims that "MPlayerX will lose so many features if it adopted Sandboxing, it could not load the subtitle automatically, it could not play the next episode for you automatically, ". I dont see how a Sandbox would prevent these features from working, can anyone verify this to be true?
They've had over a year to get this straightened out, not three months. If MplayerX won't sell in the app store, some other product will fill the void in that market. This is of course assuming people are going to the app store for such a media player.
I have it installed, but never even thought to look for it there. Nothing to do with sandboxing requirements - I just would've figured their developers would object to the concept of the App Store on principle.
#DeleteChrome
I would put forward that this conclusion is actually only true right now, but I expect over the coming years that is liable to change.
As an increasing number of applications *DO* become available on the app store, I would suggest that a growing number of people are going to increasingly rely upon it. Eventually, I expect that a critical mass will be reached (I predict about 2 years from now), and Apple will shut the door to external sales on the Mac outside of jailbroken devices forever.
This will probably be cause for a lot of people to abandon the mac platform, but I expect that the remaining userbase will be sufficiently large by that point in time that other developers will eventually be drawn to writing for the platform, attracted by the promise of what will seem to them, initially at least, to be a largely untapped market.
And what happened with iOS is going to happen again with MacOSX.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
For all their much vaunted backwards compatibility or large collection of apps the reality is that either the app developer keeps updating their app or it breaks. That was what happened with Stanza. It was probably a mere coincidence that it broke around the time iBooks was released.
Or was it?
MPlayerX will still be available just not in AppStore. I would assume existing users will still get updates through internal update service.
It's been clear for a long time that Apple intends to exercise authoritarian-type control over your machine. Everyone who objects to this has left the platform, and everyone who doesn't object has stayed. It's clear what the situation is, and everyone gets to make their own choice about whether it is acceptable for there to be a central authority who controls your computing experience.
So why is this being considered an issue any more?
Mac App Store is a piece of crap anyway. I doubt anyone would even notice.
What's wrong with the way apps have always worked? I like VLC, I go download it, it checks for updates when I use it. I push the update button when there's an update.
I have a few app store apps, but it's in addition to what I've always used. App store encourages devs to write apps for mac. I like more options, good system.
I got off of the Apple bandwagon a long time ago after I realised how much Apple's ecosystem is like a prison. I'd rather have my freedom. Microsoft and other companies are moving more and more in the direction of Apple (and Apple just keeps moving in the wrong directions). Even Canonical, Red Hat, System76, ZaReason, and quite a few others have really annoyed me in recent years. Not so much because they have taken drastic steps towards imprisoning you although more for their ignorance and complacency. Canonical and others are giving in to Microsoft's secure boot crap and moving away from GRUB. GRUB isn't the problem. Microsoft is. STOP GIVING IN.
There is enough crap I have to go through to get from point A to point B when I travel because of societal complacency in the criminal (I'm using that word loosely) actions of our world's leaders and the systems they've implemented (authoritarians who love censorship and promote thuggish behaviour). I don't want that experience when I go online.
The only company I've even got any respect for any more is ThinkPenguin. For those who don't know this company sells computers and accessories for GNU/Linux and they actually have a respectable set of values. The company doesn't sell hardware dependent on non-free software (drivers or firmware) and supports freedom like nobody else. They contribute a significant percentage of their profits to the Free Software Foundation and Trisquel project (one of the few strictly free distributions) amongst others. I believe 10% of certain distribution channels go to the Free Software Foundation and 25% of sales from libre.thinkpenguin.com (a version of the site tailored to free software users) go to the Trisquel project. And they are supporting a lot of other projects as well.
from the website, before they started pointing to the app store instead.
MPlayer leaving the app store? Guess I'll use TEN and Kali instead
Maybe there is something I don't know, but why do these other apps exist when
VLC is such a useful app for playing all kinds of file types and pretty much
can deal with anything you throw at it ?
If I missed something please explain.
I do not know who modded this as interesting, but it is funny. Buy the way no self respecting bsd user would have tux on their desktop. I believe they prefer demons.
"For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice" -- God
Some of this is just a learning curve on the part of developers. As has been pointed out, a lot of the issues surround access to the file system but as long as the user selects a folder (via the OS' built-in privileged process proxy that presents the selection UI for your app) or drags it to your app, you can store a link to it that is part of your sandbox, including across reboots.
In this App's case, it would mean reworking his UI slightly to have users select folders with content in them, not individual movies. Then he can show a list of movies in that folder and let the user pick, all the while reading separate subtitle files or moving to the next movie with no issues.
There does need to be a category of Developer Utilities / System Utilities that allow things like asking for Admin rights. This is one place Apple is totally wrong. Sure, make the review process extra detailed and don't allow apps to go into that category unless they are truly utilities, but it is definitely needed.
The days of [app permissions] == [user permissions] are long over... We're just stuck with a broken security model that never anticipated people would be running so much code from so many sources, code that can't necessarily be trusted (or that itself loads data/code from untrusted sources). It's like the difference between traditional Unix permission bits and ACLs: once you use ACLs you realize how primitive user/group/owner is. Sandboxing is an attempt at limiting the permission of apps but it remains to be seen if that's the best way.
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
I am an American. And this is what we get. Pick my candidate or we will all die. The Other party is planning the destruction of the country if not the world.
Or..
Pick MY candidate and we all will die!!!
That's right, I'm supporting Cthullu/Dagon this election. Why settle for a lesser evil?
How is this any more a flagrant act of GPL violation than a linux install CD (which does not ship source due to space)? The help menu takes you to the project's github repo.
Apple is making record profits ($35 billion last quarter) and only 14.2% of those profits ($1.287 billion) came from sales of Mac hardware last quarter (all desktops and laptops). (source) The percentage of money Apple makes from desktops and laptops is getting progressively smaller each quarter. And the number of 'professionals' in those numbers is smaller still. The bottom line is that there is FAR more money to be made from consumers. To the point that professionals really don't matter to Apple's bottom line at all. Consumers, consumers, consumers. Consumers consuming music/video ($1.571 billion, up 29 percent from $1.571 billion a year earlier.) and apps ($891 million, up 28 percent from $696 million a year earlier.) on their iPads ($9.17 billion, up 52 percent from $6.046 billion a year earlier.), iPod Touches ($1.06 billion, down 20 percent from $1.325 billion a year earlier.) and iPhones ($16.425 billion, up 22 percent from $13.31 billion a year earlier.). That's where the money is. That's where nearly ALL the money is. Microsoft is seeing the same light. That's why Windows 8 is what it is. It is a 100% consumer operating system, corporations be damned. It's about setting up an ecosystem of apps, music and video across your desktop, laptop, tablet and phone. So, no, it doesn't matter if you can't install Eclipse, Mac Ports or various command-line tools on your Mac. The Mac App Store is about consumers, just like the iOS App Store. Not creators or 'professionals'. Even if you estimate that 10% of Mac's desktop/laptop hardware sales were 'professionals' (an extremely high estimate) and every single one of them abandoned Mac as a result of these changes (unlikely), that's still only $493 million. 1.4% of Apple's revenue. And that will be more than offset by another platform where Apple for all intents and purposes controls the keys to the kingdom (Mac App Store will be 95%+ of all Mac software sales in the next couple years) and makes a 30% cut of all software sales. They can ditch professionals and make a killing on consumers.
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
And they can spend all their time finding on the perfect X window manager.
As opposed to doing any actual work, which is what they might be doing if they stopped fiddling around with their OS and actually, I don't know, used their computer.
I have it installed ... rarely use it ... because it sucks at playing almost every format I have tried.
On the other hand, VLC has never failed to play what ever I have thrown at it.
So yes ... use VLC and skip the drama. MPlayerX is not ready for primetime.
Unfortunately, MplayerX is unusable at its current state for a significant number of users because of this issue that has been open and unaddressed for months. The lag is unbearable and keeps me from switching from VLC. I would like to do so because MplayerX' killer feature, remembering the play position, is missing from VLC even though it has been requested by its userbase for years.
These devices are only bought by iDiots, who are too stupid to know they don't actually own that they paid for, and that they are being totally ripped off.
Eh, of course it does. Android is Linux and Mac OS is FreeBSD. And as everybody knows, Linux is superior to FreeBSD.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Maybe there is à market for a non-Apple app store? If someone gets in the act now, and Apple pulls the rug, then it would be possible to apply anti-trust laws.
With regards to sandboxing, I can understand why Apple is doing this, but have they gone too far with their sand boxing model? What needs to be improved and does a better model exist elsewhere?
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Hmmm...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dErAZL1Hr8
+
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zIEZDt188I
I think you're on to something.
I've been using Macs for nearly ten years and this is the first time I've even heard of MPlayerX, so I guess I'm not missing out on much.
Perhaps not, but it never hurts to plan ahead.
Or does apple forbid something like that, pointing you away from the store ?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
"because when you're that rich you can't imagine a better life"
So why is Mitt running for President? Oh, I can answer that.
Your statement I quoted above is naive and illogical. Mitt is runing for President for several reasons, but one would be, I presume, to preserve the United States that he got rich in. To go just a tiny step further, this would be to improve the chances that he STAYS rich.
For the rich, it's not just about imagining a 'better life'. Sometimes it's about imagining a worse life, like not being rich any more.
The comment that started me off imagined that we should take in taxes what the rich 'don't need'. I think that meant making them not rich any more. When you know that number, please let me know.
And it is not $70,000/yr. My household income is a bit more than that, and I can use more. I can barely afford a week's vacation to my hometown.
Your ideas are not well thought out. Keep trying.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
I know I'm a very minor voice in this, but I find it annoying to sign in to Apple's tracking just to download a free app. I will still install MPlayerX on all the Macs that I have control over.
Too many people are willing to give up their privacy to apple to get software that was once just freely available. This goes for the android app stores too. I really don't like signing on to web pages that require javascript from a multitude of sites before I am able to download.
I read that number in a book. I might be wrong since it was a long time ago. Still, the priciple applies.
The priciple (sic) being what? That we should decide how much is enough, and take the rest for the common good ?
Wrong country. Unless you're trying to make America into something else. You will understand if I don't agree.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
"If people can't get their dev environment running, they won't dev apps"
Why wouldn't they be able to get their dev environment running? I understand what you are trying to say but realistically Apple does supply Xcode and any other tools needed to make apps on it's platform. If you don't like it Apple will just tell you to piss off like they do on everything else. It's not fair but then again Apple has never been about fair.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
BSD is dying.
I'm going back to Linux.
I obviously am. I'm trying to make America a more equal place. The reason why the higher income people should pay more taxes is exactly that reason, a way to level the field. The thing is, they are very good at dodging taxes. And say they pay 13% and feel proud about it...
America is not and never has been the land of equal results. It is the land of opportunity. You write that you want to make American a more equal place. Levelling the field. Personally, I am not nearly so interested in levelling the field as I am in having an opportunity, and those two things are not the same.
But more to the point, I think, I don't believe the government should take a dollar more in taxes than it needs to do what needs to be done.
Any more than that is taking from me without giving me even value. Taxes are not the government's money, they are mine. I want to get good value for my taxes. Am I now?
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
deamons are not demons. If you are to be pedantic about something, try to be right or it loses all of its value.
Tomorrow is another day...
You mean daemons?
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
If you only want to pay taxes for things that you will benefit from, then there is nothing more to talk about. It's selfishness at it's prime.
Now you have a stable job and a home. If your life ever took a turn for the worst, I bet you would feel differently.
Well, I never thought of that. This means also that having a free OS is the total refusal of just "consuming" anything in the digital world, but enjoying certain works and stuff that works.
... To destroy the entire comment section.
My home, by which I mean both the nation of which I am a citizen and the actual house that I live in, is under precisely zero threat of invasion and occupation by foreign armies. I pay people to ensure this, though I’ve never written a check directly. When those people retire, or are hurt in the line of duty, or are killed and leave families behind, I continue to pay them and I’m happy to do so. It seems like the right thing to do, since they do so much for me.
Every day I travel to a workplace that pays me reasonably well, and I do so either by train or on well-maintained and fairly safe roads. My money goes pretty far because goods are cheap, in large part because they can be made or grown wherever it is most efficient to produce them, then driven in big trucks on different but similar roads to a place where it’s convenient for me to purchase them. They don’t grow oranges in my state, but I get them fresh all the same.
More of my money goes to the purchase and maintenance of my home. My home’s value (both in intangibles and in the monetary possibility of resale) is increased by the proximity of a public park, good nearby elementary schools, a low crime rate, and the fact that my trash, yard waste, and recycling magically disappear once a week as long as I set them out by the curb. The same is true for the rest of my household waste, if you get my meaning. Most of all, though, the value is increased by the security of knowing that somebody can’t just enter my home when I’m there, board up the entrances, and refuse to leave. Somebody *could*, I suppose, but there’d be hell to pay, and I wouldn’t have to risk my own life to make them pay it.
There are schools operating in my neighborhood. At the very least they keep children from running amok during the day, when I’m at work and can’t stop them from climbing my tree. Hopefully they’re actually educating and preparing the children for useful lives as citizens. Some will move away as adults but many won’t, and I will benefit from a new generation of shopkeepers, firefighters, artists, chefs, dentists, mechanics, and the like.
I of course have neighbors. Some are better off than I am, but most are not. I like most of them. I like how their kids get an education even if the parents can’t afford private-school tuition. I like knowing that if one of those kids got hurt playing, they could go to the hospital and get treatment. Nobody would refuse it because their parent is poor, and nobody will knock on my door asking me to contribute. It’s just taken care of, as if by magic.
Some years ago I lost my job. For several months I got a check from the state for half of what my salary had been, until I found a new job. It wasn’t much to live on, but it let me keep my house and food on the table. I didn’t feel too bad taking it, either, because I’d spent a decade before (and I’ve spent a decade since) paying into the fund from which I briefly drew.
There are woods near my house. Somebody might have bought them and turned them into parking lots, except that they’re not for sale. Instead they’re kept available for me to walk my dog, or ride my bike. Some people ride horses or ATVs around in them, and that looks like fun too. I don’t pay for a ticket to go in, nor does anybody else.
These are the benefits of civilization. They cost money. My taxes are that money. Quit whining.
I'm genuinely happy that you're happy with the situation. And I'm mindful that I have clean water and shelter, which is more than most people on earth have.
My complaint is not going to resonate with you, and that is testament to your contentment, which I choose to not find fault with.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Superb link, post of the month!
Tomorrow is another day...
The difference is under the GPL you can write to the person who gave you the binaries, and in the case of a Linux distributor they can actually give the source to you.
Oh, you don't know what's actually in the GPL? My mistake.
Link to github. Does that help Apple's right to distribute it? Didn't think so.