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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."
I am assuming that the application cannot access the file system unless a file is within the applications sandbox, or opened through the operating systems open file API.
Sig: I stole this sig.
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'
I suspect he's not talking about subtitle tracks - he's talking about standalone subtitle files. MplayerX wouldn't be allowed to open that second file, unasked by the user.
#DeleteChrome
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?
From Apple's design guide:
It seems like the simplest solution is to have the user choose the folder the videos are in, not the video itself.
You could just have the user pick the folder their video library is stored in, and the player can even create a 'bookmark' so the app can access that folder (and its contents) persistently across restarts.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
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.
The app can only open files in specifically defined (and Apple approved) locations. Outside these locations, you need express permission (via a file open dialog) to access files. So all would be OK for ~/Movies or ~/Downloads.
But while you could open "/Volumes/My Big External Disk/Movies/movie.avi" via a file dialog to play it back, the software could not automatically also open "/Volumes/My Big External Disk/Movies/movie.srt" to show you subtitles.
That's the problem.
I can't stand all these anti-sandboxing stories that make it sound like selling software over the Internet is so horrible.
I would hazard a guess that the MplayerX folks have more of a clue about the situation than you.
The subtext of this story is: it's walled garden time boys and girls, suck it down and like it.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
This wouldnt work if the user simple opened the file (from the equivalent of Explorer in mac, by double clicking the file (which I believe is the most common way to play a video), or clicking on open from Firefox). And most of the videos in my laptop are in the same folder "Downloads". If I had to go up a directory, open Downloads under MplayerX, and wade though the videos to select the one I want to play, I would be really frustrated (and would start looking for alternative players).
This wouldnt work if the user simple opened the file (from the equivalent of Explorer in mac, by double clicking the file (which I believe is the most common way to play a video), or clicking on open from Firefox). And most of the videos in my laptop are in the same folder "Downloads". If I had to go up a directory, open Downloads under MplayerX, and wade though the videos to select the one I want to play, I would be really frustrated (and would start looking for alternative players).
Like, for example, the player that Apple makes, which presumably won't have this problem. A happy coincidence for Apple, for sure.
But seriously who DIDN'T know Apple is a bunch of control freaks? this is like having a dozen people walk up to you and say "See that guy selling fruit on the corner? Yeah don't do business with him, he'll punch you in the nuts" but you go 'Hey, that guy is making the monies! I'll do business with him!" and right after you do business with him he gives you a Falcon Punch from hell that cracks your walnuts. Now why the fuck should we feel sorry or care when you didn't listen?
Apple is a bunch of control freaks, MSFT is run by dumbass PHBs, Google wants to know what you had for breakfast this morning...and now for the weather....water is wet Chuck, back to you!
Seriously folks Apple has a history of fucking over the little guys, going apeshit on their control over them and/or ripping off their ideas for a new "Apple Feature" down the line....who doesn't know this? Its been SOP there forever, its not exactly news folks. The moral of the story, if you get in bed with a control freak don't bitch when you end up tied to the bedpost with a ballgag mmkay?
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
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
I was wondering how long it'd take before we arrived at "you're holding it wrong".
And Linux might mean *gasp* learning something new.
The only way out is to make Linux better than OSX. So, start coding...
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
QuickTime Player is sandboxed in 10.8 (and possibly earlier), so it should have the same issues as MPlayerX... And I havn't experienced any difficulties as a power user.
It's Apple's 1984-esque bullshit like this which is the primary reason why I will never waste my money on an apple product until they change their ways. I don't want to buy a glorified media player, the difference between a computer and a set top box is that a computer has the ability to run any application, but apple are starting to blur this distinction by turning their systems into glorified set-top boxes. I don't care how easy it is to use. To be honest, the laptop we have to use when on-call is a macbook pro, and I'm not really overwhelmed by it - in fact, I don't like it. I want focus-follows-mouse.. oh, that would break the menu. Then again, I'm one of those weirdos who actually likes gnome 3 (yes, on a 1980x1080 screen).
I would lose interest overnight if all I could run on my computer was angry birds and fart apps.
I wrote my first program at the age of six, and I still can't work out how this website works.
Fortunately, he did throw in a good argument which you probably missed while you were masturbating over the latest fart app.
I wrote my first program at the age of six, and I still can't work out how this website works.
the real problem is that the user feels the need to have a movie split over several files
The user is likely downloading the movie which is split over several files, and doesn't know how to join them. You are blaming the victim.
IOW, the problem are the File System Fetishists.
Filesystems work. Otherwise we wouldn't have them. We'd just have object stores.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
QuickTime Player is sandboxed in 10.8 (and possibly earlier), so it should have the same issues as MPlayerX... And I havn't experienced any difficulties as a power user.
What does it mean to be a power user of QuickTime Player? That you managed to find the full-screen button?
this post contain no useful information, no need to mod it down
I'm going back to Linux.
The app working correctly should not be dependent on where I keep my media.
If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
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...
You mean daemons?
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
In this App's case, it would mean reworking his UI slightly to have users select folders with content in them, not individual movies.
Except that I play movies by finding them in finder, and double clicking them. I can't remember the last time I opened a movie from -within- an application's user interface.
So, no, reworking he UI would be pretty irrelevant.