[Qt-interest] Qt apps in Apple Mac Store?

[Oliver.Knoll at comit.ch]

On 2011-01-10 Mihail Mihail Naydenov wrote:

> ...
> Then I guess Apple supplies autoupdate APIs, right? And one *have to* use these,
> is this the case?
> Or is autoupdate optional, I think is not, but might be wrong?

"Apps" installed via App Store are automatically updated via App Store - just as on the iPhone. Not sure what the concrete process is here, but I guess it could be as simple as your app has to provide a version number 1.0.0, and when you upload a more recent version 1.2.3 all your users doing an "Update" receive that version.

Updating app bundles is indeed very easy, in that when you overwrite a folder on a Mac (and as we know an *.app is in the end a folder) the entire content is first deleted, and then the new content written.

That would off course also imply that you cannot do partial updates (e.g. just replace a given *.dynlib). I don't know if the "Mac App Store Framework" also provides such a "partial update" mechanism, but as far as I know it from "my iPhone experience" the entire app is downloaded each time.

However the "Mac App Store Framework" provides an API to download plugins (and charge for them) - also (and exclusively off course) via the App Store. 

It also provides an API to verify a signed token which is provided by the App Store on a given Mac desktop. It is the responsibility of the application itself to verify that token. So even though the user is allowed to use the application copy on all his/her "personal Macs" s/he cannot distribute that app (IF that app does that check - apparently several apps in the app store "forgot" to implement that check ;). Or so I understand.


The actual acceptance rules are only available to developers part of the "Apple Developer Connection" (I think it costs around 100$), but those rules leaked out a couple of weeks ago:

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/apples_guidelines_revealed_apps_you_cant_sell_in_the_mac_app_store.php

Off course "to be taken with care", as they might not be up to date anymore ;) Also the detailed acceptance tests (e.g. the URL I posted previously), such as the proper locations of files is also not listed there.

Cheers, Oliver
--
Oliver Knoll
Dipl. Informatik-Ing. ETH
COMIT AG - ++41 79 520 95 22