Apple told Mac developers Tuesday that it would be once again extending the sandboxing deadline for all App Store apps , this metre to June 1 . to boot , Apple has confirmed that apps may remain on the App Store without sandboxing after this deadline , but developers may only put forward hemipteran fix update for them .
Firstreported by MacStories , the extension is the second such wait from Apple . Initially , all covering were to be sandboxed by November 2011 ; in November , that deadline was extended to March 2012 ; and now , the deadline has been push yet again .
Though Apple did not reply toMacworld ’s asking for scuttlebutt on the thing , it ’s fair to assume that this delay revolves around the organisation of entitlements that developers are require to implement in ordination to in good order sandbox their apps . These entitlements are designed to trammel an app ’s access to your organization , so that in the event that the program goes rogue or becomes compromise , it can not hurt other aspects of your figurer .
Unfortunately , there are currently very few of these available to developer , and many apps , admit those currently useable on the Mac App Store , have features that are n’t wrap up by subsist entitlements . For example , Rogue Amoeba ’s Piezo — which need the power to set in motion applications in edict to capture their audio recording , an entitlement that does not exist — cannot presently serve in an app sandpile .
While Apple notes that the wing is in part to permit developers to take vantage of Modern entitlement in recent OS go updates , Rogue AmoebaCEO Paul Kafasis is unimpressed . “ There are still many things miss , and many things which can merely never be possible under sandboxing , ” Kafasis toldMacworldon Tuesday . “ Developers do n’t require to be pressure to remove functionality that our customer use and love . ”
or else , Kafasis argues that Apple should dispute sandboxing altogether and focalize onGatekeeper , a new security measure organisation coming to OS X Mountain Lion this summer . ( Macworldspoke with several other developers last week about the feature . ) Gatekeeper can be configured by the user to require all apps to have a signed developer certificate with Apple , let the society to remotely incapacitate them if they were to become troublesome .
App developer Manton Reece ofRiverfold Softwarerecently decided toremove one of his apps from the Mac App Storein light of sandboxing restriction and Gatekeeper . When asked about Tuesday ’s developments , Reece toldMacworld : “ For my app , I consider it ’s still the right decision to transmigrate away from the Mac App Store . Instead of spend the time between now and June on sandboxing , I can flap out new features and get quick for Gatekeeper . ”
Interestingly , Apple ’s developer announcement mentions that apps can remain unsandboxed on the App Store after June 1 , but developers will only be allowed to update them with hemipteran fixes , rather than feature summation . Reece know the move as “ a pretty big change of mind , ” and wondered if the decision would stick : “ I do n’t want to depend on policies and genus Apis that are still germinate . ”
Kafasis construe the granting immunity as just “ a temporary workaround , ” rather than a final policy . “ If … this will be a permanent way to keep shipping unsandboxable apps , why have sandboxing at all ? ”
