Apple recently introduced the Mac App Store, which is a counterpart to the iOS (iPhone, iPod touch and iPad) App Store, and within which you can search for, buy and download applications.
It's great that Apple considers making application installation and ease of upgrading a priority. We'll hold out for the latest news on the next version of Mac OS X (v10.7 "Lion") to see if the improvements will extend to every application or if it wants to keep the technology to the Mac App Store as an advantage.
We already, and have always aimed to, provide easy-to-install applications and software, and two of our four pieces of software – Monocle and ThisService – are as easy to install as clicking the download button, opening the downloaded ZIP file (optional by default in Safari and some other web browsers) and dragging the application to where you want it.
These two applications are also very easy to update, and will upgrade themselves after asking permission (thanks to some technology that you won't need to know about or maintain, but which is named Sparkle).
Our other two utilities are plugins. Google+Growl comes with an installer, and Hex Color Picker has to be installed manually because, as a system-wide plugin, it is hard to exchange while in use without quitting every application that uses it. Of the numerous other color pickers we know of, none are distributed with an installer.
We are not interested in holding possibly important upgrades hostage to a (well-meaning) screening process. We understand that Apple wants to deter authors of malicious software from trying to get into the Mac App Store and stop the ones that do attempt it, but the process also has the effect of slowing down and inconveniencing compliant software development. Sometimes, mistakes are caught, but regardless of that, the process is protracted. There's also the possibility of a changed or newly introduced rule that would trap an update in the process at an inopportune time.
Because of all these things, we have opted to stay out of the Mac App Store for now. Since the Mac App Store is one of many convenient ways of getting new applications, we hope that we do not inconvenience anyone, and for anyone already using our software, we believe the impact of this decision to be very small.
We want to respect the people that use our applications in any way possible: by making software that works and is easy to use, by replying quickly and accurately to support mail, by making software as painless as possible to install and upgrade, by openly providing information about the details of how our software works (we call it a Tech Profile, and you can find a link at the bottom of every product page), by providing source code to some (and eventually all) applications and by being honest about a decision like whether to go on the Mac App Store or not.
Partially. Two of our pieces of software – Hex Color Picker and Google+Growl – are not applications per se, they are plugins to another application and the system color picker, respectively. The Mac App Store's review guidelines disallows anything that's not an application. Plugins can extend applications and allow them to do entirely new things, which makes us curious about this policy, but we understand that the Mac App Store will have to start out somewhere, since we know that there are technical hurdles that make plugin installation difficult.
Additionally, our application ThisService is made solely for creating helpful Mac OS X system services, an under-appreciated piece of functionality in the operating system which Apple last overhauled as late as the most recent Mac OS X update, "Snow Leopard". These standalone services will not be able to be distributed on the Mac App Store either, per the above, although applications that are may choose to provide some services.
Our fourth application Monocle is located in the menu bar rather than in the Mac OS X dock, by popular and almost unanimous request, and while we are uncertain, we also think that this might be disallowed on the Mac App Store given the prominence of downloading applications jumping straight into the dock.
For the reasons above, we also think it would be deeply unfortunate if the Mac App Store's catalogue in its current form would one day be seen as the entire body of software that's available for Mac OS X. It is Apple's prerogative to choose which software to list in its own catalogue, but it would be a shame if current, useful software was marginalized, or if Apple would choose not to do right by its users by limiting useful technologies such as improvements in the installation process to the Mac App Store.
It is true that the Mac App Store states as requirements a few existing technologies that are beneficial to security. For example, it requires the application to be cryptographically signed ("code signing") to make modification harder. It is possible to apply this technology in several ways, and the way that the Mac App Store applies them precludes people from swapping out resources, useful for adding their own localizations or changing icons around.
For every such technology the Mac App Store requires, we are considering whether to apply it and how to apply it with minimal impact to the application. In the case of code signing, we would leave out the application resources from the cryptographic signature to allow more freedom in changing the application around.
We know that many developers are worried about how the Mac App Store will function, direct the Mac platform or affect their business, that many developers are excited about the opportunities of the Mac App Store, and that sometimes these views are held simultaneously.
Developers who sell their applications are discussing both Apple's 30% listing and service cut out of every app purchase and the traditional effect of the iOS App Store to drive down the prices and make development of software demanding more resources less tenable, both practically and psychologically. Additionally, developers with their own time-tested structures for quality assurance are concerned about the duplication of effort with the approval process.
Since our applications are made available for free and developed in our free time, we are not in their position, so we do not directly share their woes and worries, but as you might imagine, we are interested in the discussion about the impact of the Mac App Store in every aspect of software development. Be aware that any developer with business in the Mac App Store is not at contractual liberty to discuss these issues, and that the discussion you'll find may be skewed.