Rumor deemed false, apps using global hotkeys to remain in Mac App Store
A post from blog TUAW caused quite the stir Thursday morning after reporting Apple "may be end-of-life-ing all those great little hotkey shortcuts" seen in apps distributed through the company's Mac App Store starting in June, but counter-claims from Macworld say that this is not the case.
In the allegedly debunked report, TUAW's source noted that Apple would disallow hotkey-enabled apps in an effort to make OS X a more secure and consumer-friendly operating system. As part of the rumored change, Apple would purportedly have rejected all Mac App Store that used hotkey shortcuts starting June 1, after which date existing "hotkey apps" would only be allowed bug fix updates. The report said that only apps using system-wide hotkeys would be subject to denial while programs using in-app hotkeys would remain unaffected.
"While there's no indication Apple intends to prevent the sale of apps with [systemwide] hotkey functionality outside the App Store, it is clear Apple is working to simplify the user experience within the Mac App Store, and that means "power user" utilities are at risk," writes TUAW's Erica Sadun.
The June 1 date is a crucial element to the story as this is when Apple intends to initiate new sandboxing elements for apps distributed through its Mac App Store. However, citing its own sources, Macworld said that, while the sandboxing will indeed occur, apps making use of hotkeys will not be rejected.
"Macworld can confirm that no such hotkey ban is coming to the Mac App Store. In fact, Apple offers developers several public APIs that make simple work of creating global keyboard shortcuts, and those APIs arenât going away," Lex Friedman writes.
Friedman notes that global hotkey apps will be included in the Mac App Store as long as developers use Apple's APIs. There are non-sanctioned APIs and backend workarounds that can be used to power global hotkeys, though Apple would no doubt block them from the App Store as their keylogging functionality can to be used for exploitative purposes.
"Thus, so long as developers use Appleâs officially supported APIs to register systemwide global hotkeys, their apps will remain eligible for inclusion in the Mac App Store," writes Friedman. "But developers and their users can rest easyâthat functionality isnât going anywhere, and the Mac App Store wonât reject apps that implement it properly."
Hotkey functionality, including in-program assets like those found in "Due,"
are said to go unaffected by App Store sandboxing. | Source: Mac App Store
Apple is set to enable its Gatekeeper security system in the next-gen OS X Mountain Lion. The system features three user-assignable levels of security that restrict the download and installation of possibly malicious third-party software.
At its most secure setting, Gatekeeper filters out all programs not downloaded through the Mac App Store, while the "medium" default setting allows for the installation of App Store downloads as well as programs made by "identified developers," or those that carry a digital signature registered through the Apple Developer ID program. Gatekeeper's lowest security setting let's any app in, regardless of origin.
4 Comments
Hmm, this makes me wonder how apps like Moom (a window and desktop management app) will be able to continue working after sandboxing occurs, cos clearly they specifically allow a user to create global hotkeys themselves... and I think that won't be possible with apple's API's...
Intuit's Quicken uses ?A to open its accounts window. Over the years I used the program, I expect I pressed ?A, failed to get "Select All," and hated them with a hot, hurty hate at least 10,000 times.
It's the sort of thing that makes me want to pee on an engineer's desk. That being (alas) not possible, I poured myself a glass of champagne at 11:00 am the day I dumped Quicken forever.
The point is to funnel developers to use the APIs instead of their own implementations.
I personally think anything system-wide, logically should be part of the OS, because that is the OS's job, to have that overview.
There was a kernel of truth in the TUAW story. Because even if they continue to allow apps to set global hotkeys, sandboxing will break some of these system wide utils. For example no app will be able to select text from the window of another. Why not? Because what if the first app is malware and the second is your address book?
Sandboxing keeps apps separate from each other, not so much from the OS, so setting global hotkeys can stay but other more "inter-app" things will go.