Apple Should Eat Some Sandbox Dog Food

Manton Reece:

Maybe Apple could make the same case for Mac OS X’s built-in apps: Address Book, iCal, and Mail don’t need to be sandboxed because they are part of the operating system. But that argument doesn’t work for Keynote or iMovie. Those apps should play by the same rules that all productivity and video software in the store does.

If Apple were to sandbox a few of these it would go a long way toward convincing developers to do the same. And it would also shake out bugs and missing APIs in the whole sandbox environment.

It’s not-eating-their-own-dogfood hypocrisy, pure and simple. Apple has a bunch of Mac apps in the App Store, and none of them, to my knowledge, are sandboxed. This includes new versions of Aperture and iPhoto that were released this month, after the June 1 sandboxing deadline.

As Manton points out in a separate piece, the new rules are forcing some apps out of the Mac App Store.

★ Tuesday, 26 June 2012