X2Pro pulled from the Mac App Store

[James Mortner]

Did anyone else repor tthis issue? i.e. How many people do you think were affected by this.

[Craig Seeman]

Jobs’ approach to Apple was almost more a personal philosophy than a business model. That’s one reason why he confounded people as well as showed “genius.” In many respects he veered from or at least amalgamated things in ways others hadn’t.

One thing we hope Jobs and Cook have in common is high standards in customer satisfaction, experience, service. This impacts product design as well as service points such as the retail and Mac App Store. It does seem they are very different in how they approach this though. I think this is impacting our experience of MAS.

Given MAS is a “customer” interface and tool, having a good customer experience has to be primary over Apple/Developer relations and that’s what didn’t happen in this case.

A key problem is that Apple doesn’t differentiate between recreational and productivity tools. I’ve heard concerns before about the FCPX relationship to the MAS ecosystem. Developers are concerned about the long approval process for bug fix updates for example. They’re also concerned that high priced items present problems because there’s no upgrade vehicle. This fractures the FCPX ecosystem.

[Patrice Freymond]

I was wondering why I could not upgrade my copy of X2Pro yesterday. App Store was saying that this software was not available. Wrote to Marquis about it but am still waiting for an answer…

Luckily I did not need it yesterday, but it has made me less confident of the whole App Store idea..

Patrice

[John Davidson]

Interesting thread. I think the MAS is potentially the best option for all things mac, plugins, etc. There’s nothing worse for me than having to hunt down plugin serials from 100 different sources after I wipe a system or install a new HD, etc. Finding updates is a full-on nightmare, IMHO. Having an option built in where all your stuff comes right along with your MAS account is such a relief.

If only it worked perfectly. Right now it doesn’t. X2Pro told me that it takes 3 weeks for updates to get processed. This needs to speed up, especially for Pro App third parties. Hopefully this will improve. I think that the world of ‘buy this and you can use it on 2 seats’ is out dated in the world of screen sharing, back to my mac, etc., and a big selling point for the MAS.

Let’s hope Apple starts fast laning pro app developers for the MAS.

John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.

[Craig Seeman]

I think you highlighted the benefits and pit falls of the MAS very well.

I’m glad you raised the “2 seat” issue.
On the one hand developer might be concerned in the loss of multiple unit sales but, as your workflow exemplifies, there’s the loss of sales for plugin developers precisely because the 2 seat limit, discourages their use in distributive workflow.

[Darren Roark]

The way Apple could prevent this from ever happening again is by deducting the dev dues from the payouts. Or at least withhold payments until they pay them. Anything but having essential applications become completely unavailable.

As an aside, it occurred to me that oddly the short that will be on Funny or Die soon is a parody of Apple product launch events. I wonder if they knew or something.

(John, loved the workflow tutorials BTW! Saw them on fcp.co You debunked so many of the fears in a calm straightforward manner.)

[Chris Steele]

Hi Everyone,
I’ve only just come across this post, so apologies for not attending to it sooner. I am Product Manager with Marquis and handle our relationship with Apple.
This episode where we disappeared from the app store was very unfortunate and I am truly sorry that any of you should have been affected by it.
Yes, you are right in that it was due to when we paid our subscription, but I still paid that 10 days before it was due to expire. This unfortunately combined with some app store downtime over the holidays and a bug in the store in recognising my payment.
The Apple team that handle 3rd party relationships were very responsive in getting on top of the issue and we had it sorted within 24 hours.
I am truly sorry if anyone contacted us and did not get a reply, we carefully monitor all our support emails and everyone that reaches us gets a reply that working day (UK time).

We continue to work on X2Pro and plan to include RED R3D media support in the next version.

Many thanks for your understanding,

Chris Steele
Product Marketing
Marquis Broadcast