KVR Audio

george · Post by **george** » Thu Oct 31, 2013 8:21 am

Sandbox is not not a big deal right now because it can be easily disabled (and enabled). I hope it stays like that for a long, long time.

JonHodgson · Post by **JonHodgson** » Thu Oct 31, 2013 10:43 am

George wrote:Sandbox is not not a big deal right now because it can be easily disabled (and enabled). I hope it stays like that for a long, long time.

More likely they'll keep it that way just long enough so they can say "but developers have had plenty of time to update their code" when they make it compulsory, and anyone who hasn't will have a full inbox and see forum threads of righteous indignation about how they're letting down users.

Apple have a knack for making the lives of developers difficult whilst simultaneously fooling the faithful into thinking they make developer's lives super-easy... so any developer who doesn't keep up is obviously lazy, or incompetent, or just doesn't care.

Urs · Post by **Urs** » Thu Oct 31, 2013 11:11 am

We have decided that, whenever the user performs an action that isn't possible, to display an alert. Such as

- user clicks "check website for updates"
- plug-in says "Sorry, this function is disabled due to sandboxing. more info on page 3 of the user guide"
- user clicks "open user guide"
- plug-in says "Sorry, due to sandboxing you have to find and open the user guide manually. If you can not find it on your computer, it's also available online at www... (which unfortunately you can't click either)"

DaveHoskins · Post by **DaveHoskins** » Thu Oct 31, 2013 11:16 am

IncarnateX wrote:Oh you devs are so sweet. You worry so much. But we all know that in the end you will submit like a dog to his master, a slave to the whip, a junkie to his dope. Everybody of you want a piece of the Apple, just admit it

Apple are just securing their excellent software and at the same time playing the game of capitalism brilliantly. Monopoly and survival of the fittest are the rules of the games and Apple are just ahead of everybody as usual, which naturally will cause a lot of angest, envy, despair, paranoia and mass hysteria.

You will adopt and if you don't, you will perish, just like it should be according to the wonderful Darwinistic laws of capitalism as well as evolution in general

I wish you all good luck. May the best of you survive and the rest turn to dust.

You wouldn't laugh at someone who uses an old guitar amp, or a chunky old analogue synth would you? You wouldn't say, grow up or die to those people. Driving an old car are you? If it's over 3 years old then I'm sorry, but the road building company now needs to destroy it as you've pressed the shiny free update button. If Apple made roads, they would have a lot less traffic on them, I'll give them that.

Angus_FX · Post by **Angus_FX** » Thu Oct 31, 2013 11:29 am

More likely they'll keep it that way just long enough so they can say "but developers have had plenty of time to update their code" when they make it compulsory, and anyone who hasn't will have a full inbox and see forum threads of righteous indignation about how they're letting down users.

Apple have a knack for making the lives of developers difficult whilst simultaneously fooling the faithful into thinking they make developer's lives super-easy... so any developer who doesn't keep up is obviously lazy, or incompetent, or just doesn't care.

If that were the limit to its scope, we'd deal with it as always. Move another stack of customers' money from the tray marked "Research and develop innovative new products" to the one marked "Deal with pointless Apple-imposed bullshit". (To be fair, they're not the only one with such a tray, but it's certainly larger than others).

The problem with sandboxing is that it actively removes and disables features, with potentially no way of putting them back. If you're an App or Host, you can ask the system to ask the user ("Pretty please kind sir, may I open a network socket?"). In a sandboxed host, there is no mechanism for a plug-in to do this.

@xh3rv Inter-app audio can be done, but there's always some latency penalty & a limit to scalability. For 5 AudioBus apps on an iPad, fine; for 90 on a Mac Pro?

Additionally, most existing inter-app systems don't currently offer a decent session-restore mechanism. In iOS, apps typically automatically restore their last state so it's not such an issue, but switching between 5 different projects, each using 5 different devices, doesn't exactly have a good user experience right now.

(It may additionally be that Apple will see inter-app audio as a security hole - it could be exploited as communication channel between a sandboxed app & an unsandboxed one, which they seem to be trying pretty hard to prevent).

george · Post by **george** » Thu Oct 31, 2013 11:32 am

No network sockets on sandboxed apps fails big time.

george · Post by **george** » Thu Oct 31, 2013 11:43 am

Urs wrote:We have decided that, whenever the user performs an action that isn't possible, to display an alert. Such as

- user clicks "check website for updates"
- plug-in says "Sorry, this function is disabled due to sandboxing. more info on page 3 of the user guide"
- user clicks "open user guide"
- plug-in says "Sorry, due to sandboxing you have to find and open the user guide manually. If you can not find it on your computer, it's also available online at www... (which unfortunately you can't click either)"

And get a insta-pissed customer

My idea is displaying a window first time GUI is opened stating what you said above: The plug-in is working on a sanboxed environment and has (features list) disabled. Then explain the options and add [OK] and [Disable Warning] buttons. Seems more direct and avoid surprises.

Angus_FX · Post by **Angus_FX** » Thu Oct 31, 2013 12:00 pm

No network sockets on sandboxed apps fails big time.

Sandboxed apps can ask for a socket. Sandboxed plug-ins cannot, they rely on the Entitlements the host requests in its info.plist.

And because the Entitlements list is part of the digitally signed, tamper-proof app bundle, a technically savvy user can't even edit it to add stuff they might want to switch on for a plug-in.

If entitlements were available programatically, instead of at startup, it'd be different (file system entitlements in fact are done like this, thankfully) - a plug-in could ask for the resources it needs, and the system would remember it for the host. But for some reason they chose not to do it like that, so you're stuck with whatever the host asks for - which may be everything, or nothing.

IncarnateX · Post by **IncarnateX** » Thu Oct 31, 2013 1:38 pm

DaveHoskins wrote: You wouldn't laugh at someone who uses an old guitar amp, or a chunky old analogue synth would you.

I would laugh at anyone for any reason to initiate some action and entertainment, but I get your point. Too bad about your car, now buy a helicopter or use your feet.

DaveHoskins · Post by **DaveHoskins** » Thu Oct 31, 2013 1:47 pm

IncarnateX wrote:
DaveHoskins wrote: You wouldn't laugh at someone who uses an old guitar amp, or a chunky old analogue synth would you.
I would laugh at anyone for any reason to initiate some action and entertainment, but I get your point. Too bad about your car, now buy a helicopter or use your feet.

Yeah, it's an over the top way of looking at it. But hey.
It think that ultimately devs are just a bit pissed. And we can see the Apple 30% enabling 'tax' to Apple (the Market stall keepers and guards) looming in the close distance.
This 30% price increase will have to be swallowed by the devs or passed on to customers. Possibly the latter if we are to survive their newly forced upon development time and budget increases.

Urs · Post by **Urs** » Thu Oct 31, 2013 1:54 pm

George wrote:
Urs wrote:We have decided that, whenever the user performs an action that isn't possible, to display an alert. Such as

- user clicks "check website for updates"
- plug-in says "Sorry, this function is disabled due to sandboxing. more info on page 3 of the user guide"
- user clicks "open user guide"
- plug-in says "Sorry, due to sandboxing you have to find and open the user guide manually. If you can not find it on your computer, it's also available online at www... (which unfortunately you can't click either)"
And get a insta-pissed customer My idea is displaying a window first time GUI is opened stating what you said above: The plug-in is working on a sanboxed environment and has (features list) disabled. Then explain the options and add [OK] and [Disable Warning] buttons. Seems more direct and avoid surprises.

Good idea!

#---

On a related note, I think Google is pissed off with the NSA now not so much on behalf of their customers' privacy but because they're afraid that the cloud is dead right before it took off.

If Apple, google and co were clever, they'd put their hope into desktop computing, not online storage. I think that NSA and co have rendered the cloud void. Many people start to realise that smartphones and tablets don't need a trojan to be malware motherships - they come with a built-in espionage warranty.

Urs · Post by **Urs** » Thu Oct 31, 2013 2:03 pm

DaveHoskins wrote:This 30% price increase will have to be swallowed by the devs or passed on to customers. Possibly the latter if we are to survive their newly forced upon development time and budget increases.

It's not just that. If we sell AUs in the App Store, we don't get any info about our customers. No name, no email address, nada. Thus, if anyone wants to have a VST version as well, he has to buy twice. No crossgrades possible.

DaveHoskins · Post by **DaveHoskins** » Thu Oct 31, 2013 2:04 pm

Google? The people that drove around the entire planet slurping WiFi from nearby buildings? Yeah, they really care.

DaveHoskins · Post by **DaveHoskins** » Thu Oct 31, 2013 2:08 pm

Urs wrote:
DaveHoskins wrote:This 30% price increase will have to be swallowed by the devs or passed on to customers. Possibly the latter if we are to survive their newly forced upon development time and budget increases.
It's not just that. If we sell AUs in the App Store, we don't get any info about our customers. No name, no email address, nada. Thus, if anyone wants to have a VST version as well, he has to buy twice. No crossgrades possible.

Damn, of course, we won't be able to include both in an install package.

Angus_FX · Post by **Angus_FX** » Thu Oct 31, 2013 2:08 pm

Urs, I hope you're right and that this marks the high watermark of the tide of tablet-dumb.

I hope that customers realise that the limitations of what you can get done in iOS right now are not those of an immature OS or device, but inherent limitations of the tablet & app-store model.

That they're great consumption devices, but even for the less technical 80% of people, they'll only ever cover 80% of use cases well - and that they'll still need something for the other 20%.

That mastering a rudimentary understanding of computers - this is a file, that is a server, you download this from that - is, in the digital era, an empowering life skill at least as important as being able to read a map or drive a car.

I live in hope

Anyone making "Sandbox-Safe" Audio Units?