Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion and Gatekeeper

[george]

For unsigned PKG installers follow this small tutorial.
Plug-Ins do not need to be signed in order to work.
I do not like Apple's decision to disallow 3rd party plug-ins on their App Store but that's the way it is.


Once the file has been downloaded.
Click Dock Downloads folder.
Click Open in Finder.





Select the PKG installer by clicking it once.
Click the tasks button.
Click Open.





Once the dialog box appear, click Open.
The installed needs to copy files to your System folders like
/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/ and will ask for admin password for that.
Follow installer steps.

[Richard_Synapse]

So nothing needs to be signed? What's the purpose of all this then?

If Apple really stopped the old stuff from working we could at least hope to have less warez in the future, but if it's possible to run installers anyway it seems completely pointless to me.

Richard

[george]

So nothing needs to be signed? What's the purpose of all this then?

Pay Apple $99/year to avoid the hassle described above

[Richard_Synapse]

Ok. So just clicking on the package no longer works? I'd prefer it if Apple at least implemented this consistently and not half-baked. As it is I don't see benefits for anyone (except of course Apple).

Richard

[george]

No, it doesn't. This is what happens after opening a PKG downloaded from Internet:



And it just closes after clicking OK.

By the way I have double checked and this won't happen with downloaded DMG files.

[mahaya]

Gatekeeper isn't meant to protect developers against piracy but to protect users against malware. Instead of today's "Downloaded from the inet, do you really want to open this" the user can also choose to only allow Mac Store Apps or Apps from known devs (paying 99$ to Apple every year).

As the default setting is Mac Store & known developers it means extra customer support effort for "normal" developers, at least until most users know how to open other apps (and stop complaining why the dev won't implement this great apple feature )

[Edit]

By the way I have double checked and this won't happen with downloaded DMG files.

From what I tested, the message pops up as soon as you start an installer/application from within the dmg. Probably no problem with plugins, though.
[/Edit]


Chris

[george]

Yes, I remember a DMG didn't open unless they were signed with Mountain Lion Developer Previews.

So now a plugin developer with just a .component or .vst can distribute a DMG with those and aliases to Audio/Components and VST locations inside to not run into the GateKeeper blocking.

[safiire]

I assume that this $100 to sign OSX applications is in addition to the $100 I already pay them for my iOS developer account?

Are they separate dev fees for each OS or the same? I just assume it is in addition to, since assuming they want to charge me as much as possible hasn't failed me before.

Apple is driving me nuts lately, firstly I stupidly agreed to update my dev iPod to iOS5 (I make iPhone apps), only to learn that the iOS5 dev framework requires (for no good reason) me to have Xcode 4.3.

I say Ok I'll get 4.3 then, which refused to install on Snow Leopard. Then, I consider upgrading to Lion so that I can continue making a living. Every review of Lion on the App Store is how terrible it is and how it breaks everything. I can't afford to have my one remaining working mac out of commission. (A Black Macbook, my MBP died of that NVIDIA issue and they won't replace it).

Also, Mountain Lion was coming out literally days later at that point, so I was going to be stuck waiting for that so as not to need to upgrade twice in a week.

Now Mountain Lion comes out and will not run on a Black Macbook, so it's forced into obsolescence even thought it is still working fine.

Just copying the iOS5 Framework files I got from my brother's Lion install into my /Developer/Frameworks and everything works completely fine on Snow Leopard, and I can continue working.

It drives me nuts that even though there is no technical reason whatsoever for this forced upgrade, I'm not just forced to consider giving them 20 or 40 dollars for an OSX upgrade, but now I'll soon be forced to purchase a new Mac for thousands of dollars the next time they plug the hole in my my little workaround.

I am literally going to have to Hackintosh my actual Mac in the future to keep up with them, which is ridiculous.

[george]

I assume that this $100 to sign OSX applications is in addition to the $100 I already pay them for my iOS developer account?

Yes, they should offer a better solution for that.

I don't even get why developers have to pay $99/year just to make plug-in installers work.

[Richard_Synapse]

Gatekeeper isn't meant to protect developers against piracy but to protect users against malware.

This is largely the same, we all know warez are infested with such stuff. Besides, the current solution does not fully protect users, it's merely an inconvenience just as annoying as the Windows popups. To protect against malware, trojans etc, a virus scanner is still mandatory under Windows. I don't see how this would be different on the Mac, unless they really implement this app signing concept consistently. Well, perhaps they will in the future.

...

On a related topic, has anyone got XCode 4 to work with the Intel Compiler?

While the current version of IC works with XCode 4, it seems to generate much slower code than previously (underperforming gcc, and thus making it useless). The former version of IC however does not work with XCode 4.

Richard

[george]

Well, all our Mac installers are Developer ID signed now so Gatekeeper won't be an annoyance for 10.7.5+ or 10.8 Mac users anymore

http://www.discodsp.com/news/archive/?id=148

[hibrasil]

does anyone know if sandboxed plug-in hosts (garageband?) play nice with plug-ins?

[george]

Check http://www.analogindustries.com/blog/en ... 3435479237

Sandboxed audio apps in OS X can still see AudioUnits plug-ins, unlike in iOS; however, those plug-ins can only use specific forms of copy protection that take in to account the sandboxing. Ours do not, as it happens. I would say, out of all commercial AudioUnits (the vast majority of which are, as has been discussed, wrapped VSTs, or wrapped versions of a company's internal format, like iZotope's iZoplug format or NI's Reaktor engine), very few can be sandboxed as-is. If you're curious, you can go grab one of the sandboxed AU hosts currently available in the App Store (such as Audulus) and see which of your commercial AUs work with it unchanged. My guess is very few. This will be identical to what a hypothetical sandboxed version of Logic will experience.

[george]

does anyone know if sandboxed plug-in hosts (garageband?) play nice with plug-ins?

There are currently no sandboxed versions of Logic or Garageband.

The only sandboxed host I know is Audulus and at least Discovery Pro is not giving issues under 10.7.

I also contacted an Apple rep and these are his words:

If you test that your plugins do not generate a "unknown developer" warning after being downloaded and then installed, then Gatekeeper compatibility should be all set.

[umd]

I think that Apple is shooting itself in the foot.