Distributing Mac apps outside the App Store, a quick start guide
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2007–2026One slot for every year since HN launched. Height is that year's peak points; orange marks a 100+ point or 50+ comment breakout. Select a bar to open its strongest thread.
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HN comment orderI'm building my app for all platforms (Win, Lin, Mac) on a Linux machine, so I don't (can't) sign or notarize. It's been going OK so far, but it seems like screws are tightening and when this workflow doesn't work anymore, I will simply stop supporting Mac (this applies to M1 too).
For me, updates for apps distributed outside the store have been a surprising hurdle. On the surface, "just bundle an update framework and be done, right?" Sparkle is great, but very complex--xml AppCasts, delta updates, fancy mukti-party signing etc... Not a workflow you can quickly set up. Squirrel (which Electron uses) is dead simple, but is absolutely ancient and basically unusable outside of Electron at this point. I seem to remember that the Electron project had some custom patches to…
The first top-level comment from each of the four biggest threads, in HN’s own order. Excerpts are shortened; open a comment for full context.
- Breakout years
- 2
- Total points
- 461
- Total comments
- 315
100+ points or 50+ comments
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
Every submission
| Date | Title as submitted | By | Points | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021-01-08 | Distributing Mac apps outside the App Store, a quick start guide | tosh | 2 | 0 |
| 2021-01-13 | Distributing Mac apps outside the App Store, a quick start guideFirst breakout · Best thread | tosh | 308 | 158 |
| 2023-01-14 | Distributing Mac apps outside the App Store, a quick start guideLatest 20+ point return | jb1991 | 151 | 157 |