The Mac App Store has been around for 6 years, but is still lacking some of the best software the Mac has to offer. You might be wondering why this is. Sandboxing certainly has a lot to answer for, but it's not the only reason. There's also paid upgrades, sustainability, quality of life, and the Mac App Store just generally being half-assed.
Oh, and then there's that minor certificate issue that happened last week and cost developers and users millions of dollars in lost time and productivity. Not surprisingly, Apple didn't even acknowledge the issue. Update 18th Nov: Apple have acknowledge the issue.
Don't let all that get you down though, there's plenty of benefits to selling software outside of the Mac App Store. I've compiled a list of over 70 apps that are all world-class and seem to be doing just fine without it.
- Adobe CreativeCloud (Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.)
- Airfoil
- Alfred
- Audio Hijack
- Autocad
- Avid Pro Tools
- Backblaze
- Battle.net
- Bartender 2
- Beamer 3
- Blender
- Box Sync
- BBEdit 11
- Carbon Copy Cloner
- Cinema 4D
- CleanMyMac
- Coda
- Codekit
- Cocktail
- Curio
- Daylite
- DeepDreamer
- DEVONthink Pro
- Dropbox
- ExpanDrive
- f.lux
- Git Tower
- Google Chrome
- Glyph Designer
- Hazel
- iExplorer
- iMazing
- iStat menus
- Interarchy 10
- Keyboard Maestro
- LaunchBar 6
- Little Snitch 3
- Firefox
- Framer
- Microsoft Office
- Path Finder 7
- Particle Designer
- Plex
- PlistEdit Pro
- Principle
- PowerPhotos
- QuickRes
- RapidWeaver 6
- Reason
- Reunion 11
- Reveal
- Scernery
- Screenflick
- Script Debugger 5
- Steam
- Simon
- Spotify
- SpamSieve
- Sublime Text
- SuperDuper
- Sketch
- Skala Color
- Skype
- Textexpander 5
- Tokens
- Typinator
- Unity
- Versions
- VLC
- VMware Fusion
- Waltr
Selling Outside the Mac App Store
If you're interested in selling your app outside the Mac App Store, then Christian Tietze's Make Money Outside the Mac App Store is essential reading.
"In a few hours, you’ll have in-app purchases, a trial mode, and piracy protection all set. The book includes fully functional sample projects and code to ready to be copied into your app."
Just to be clear, Christian was kind enough to give me a kickback on every copy of the book that sells via the link above. Even If he hadn't offered this I'd still be recommending his book.
Good luck and Viva-la-Mac!