HackStore - Alternative application store for Mac OS
Hello! Today I would like to tell you about your project HackStore - an alternative application store for Mac OSX.
')
In January 2011, Apple launched the Mac App Store, similar to the similar iOS app store.
Staying true to its traditions, Apple has established tough proprietary conditions for developers. And if iOS was a closed system since its birth, then Mac OS, on the contrary, has always been an open platform for third-party developers. Since the advent of the first OS X, developers have managed to create a huge number of both paid and free utilities, games and applications.
At the time of the opening of the Mac App Store, many developers were faced with a difficult choice. To get to the App Store, they needed to change the application, cut down some of the functionality, change the license, buy the Mac Developer Program. Otherwise, they had to continue to distribute their application as before, while risking losing users.
At the same time, due to the stringent requirements of the AppStore, many popular and well-known applications do not even have a chance to get there. So, for example, the App Store is closed for applications that are distributed with Open Source, MIT or CCL licenses, as well as those that even slightly change the system functions or design. Access to the application store is also closed for many popular utilities and tweaks, such as CleanMyMac, MacHider, Magician, Adium, Skype, and for many other equally convenient and useful applications.
After studying this issue more deeply, I came to the conclusion that it would be nice to provide users and developers with a centralized solution that will be as convenient as the solution from Apple, but will not have such restrictions.
After thinking and making a plan on March 15, 2012, I contacted my friend Ilya Shkolnik and suggested that he try to implement my idea together. Ilya liked this and we started our project HackStore.
HackStore is a client-server application written entirely in Objective-C using the Mac OS X SDK. Here is implemented both interaction with servers in which the database of applications is stored, and means for downloading and installing them. There is also a check for updates of already installed applications. HackStore scans the user's local applications and checks if there are newer versions on the server. The list of updates is cached and stored as long as the application is running. The application automatically detects the system language and sends this information to the server so that the store is displayed in the desired language for the user.
But back to our start.
For a month, a lot of work has been done on the application and the server. Together with Ilya, we gave it whole days and just enjoyed it a lot from what we were working on. After a month of work, we had a ready-made application, and I started looking for editors who will fill our store with applications. During the search, I found the person who imbued with this idea, his name was Timur. Every day he downloaded 5-10 applications to our server. By early April, we were almost ready to present our project to the public. I will not conceal that at that time I could not find a suitable designer for our project, and the interface looked rather untidy, but I had to move on. On April 6, I contacted the largest portal in America, Cult Of Mac. They liked our application, and they wrote a short story about us. This story brought us to a new level, on the day we received more than 20 letters with offers of cooperation and just warm words to our project. After a week of final work, we released HackStore, and it was great. Together with Ilya, we saw our success: thousands of users downloaded our application, commented and enjoyed our work.
Then we systematically developed, releasing updates, closed vulnerabilities. Unfortunately, by July, the time of monetization and an acute shortage of resources was getting sharper and sharper, both in terms of development and in terms of costs. Ilya and I spent whole days talking to many people in order to somehow improve our situation, and finally we found a way out. We met a wonderful person, the owner of the Inloc data center. He liked our project and he entered our position and not only provided a powerful server, but also since then has been helping us with setting it up and advising us on all issues regarding servers. So, by the end of July, we almost solved all our problems, except one - we still didn’t have a good web developer and designer. It was a big problem that did not allow us to develop further. Once we received a message about our mistakes and design inaccuracies. The letter was compiled in great detail and, on the whole, was true. We are very interested in this man, and it was he who was perhaps the best pre-purchase for our team. Somewhere in early August, we were joined by Daniel Pronin, a web developer and designer who led our team to a new level. In late August, an important update was made - we completely changed the architecture of the application and the server part, and we managed to make a functional, convenient and simply beautiful application as well as the official website of the project hack-store.com .
Currently, our application is fully localized in 6 languages, it has a system for automatically installing applications in Launchpad and deleting them, the Update function for installed applications, sharing in social networks, and also provides an extensive selection of unique and open software. Every day, we get many unique applications from developers from around the world, which makes HackStore a source of exclusive content. Every day we are visited by almost 60 thousand unique users from around the world, and the monthly traffic from our servers is about 6 terabytes.
A distinctive feature of HackStore is that any developer can send us their applications for free, besides we do not have strict rules and restrictions. And also, we are happy to work with developers of paid applications. We have tried to simplify the process of sending your application to our editors as much as possible. You can send your application at any time right from the top menu:
Each application is thoroughly tested by our editors and after a full check in 1-2 days appears in the HackStore.
Also, we are always open to new offers, help, questions and collaboration. Almost any questions or suggestions that come to us are solved as soon as possible, we really love our work and try to do it 100% :)
We will welcome your comments, suggestions and advice, write - we always answer!
Website: Hack-store.com
We are in social networks:
Our Twitter
Our FaceBook
Our VK
Prehistory
')
In January 2011, Apple launched the Mac App Store, similar to the similar iOS app store.
Staying true to its traditions, Apple has established tough proprietary conditions for developers. And if iOS was a closed system since its birth, then Mac OS, on the contrary, has always been an open platform for third-party developers. Since the advent of the first OS X, developers have managed to create a huge number of both paid and free utilities, games and applications.
At the time of the opening of the Mac App Store, many developers were faced with a difficult choice. To get to the App Store, they needed to change the application, cut down some of the functionality, change the license, buy the Mac Developer Program. Otherwise, they had to continue to distribute their application as before, while risking losing users.
At the same time, due to the stringent requirements of the AppStore, many popular and well-known applications do not even have a chance to get there. So, for example, the App Store is closed for applications that are distributed with Open Source, MIT or CCL licenses, as well as those that even slightly change the system functions or design. Access to the application store is also closed for many popular utilities and tweaks, such as CleanMyMac, MacHider, Magician, Adium, Skype, and for many other equally convenient and useful applications.
Start
After studying this issue more deeply, I came to the conclusion that it would be nice to provide users and developers with a centralized solution that will be as convenient as the solution from Apple, but will not have such restrictions.
After thinking and making a plan on March 15, 2012, I contacted my friend Ilya Shkolnik and suggested that he try to implement my idea together. Ilya liked this and we started our project HackStore.
HackStore is a client-server application written entirely in Objective-C using the Mac OS X SDK. Here is implemented both interaction with servers in which the database of applications is stored, and means for downloading and installing them. There is also a check for updates of already installed applications. HackStore scans the user's local applications and checks if there are newer versions on the server. The list of updates is cached and stored as long as the application is running. The application automatically detects the system language and sends this information to the server so that the store is displayed in the desired language for the user.
But back to our start.
For a month, a lot of work has been done on the application and the server. Together with Ilya, we gave it whole days and just enjoyed it a lot from what we were working on. After a month of work, we had a ready-made application, and I started looking for editors who will fill our store with applications. During the search, I found the person who imbued with this idea, his name was Timur. Every day he downloaded 5-10 applications to our server. By early April, we were almost ready to present our project to the public. I will not conceal that at that time I could not find a suitable designer for our project, and the interface looked rather untidy, but I had to move on. On April 6, I contacted the largest portal in America, Cult Of Mac. They liked our application, and they wrote a short story about us. This story brought us to a new level, on the day we received more than 20 letters with offers of cooperation and just warm words to our project. After a week of final work, we released HackStore, and it was great. Together with Ilya, we saw our success: thousands of users downloaded our application, commented and enjoyed our work.
Present tense
Then we systematically developed, releasing updates, closed vulnerabilities. Unfortunately, by July, the time of monetization and an acute shortage of resources was getting sharper and sharper, both in terms of development and in terms of costs. Ilya and I spent whole days talking to many people in order to somehow improve our situation, and finally we found a way out. We met a wonderful person, the owner of the Inloc data center. He liked our project and he entered our position and not only provided a powerful server, but also since then has been helping us with setting it up and advising us on all issues regarding servers. So, by the end of July, we almost solved all our problems, except one - we still didn’t have a good web developer and designer. It was a big problem that did not allow us to develop further. Once we received a message about our mistakes and design inaccuracies. The letter was compiled in great detail and, on the whole, was true. We are very interested in this man, and it was he who was perhaps the best pre-purchase for our team. Somewhere in early August, we were joined by Daniel Pronin, a web developer and designer who led our team to a new level. In late August, an important update was made - we completely changed the architecture of the application and the server part, and we managed to make a functional, convenient and simply beautiful application as well as the official website of the project hack-store.com .
Currently, our application is fully localized in 6 languages, it has a system for automatically installing applications in Launchpad and deleting them, the Update function for installed applications, sharing in social networks, and also provides an extensive selection of unique and open software. Every day, we get many unique applications from developers from around the world, which makes HackStore a source of exclusive content. Every day we are visited by almost 60 thousand unique users from around the world, and the monthly traffic from our servers is about 6 terabytes.
A distinctive feature of HackStore is that any developer can send us their applications for free, besides we do not have strict rules and restrictions. And also, we are happy to work with developers of paid applications. We have tried to simplify the process of sending your application to our editors as much as possible. You can send your application at any time right from the top menu:
Each application is thoroughly tested by our editors and after a full check in 1-2 days appears in the HackStore.
Also, we are always open to new offers, help, questions and collaboration. Almost any questions or suggestions that come to us are solved as soon as possible, we really love our work and try to do it 100% :)
Links
We will welcome your comments, suggestions and advice, write - we always answer!
Website: Hack-store.com
We are in social networks:
Our Twitter
Our FaceBook
Our VK
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/180457/
All Articles