Many Tricks, makers of many great Mac utilities such as window manager Moom, are “sunsetting” the Mac App Store versions of all their apps due to the new sandboxing rules that are now in effect. They will (as allowed by Apple) continue to issue bug fixes to the App Store versions, but new features will be restricted to the direct sales versions. Fortunately, the transition for existing customers from the Mac App Store versions to the direct sales versions is pretty straightforward.
If developers abandoning the App Store turns into a trend, Apple may eventually have a problem. Users being inconvenienced and (rightly) irritated by an app they bought on the App Store eventually getting (from their point of view) abandoned, isn’t going to do anybody any good; not the developers and not Apple. In any case, I’m going to think twice from now on before I buy an app through the Mac App Store. If I can get it directly from the devs, I will. Convenience isn’t everything.
Update: Next: TextExpander
Update: Michael Schechter isn’t happy either.
