TOKYO (MacHouse) – There won’t be any more new software titles to be submitted to Mac Police Store run by Apple, Inc. for sure. But we are still months away from releasing a Windows application. Till then, enjoy another freeware title developed for the Mac platform. This new release is called TextPlay.

TextPlay lets you manipulate a text string quickly and easily like putting the entire phrase into reverse or displaying it vertically. Simply, set an original string at the top text field and then choose a command from the drop-down menu to the right. TextPlay is a simple app, and we’ve only spent some 10 hours. Hopefully, it won’t crash. It’s designed to run under Snow Leopard and Lion. Though it’s a beta version, it’s fully functional and will expire in December 31st.






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TextPlay is a product of MacHouse.

TOKYO (MacHouse) – If you use software applications from Mac App Store, you should know that Apple, Inc. is about to require all software submissions to be sandboxed. The sandboxing technology has been adopted from iPhone. It will simply prevent member applications from accessing prohibited locations. You can easily tell which application is sandboxed by opening Users > User > Library > Containers. If you are using Mac OS X Lion, you should find at least two folders there: com.apple.Preview and com.apple.TextEdit. So Preview and TextEdit must be sandboxed.

Screenshot 1

Who should be worried? If you aren’t using sandboxed applications, you have nothing to worry about. If you aren’t using Mac App Store applications, you probably have nothing to worry about, either. But if you use Mac App Store applications, you do have a lot of things to worry about. First, a sandboxed application can misbehave when you try to move its saved file from one location to another. You may have seen that with TextEdit under Lion. Some sandboxed applications will be forced to have some features reduced. For example, DeskPics would no longer allow the user to change the default desktop screenshot export path and file format. (See Screenshot 1.) Why? That’s because DeskPics would have to Shell-edit a file that doesn’t belong to itself, which is not allowed for a sandboxed application. You will probably see some sandboxed application to crash when you try to save a file.

Remember, Mac App Store will require that all software submissions be sandboxed effective in November 1st. Your Mac life will never be the same. Software development will forever be boring. For now, we have no plans of joining Apple’s Over-Police Act of 2011. So most of our existing software titles that are available at Mac App Store will never be updated again.

TOKYO (MacHouse) – More than 24 hours ago, Apple‘s Mac App Store rejected our software update for OrganizeX, an application for organizing and maintaining different kinds of accounts, by saying the following.


The app includes an Apple trademarked image. This does not comply with the Guidelines for Using Apple’s Trademarks and Copyrights.


I immediately installed the software package (v. 2.3.4) myself that I uploaded to iTunes Connect (software submission web site) earlier and confirmed that their claim was wrong. Then I subsequently gave Screenshot 1 to them. What’s wrong with the Home icon in the screenshot? We have no wild clue. They’ve made a similar accusation before with v. 2.2.1. In order to facilitate the review process for the sake of existing application users, we were forced to change the toolbar icon in question. And in fact they already approved OrganizeX 2.2.1 with the icon shown in Screenshot 1.

Screenshot 1

After I gave them Screenshot 1, things are actually worse. They now threaten to take down our iTunes account by saying the following.



You may want to take a look at your screenshots for the use of the Home icon.


We would be happy to remove your applications and account, and remove your apps from sale on the App Store if that is your desire. Please let us know.

Screenshot 2

If we don’t like Mac App Store, that’s because most of their rejection claims are baseless. And they keep going and going like Energizer Bunny. In this case, if you compare the toolbar icon in question with one from the System (See Screenshot 2.), it’s quite obvious that this reviewer has misunderstood the whole thing by listening to his or her imaginary friend. Hopefully, they’ll compare these two pictures and make a wise decision before taking down our iTunes account.

Nope. We have no intension of changing the toolbar icon in question. This case is a lot simpler than that. Some of Mac App Store are silly and often jump up to a conclusion. We are done with Mac App Store and the Mac platform any way.

TOKYO (MacHouse) – It’s not really a tradition yet since Mac App Store has been around for 9 months. But Apple, Inc. puts a hold on third-party software products and allocates a great deal of their resources to reviewing their own product if it’s a big one. That’s what happened last spring before they introduced

Mac OS X Lion. Indeed, they put a hold on some 20 software submissions from us. And they are doing it again. That’s certainly a sign that they are currently working on a big project. What is it? Our wild guess is iLife ’12. The last version of iLife was introduced on October 20, 2010. Other candidates are Logic Studio (None of its components except Compressor is yet available at Mac App Store.) and Final Cut Studio.

TOKYO (MacHouse) – We thought Img4Web was the last release of the month. Hell, we were wrong. The last software release of September (2011) is DeskControl.

DeskControl is similar to Ready2Work. to some extent. It allows the user to change basic system settings quickly. As a software developer, I’m forced to test applications under the Guest account. If you switch to the Guest account, you know that you have to set up your system from a scratch. Opening Finder‘s Preferences to display main volume, external drives, CDs/DVDs, add this folder and that folder to the sidebar, dah, dah, dah… And DeskControl makes switching accounts less stressful.

The beauty of this software title is that you can save your system settings in an application file (.dcl). If you just double-clicking on a saved file, you can load your system settings. Then just click on Run. If you switch accounts, you can still use the same saved file to load system settings.

Just as before, DeskControl is distributed as a freeware title. Why!? I’m too tired to submit it to Mac App Store. Besides, we don’t quite get along with them well, anyway. Though it’s a beta version, it’s fully functional and will expire in December 31st. It hasn’t even a day since I started developing DeskControl. So who knows whether or not it has some software bugs?






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DeskControl is a product of MacHouse.