Comments on: Hey, Developers! How Can We Improve the Installation of Mac Apps?

By: storiesofmac

storiesofmac — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 21:44:54 +0000

@Chris Surname, That's another topic Chris, which I'll cover very soon.

By: Chris Surname

Chris Surname — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 17:52:02 +0000

Wait… you want to improve installation? I'm puzzled because the problem that overshadows installation on Mac OS is uninstallation. There is no standard way to uninstall applications on the Mac. It's fine to drag an app to the Trash if it's a standalone package, but not so fine if the installer added startup items, preference panes, login hooks, kernel extensions, system-wide plists, large cache files, etc. Installing shareware on a Mac can leave an awful lot of cruft behind.

By: M. Elwan

M. Elwan — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 16:07:42 +0000

well, coming from PC and been using Mac for little over a year now, I think Apps installations on Mac are easy as pie.

Going through 6 or 7 "Next" buttons w/ complicated customization options, PC installations are a lot more "unfriendly".

My $0.02

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By: Piotr

Piotr — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 13:06:26 +0000

Hey, great article.
It would be grat if every app would be installed that simple.
For me installing form dmg, zip, rar, sitx, is not a problem, but not every mac user is a computer tech master. Thats why it should be much easier.

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By: Pticed

Pticed — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 10:51:41 +0000

@storiesofmac, Why not using a custom url like installmanager://server/file.zip . The installmanager will handle the download and installation. The drawback is that the website will have to provide a standard download link if the user does not have installmanager on his system and the installmanager link.

By: storiesofmac

storiesofmac — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:37:59 +0000

@Mike Manzano, Oh well, that would be awesome.But it's up to you guys.

By: storiesofmac

storiesofmac — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:35:50 +0000

@sebax, Indeed, that's my same situation.

By: Mike Manzano

Mike Manzano — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 19:31:57 +0000

Why can't app installation be like the iPhone? You click on a link on a webpage (something like app://myapp.com). The "App Manager" UI pops up and shows download & install progress. The App Manager is also an app launcher and replaces the Applications folder as the default place where users go to launch apps that aren't on the Dock. It is also allows apps to badge their icons, like the dock. FInally, the App Manager lets users manage and delete their apps.

It would be great if the App Manager was just built into OS X, but barring that, couldn't us devs get together and figure something out? We did it for system notifications in the form of Growl, why couldn't we do it for app management? At the very least it might show Apple there's a big hole that they need to fill.

By: sebax

sebax — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 19:04:58 +0000

i'm not a developer and i'm not confused either, i recognize that when i first came to macs, i didn't get that, i launched msn messenger from the dmg, mounted every time ^^… this is a good article and a good idea, there's times when you're just looking for new apps and stuff and then your d/l folder gets filled with tons of files, there's even times when you d/l a .zip that has a .dmg and so on…..

By: storiesofmac

storiesofmac — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:39:27 +0000

@eric, I'm not understimating Mac users, just tryin' to make things simpler and more user-friendly. There's always room for improvement.

For the trash, you can restore files before emptying the trash

By: eric

eric — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:33:33 +0000

I read two articles on this and I think you're underestimating the common mac user. They're not that oblivious to what's happening to do the stuff you're claiming.

Also, trashing the .dmg file does nothing for me when I want to install it on another mac or something. I run on a 70kb/s download speed so it's crucial that I save those .dmg/.zip files and back them up.