[mac4theblind] Mac World: Apps using global hotkeys will remain welcome in the Mac App Store

From: Scott Davert <scottslistmail@xxxxxxxxx>
To: mac4theblind <mac4theblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 17 May 2012 19:03:02 -0400
Taken from:
http://www.macworld.com/article/1166857/apps_using_global_hotkeys_will_remain_welcome_in_the_mac_app_store.html#lsrc.twt_macworld
Apps using global hotkeys will remain welcome in the Mac App Store
by Lex Friedman, Macworld.com   May 17, 2012 6:15 pm
Despite reports earlier Thursday suggesting that Apple would disallow
Mac App Store apps from employing systemwide keyboard “hotkey”
shortcuts, sources close to the matter confirm to Macworld that such
apps remain welcome in the cozy confines of Apple’s software store.

Come June 1, apps submitted to the Mac App Store will need to
implement Apple’s sandboxing requirements. Sandboxing refers to
limiting what data and functionality a given app can access for the
user’s security and protection. TUAW cited sources suggesting that, as
part of the Mac App Store’s June 1 sandboxing implementation deadline,
Apple would stop accepting new apps with global hotkeys, too.

Such hotkeys are common in OS X. Apple provides numerous such key
combinations of its own, like Command-Shift-3 for taking a screenshot.
And many apps in the Mac App Store (and elsewhere) implement global
hotkeys of their own: iTunes menubar controllers might let you pause
or rate music; Twitter apps can offer a command to bring your timeline
to the foreground or start composing a new tweet; and launching
applications let you bring up their interfaces with a global
keystroke, too.

TUAW’s post understandably kicked off a panic: If accurate, it meant
that numerous apps offering useful functionality via hotkeys—including
those apps whose core functionality stems from their use of
hotkeys—would no longer be allowed to introduce significant updates to
their apps in the Mac App Store.

But again, Macworld can confirm that no such hotkey ban is coming to
the Mac App Store. In fact, Apple offers developers several public
APIs that make simple work of creating global keyboard shortcuts, and
those APIs aren’t going away.

There are other API calls or backend technologies that developers
could use to power global hotkeys, and which developers could also
use, in theory, to capture and record a user’s every keystroke—whether
for nefarious reasons, or for perfectly valid ones (like typing
utilities that can expand shortcuts into longer text). But that sort
of systemwide keylogging would be explicitly prohibited for sandboxed
apps, since they aren’t generally permitted to access or record your
keystrokes in other apps.

Thus, so long as developers use Apple’s officially supported APIs to
register systemwide global hotkeys, their apps will remain eligible
for inclusion in the Mac App Store. But developers and their users can
rest easy—that functionality isn’t going anywhere, and the Mac App
Store won’t reject apps that implement it properly.
************


You are subscribed to the mac4theblind mailing list.


     The url for this list, where one can unsubscribe or make any changes to 
their list subscription is:

//www.freelists.org/list/mac4theblind

The list archive is located at

//www.freelists.org/archive/mac4theblind/

     All emails intended for the list owner can be sent to:

john@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mac4theblind] Mac World: Apps using global hotkeys will remain welcome in the Mac App Store

Other related posts:
