December 20 2010 - Java Applications Not Allowed in New Mac App Store?

We, at Qoppa Software, recently tried to submit our application PDF Studio to the new Mac App Store. We were disappointed to find out that Java applications were not allowed and thus our application did not qualify for the Mac App Store.

From the Mac Developer Program Guide: “2.24 Apps that use deprecated or optionally installed technologies (e.g., Java, Rosetta) will be rejected”.

The Apple’s idea of having only selected native applications that are Mac friendly is honorable. But we believe that excluding all Java applications means in effect depriving Mac users in terms of technology, choice and price, as it is excluding a wide range of portable applications that can bring unique technology to the Mac platform and at a lower cost.

In the case of our application, PDF Studio, we like to believe that it is the best PDF software on the Mac after Adobe® Acrobat® and it’s offered at a more affordable price ($95 versus $449 in the US, even more in Europe). To our knowledge, other than Acrobat, all native PDF applications available on the Mac are based on the embedded PDF technology that ships with Mac OSX (named Quartz) and they all have the same limitations: no digital signatures, poor support for interactive forms among others. We, as vendors, bring our own proprietary PDF engine, which brings unique value to the Mac platform.

We understand that Apple has been discussing with Oracle regarding the future of the Java sdk on the Mac and that a compromise was reached in November 2010:

"We're delighted to be working with Oracle to insure that there continues to be a great version of Java on the Mac," said Bertrand Serlet, Apple's senior vice president of Software Engineering.

 We thus hope that Java will stop being considered a deprecated technology by Apple and that following the negotiations, Apple will allow Java applications in the Mac App Store.