Tips for Mac App Store Developers: No Trials or Betas, File System and Custom Control Usage

Apple yesterday published a series of three updates for Mac App Store developers to its news and announcements page, offering several tips for those preparing their applications for submission to the forthcoming store.

The most important update for general users addresses demo, trial, and beta versions of software intended for distribution through the Mac App Store. Apple notes that developers should not submit these versions for inclusion in the Mac App Store and should instead distribute them through their own sites while limiting Mac App Store distribution to full retail versions of their applications.

Your website is the best place to provide demos, trial versions, or betas of your software for customers to explore. The apps you submit to be reviewed for the Mac App Store should be fully functional, retail versions of your apps.

Apple's other two updates point to sections of Apple's developer-only documentation, reminding those working on applications where to find resources for developing custom interface control elements that comply with Apple's interface guidelines and to make sure that they are properly utilizing the Mac OS X file system to store files related to their applications in appropriate locations on users' computers.

Apple announced at its October 20th media event that the Mac App Store would debut for users of Mac OS X Snow Leopard within 90 days, meaning that a launch would be expected to occur by mid-January.

The company began accepting submissions for the Mac App Store one month ago and appears to be preparing Mac OS X 10.6.6 to support the store.