DropDMG and EagleFiler are now available for purchase from the Mac App Store. (SpamSieve has not been submitted to the Mac App Store because Apple’s guidelines prohibit installing plug-ins and AppleScript files, and SpamSieve needs to do this in order to integrate with the most popular Mac e-mail clients.) All three products will continue to be available direct from C-Command for the foreseeable future. The licenses that you’ve already purchased will continue to be valid, and you can get updates and upgrades exactly as before. The Mac App Store is simply an additional option that is now available.

It’s Your Choice

We’re happy wherever you choose to purchase our software. The Mac App Store makes it very convenient to buy, download, and install, and you get updates via the store. The purchase is tied to your iTunes account. If you buy direct, you drag-and-drop to install and get updates via the application’s auto-updater or the Web site. Either way, you can sign up for a mailing list or RSS or Twitter feed to be notified about new versions and important product news.

Prices

Pricing is substantially the same, although there will be slight differences due to Apple’s pricing tiers and currency conversions. All Mac App Store purchases are for single-user licenses. Purchasing direct, you can also buy family packs and get volume and educational discounts. Although you pay the same price, Apple’s higher fees mean that direct purchases send 25+% more of your money to C-Command.

Trials

Each product has a fully-featured 30-day trial version that’s available from the Web site. If you purchase direct, you can click a link in your order confirmation to enter your serial number and take it out of trial mode. If you purchase from the Mac App Store, you should first delete your trial version so that the store doesn’t see the application as already installed. Your preferences and user data will be seamlessly shared between both versions.

Updates and Upgrades

Our standard policy has been to provide customers lots of free minor updates and 50% discounts on major upgrades. The Mac App Store does not support upgrade pricing, so currently we can only guarantee the 50% discount if you originally purchased direct from C-Command. We’ll do the best we can, however, and Apple may make more options available in the future.

Initially getting into the Mac App Store took longer than we would have liked. Because DropDMG and EagleFiler use encryption, there was some additional paperwork that needed to be completed with the U.S. government and Apple before the apps could be submitted to the store. Then it took more months for Apple to review the apps and be convinced that they followed the guidelines. Now that the applications have been approved, we’re optimistic that updates will be available from the Mac App Store more quickly. However, there will always be some delay. For example, having previously approved DropDMG 3.0.5, Apple took 17 days to approve the 3.0.6 update.

Transfers

If you purchase via the Mac App Store, the direct version will recognize your receipt from Apple. So (barring changes in the way Apple handles receipts) you’ll always have the option of downloading the software yourself to get the full features and the latest updates. (Thanks to Daniel Jalkut of Red Sweater Software for the clever idea that makes this possible.) Apple, unfortunately, provides no way to transfer purchases in the other direction, for existing customers who would prefer to receive updates via the Mac App Store.

Feature Differences

We intend the Mac App Store and direct versions of the products to be as similar as possible, however some differences are necessary in order to comply with the rules for Apple’s store. Our first priority is to design the direct versions as best we know how; they should not be limited by Mac App Store considerations. Secondly, if a feature cannot be accepted in the Mac App Store, we will try to adapt it or make it available in another way. This may not always be possible or practical, however. Here are the current differences between the Mac App Store and direct versions:

DropDMG

• The direct version has a button in the preferences for installing the command-line tool and man page. With the Mac App Store version, you can install these manually via Terminal.
• Some files and folders have ownership or permissions such that DropDMG needs an administrator password to correctly copy them. The direct version will ask for the password as needed. The Mac App Store version will stop and report an error.
• The direct version has a checkbox in the preferences to Always run with root access. This lets DropDMG run unattended and copy the aforementioned files without asking for your password each time. With the Mac App Store version, you can enable this feature via Terminal.
• The direct version runs on Mac OS X 10.5 and later; the Mac App Store version requires Mac OS X 10.6.6 or later.
• Update (2011-10-13): The Mac App Store version defaults to “Ask Later” for the destination folder, rather than “Next to Source.”
• Update (2012-02-07): The Mac App Store version has a slightly different application icon.
• Update (2013-01-24): The most up-to-date list of differences is in the DropDMG manual.

EagleFiler

• The direct version automatically adds a “Save PDF to EagleFiler” command to each application’s Print dialog. With the Mac App Store version, you can install the PDF service manually.
• The direct version uses OpenMeta to share your recently used tags with other applications. The Mac App Store version can read the list of recent tags but cannot update it.
• Previous versions of EagleFiler maintained an error log in the file ~/Library/Logs/EagleFiler/EagleFiler.log. Mac App Store applications are not allowed to write to this folder, and Mac OS X’s logging subsystem has improved since EagleFiler’s log feature was designed, so both versions of EagleFiler now use the system log database, which appears under the “All Messages” section of Console.
• The direct version runs on Mac OS X 10.4 and later; the Mac App Store version requires Mac OS X 10.6.6 or later.
• Update (2013-01-24): The most up-to-date list of differences is in the EagleFiler manual.

Update (2012-03-20): We expect Apple’s upcoming application sandboxing requirement to significantly increase the differences between the direct and Mac App Store versions. The precise differences will not be known until we see which features and bugs the sandbox has when the requirement is instituted.