Since the advent of OS X Mojave and especially Catalina and the requirement for app notarization, some of us old-time macOS developers are concerned that Apple will pull the plug on the apps that we distribute ourselves. Many of you have downloaded and installed macOS software directly from websites, i.e., not from the Mac App Store. Have you ever really considered it? By Andrew Jaffee.
This is the first part in a three-part series of tutorials on sandboxing, signing, notarizing, and and distributing macOS apps outside of the Mac App Store. In this tutorial, we’ll build a non-sandboxed app, talk about certificates, sign the app, notarize it, briefly talk about building an installer, sign and notarize the installer, and finally cover distribution. In the second tutorial in this series, we’ll turn the sandboxing capability and entitlement on in my sample app and explore ways that users can still gain access to files and folders outside of the app’s container.
The article is split into:
- A series of tutorials
- Advantages of staying out of the Mac App Store
- What is Gatekeeper and notarization?
- My sample code
- App signing and notarization
- Creating an installer to distribute the app
… and more. This one rich source of informationo for anybody interested in mobile application development. Great resource!
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