Sketch leaves Mac App Store

In a blog that is published on the sketch’s website, the team members are highlighting some of the major issues that are associated with the Mac App store. They also pointed out some of the major Mac App store limitations like sandboxing, no upgrade pricing, lengthy app review process and expired certificate problem.

Reason behind this decision

The main reason behind this is the Apple’s Mac App store certificate problem. A couple of weeks ago, Apple was struggling to cover an issue that interrupts Mac App store customers for a shorter period of time. There is an issue with the store that is just created due to expired security certificate, but Apple sends apology emails to all the customers affected with the problem.

In addition to this certificate problem, sketch also points out Mac App’s customers experience compared to iOS customers’ counterpart. The company says: “We’ve been considering our options for some time. Over the last year, as we’ve made great progress with Sketch, the customer experience on the Mac App Store hasn’t evolved like its iOS counterpart. We want to continue to be a responsive, approachable, and easily-reached company, and selling Sketch directly allows us to give you a better experience.

There are a number of reasons for Sketch leaving the Mac App Store—many of which in isolation wouldn’t cause us huge concern. However as with all gripes, when compounded they make it hard to justify staying: App Review continues to take at least a week, there are technical limitations imposed by the Mac App Store guidelines (sandboxing and so on) that limit some of the features we want to bring to Sketch, and upgrade pricing remains unavailable.”

Furthermore, the company has to share 30% of their revenue with Apple. And with the increasing popularity is enough for the company to prepare their distinct platform for attracting customers. By directly selling the app to the customers, the company not only has to split its revenue, but also get around the Mac App’s technical limitations.

After this major decision, sketch continues to sell its app with its regular price of $99 only along with the free trial version. So, if you already bought sketch from Mac app, you can continue using it, or if your version is expired, you can download it from here.

Happy Designing…!