Solipsism Gradient

Yesterday evening RB App Checker Lite was approved for sale in the Mac App Store. Whew; it’s been a difficult couple of weeks, but it’s done. Now to relearn my php-fu and do a better product page, and of course restart work on other apps in the RB Utilities suite. Next in queue are “RB File Counter”, “RB File Alias” and the non-lite version of RB App Checker.

 

 

News on the RB App Checker Lite front. Version 1.0 (179) is out; check the product page for release notes.

The previously published version was 1.0 (171) – note I’m just incrementing the build number for now, this is mostly for keeping this version in sync with the one submitted to the Mac App Store.

Speaking of the MAS, my first submission was finally rejected for a bug with Services registration (after 7 days “Waiting for Review”, which is not too bad). So I’ll be resubmitting tonight, with that bug hopefully solved, and several new others fixed and new features added.

The most interesting new feature is checking for embedded provisioning profiles.  iOS apps will always have one, but you normally won’t see such a thing in a Mac application. However, both .xcarchives and apps “built for archiving” will have an embedded profile (unless you’re signing with your Developer ID).

Feedback welcome!

Update I: ehrm, make that version 1.0 (181). Only the icon has changed; Apple objected to my using the “generic application” icon as part of my own.

Update II: yes, the new icon is just a stopgap, will be redoing the details in the next build.

RB App Checker Lite is now functionally complete and I decided to simultaneously publish the 1.0 version here – it’s free – and on the Mac App Store. In the “About Box” the version appears as 1.0 (171).

If you already have one of the public betas somewhere on your hard drive, better remove it before unzipping this version – otherwise the Services Manager may become confused about the correct version to run.

One interesting new feature is that you now can run RB App Checker Lite on Xcode archives (.xcarchive bundles). This will also work for iOS archives, by the way.

I’m still working on more and better documentation and perhaps some sample screenshots on the product page. I suppose I also should add a new support forum.

Regarding the Mac App Store version, before actual review there still seems to be some problem regarding developer profiles and certificates — somewhat ironical for this specific application! Still, this being my first submission to any of the App Stores, it’s to be expected. Stay tuned for news.

Inspired by my recent musings about OS X 10.8 – specifically, the need for a way to check application signatures – I’m releasing the first public beta of RB App Checker Lite. Please follow the link to download.

RB App Checker Lite will be an easy way for anyone to check any executable – application, command-line tool or framework – for signatures. Also, for an app downloaded from the Mac App Store, it will show you the receipt and check everything for validity.

This is also the first of my forthcoming RB Utilities application suite. Here’s the application icon:

The icon series was designed by Sérgio Bergocce. The cube will be common to all applications, my logo is of course on the left, and the right-hand side will symbolize what each app does; the colors will try to symbolize price and geekiness level. 🙂 In this case, light blue alludes to the “Lite” part, and of course that means the application will be free.

I’ll try to distribute all free utilities over both the Mac App Store and my own site; non-free utilities are intended to be MAS-only, if possible. The ultimate intention is to substitute my very old XRay utility by a group of small, focused programs. More on that later…