Rogue Amoeba Weblog
weblog.rogueamoeba.com · Company blog · on HN since 2013
The weblog of Rogue Amoeba, a Mac audio software maker, covering macOS changes, app distribution, and Apple platform issues.
What HN saysHN links it for Mac development history and platform issues, such as AirPlay 2 support, sandboxing troubles, and the RIAA v. Steve Jobs story.
48HN people shared it
14linked it in comments
51stories submitted
1.0Kstory points
2 months agolast shared
2013people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Rogue Amoeba software no longer requires reduced security or extensions7 people · 19 points · first shared 2024 · 1 comments on HN
- 2Removing macOS 26 Tahoe's unwanted menu icons4 people · 9 points · first shared 2026 · discussion on HN
- 3On the Sad State of Macintosh Hardware3 people · 317 points · first shared 2018 · 332 comments on HN
- 4Making More Outside The App Store3 people · 119 points · first shared 2017 · 55 comments on HN
- 5macOS Sierra and Gatekeeper Path Randomization3 people · 18 points · first shared 2016 · 22 comments on HN
- 6The RIAA vs. Steve Jobs3 people · 8 points · first shared 2023 · 1 comments on HN
- 7Turn Speech into Text with Audio Hijack 4.3's New Transcribe Block3 people · 4 points · first shared 2023 · 1 comments on HN
- 8Piezo Exits the Mac App Store3 people · 2 points · first shared 2016 · discussion on HN
- 9A bug saved the company2 people · 385 points · first shared 2025 · 131 comments on HN
- 10Free The Icons: Apple should end their prohibition on shapes in macOS app icons2 people · 6 points · first shared 2026 · discussion on HN
- 11AppleTV 6.0 requires Fairplay-DRM Airplay Sources1 people · 101 points · first shared 2013 · 75 comments on HN
- 12macOS 15.2 Brings More Audio Bug Fixes1 people · 6 points · first shared 2024 · discussion on HN
- 13How the design of Audio Hijack 3 evolved1 people · 3 points · first shared 2015 · discussion on HN
- 14Apple’s Newest Macs Include Better Built-In Audio Devices1 people · 3 points · first shared 2018 · discussion on HN
- 15Celebrate Rogue Amoeba’s 20th Anniversary1 people · 2 points · first shared 2022 · discussion on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
cglong · 2023-05-25
Rogue Amoeba (whose UX work I greatly admire) agrees with your aside [1]:
> Many of us inside Rogue Amoeba lament the recent "flattening" of app icons on the Mac, and the attendant loss of personality.
[1]: https://weblog.rogueamoeba.com/2022/09/09/the-design-of-audio-hijack-4…
Qerub · 2022-08-08
> […] Airfoil software does all this & more […]
Not quite; Airfoil Satellite does not implement an AirPlay 2 receiver which is what this is all about. See https://weblog.rogueamoeba.com/2018/06/25/current-notes-on-airfoil-air… :
> Can Airfoil Satellite receive AirPlay 2 audio? Airfoil Satellite receives audio via the AirPlay 1 protocol. Because of this, it can’t currently be part of a multi-speaker group receiving audio from iOS.
Still a great piece of software (that I also can recommend).
mirekrusin · 2025-08-26
Linked story [0] in the footer sounds even better.
[0] https://weblog.rogueamoeba.com/2023/03/24/the-riaa-v-steve-jobs/
graypegg · 2025-03-07
Interesting! How did you go about keeping this working in a sandboxed app? I know Rogue Amoeba had some issues with that up until lately: https://weblog.rogueamoeba.com/2024/12/13/the-developers-who-came-in-f…
rgovostes · 2025-01-29
Delicious Library was the start of a gilded age of Mac shareware focused on style over substance.
> In the past year or so, Mac development had shifted from applications providing new functionality that appeared at the dawn of OS X to applications (and ideas) built around flash and sizzle, with plenty of marketing hype to fuel the fire. his had created something of a toxic atmosphere in the Mac development world. A rift between the old school, with its plain but functional apps, and the new school of flashy but frivolous apps, has developed. ... I dubbed this new school “The Delicious Generation”.
https://weblog.rogueamoeba.com/2006/11/06/the-delicious-generation/
Apple adopted a similar interface for Newsstand on iOS and it seemed to be widely reviled during the pushback against skeuomorphism.
matthew-wegner · 2024-05-07
Replying to myself--it looks like they do have a new capture framework relying on much newer APIs (requires macOS 14.4). It just isn't rolled out to Loopback yet: https://weblog.rogueamoeba.com/2024/04/05/our-new-installer-free-setup…
krackers · 2023-02-18
I miss disco so much. Back from the Delicious Era [1] of apps that were functional yet had character and play.
[1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2007/05/the-delicious-generation-strik…
I wholly disagree with rogueamoeba's assessment that these were "style over substance". They were dead-simple to use, and you could always disable the smoke if you hated fun. They may not have all the bells and whistles of the bloated 40MB disc burning suite, but if all you wanted to do was burn a linux iso or transfer some songs to stick in your car stereo, this was the go-to tool for the job.
https://weblog.rogueamoeba.com/2006/11/06/
Also I find it ironic that rogueamoeba lambasts the "delicious generation" when I think their Piezo app would fit right into it.
thisisit · 2018-06-19
Original link to the author's article:
https://weblog.rogueamoeba.com/2018/06/14/on-the-sad-state-of-macintos…
which was discussed earlier:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17312588
stilldavid · 2018-06-15
Kind of a rip off of this blog post[0] from Rogue Amoeba, down to the same screenshot and everything.
https://weblog.rogueamoeba.com/2018/06/14/on-the-sad-state-of-macintos…
matheweis · 2017-04-24
> Cost isn't relevant, the commission is because Apple brings X hundred million credit cards to your door and presumably increases sales by at least that much.
Except that developers have demonstrated with real numbers that that is not always true:
https://weblog.rogueamoeba.com/2017/02/10/piezos-life-outside-the-app-…
paulkafasis · 2017-02-14
That is quite correct. When we removed Piezo from the Mac App Store a year ago, we didn't send out a press release, nor seek publicity over this move in any way. We simply removed it and explained why on our blog (https://weblog.rogueamoeba.com/2016/02/12/piezo-1-5-arrives-piezo-exit… That was it.
We can certainly debate how well-established or tech-savvy our users are (though I will note that Piezo is by far our simplest application, and used by the least technically savvy among our user base). But to say that we did this in a “public fashion” is just false.
dirtae · 2017-02-14
Piezo, Rogue Amoeba's app, was removed from the Mac App Store with "minimal publicity", according to their blog post:
https://weblog.rogueamoeba.com/2017/02/10/piezos-life-outside-the-app-…
camtarn · 2017-02-12
For context, the app (Piezo) in question was removed from the Mac App Store (not the iOS App Store, as I first assumed on reading!) by its developers.
It's an audio recorder which can record audio from other apps. The App Store introduced a sandbox which prevented the app from working, but they got around that by simply not updating the app and thus retaining the ability to work outside the sandbox. However, other apps introduced changes which broke Piezo, and which needed a fix which couldn't be distributed via App Store, finally killing that methods of distribution.
https://weblog.rogueamoeba.com/2016/02/12/piezo-1-5-arrives-piezo-exit…
chrisfinazzo · 2019-07-10
Sigh, you're just not getting it, sorry to say.
I have NO TROUBLE imagining that Apple will continue to tighten the screws on this, enforcing signing through Developer TOS and requiring MAS apps to pay for distribution certs.
Direct download isn't going away, not after all the work that's gone into securing it, but if you think you can sell an app off your own site without giving Apple some identifiable info about who you are and what your code does, prepare to be disappointed.
Runtimes won't be disallowed, just that you (the user) are responsible for installing them and keeping things updated.
Oh, and for record, my reference to "Perry the Cynic" is no accident...he literally invented how code signing works.
https://weblog.rogueamoeba.com/2008/03/07/code-signing-and-you/#commen…
https://red-sweater.com/blog/514/development-phase-code-signing#commen…
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect2=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&…
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&…