Not on the Mac App Store

A list of great Mac applications, which are not on the Mac App Store. It's a pity that Mac App Store failed to deliver on promise to connect users and developers in a new delightful way:

The Mac App Store has been around for 6 years, but is still lacking some of the best software the Mac has to offer. You might be wondering why this is. Sandboxing certainly has a lot to answer for, but it's not the only reason. There's also paid upgrades, sustainability, quality of life, and the Mac App Store just generally being half-assed.

Affinity Photo – new Photoshop killer

Last couple of months have been fairly fruitful for photo apps with new release of Lightroom, arrival of new Photos app for Mac (check out great review from MacStories and I almost missed the release of Affinity Photo – new photo editing app for Mac from Serif.

Serif advertises its software as “the fastest, smoothest, most precise, professional image editing software for Mac.” My fellow designer, who tried Affinity Design – another graphics product from Serif – told me that it definitely felt very snappy and seemed quite capable to him.

Worth checking out if you are into photography and use a Mac. Affinity Photo is free while in beta.

AlterNote released on the Mac App Store

AlterNote – elegant minimalistic note taking app for Evernote – released on the Mac App Store (with introductory price of $4.99).

Check out review on MacStories:

This simplified version of Evernote is slick, quick and gets out of the way, while syncing flawlessly with my Evernote database. And all for just $5.

On the other hand this app is a great example of a demand for clean simple applications with well-defined functionality. I wonder if Evernote would buy it one day.