OmniKeyMaster Solves Mac App Store Upgrade Woes for Omni Group Apps

For all of the benefits that Apple’s Mac App Store provides – easy updates, simple installation on multiple Macs without product keys – there’s still one major flaw that we can’t believe Apple hasn’t yet addressed: upgrades. Developers can always perform an in-place upgrade of their app, but all current owners will receive the upgrade for free, which may not be cost effective for all developers. Alternatively, developers can release a separate item on the store for the upgraded app, but this method provides no way for the developer to offer reduced upgrade pricing for existing customers.

To solve this issue, veteran Mac developer The Omni Group has just released a workaround: the OmniKeyMaster. This small free app automatically scans a user’s Mac for copies of the company’s software that have been purchased from the Mac App Store and then provides the customer with a free equivalent license key that works with the traditionally-distributed versions of the software purchased directly from Omni’s website.

The end result is that Omni’s Mac App Store customers effectively get a free license of the non-App Store version of the app, which allows them to purchase reduced-cost upgrades for future versions of Omni software, or to upgrade from the standard version of a particular app to the pro version.

Having direct access to Omni-licensed versions of the company’s apps can also make sure that customers get the latest updates as soon as possible, since updates direct from Omni won’t have to go through Apple’s sometimes lengthy App Store approval process.

Unfortunately, this process only works in one direction. If you use OmniKeyMaster to upgrade to a new version of OmniFocus, for example, you’ll end up with only the traditionally-licensed version of the app; the only way to get a Mac App Store version of the newly upgraded app is to purchase it again at full price on the store.

The OmniKeyMaster is a great, customer-friendly solution to Apple’s App Store upgrade issue. While we wish more developers would follow Omni’s example, we wish stronger still that the folks in Cupertino will soon find a way to make paid App Store upgrades a reality.