Question

What’s the recommended way to expire a beta Mac OSX app within a certain timeframe (i.e., 14 days) and then ask the user to update (in Cocoa)?

Do I just do date calculations every time the user launches the app? Also, is there a way to enable to updating using the Sparkle framework if the timeframe has expired?

Thanks

Answer 1

If you are looking for a 14 day rolling beta – i.e. beta expires 14 days after the first run of the application, I would recommend using userDefaults, and checking it at launch.

Specifically, calling isBetaExpired from the code below in your applicationDidFinishLaunching:

- (void)setDateForKey:(NSString*)key date:(NSDate*)date {
    [[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults] setObject:date forKey:key];
}

- (NSDate*)getDateForKey:(NSString*)key {
    return [[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults] objectForKey:key];    
}

- (BOOL)isBetaExpired {
    NSString* betaKey = @"v1.0BetaExpireDate";
    double maxElapsed = 60 * 60 * 24 * 14; // 14 days

    NSDate* betaDate = [self getDateForKey:betaKey];
    if (!betaDate) {
        // if we didn't have a beta start date already, set it to now
        betaDate = [NSDate date];
        [self setDateForKey:betaKey date:betaDate];
    }

    // determine how long it has been since the beta started
    double elapsed = [betaDate timeIntervalSinceNow];

    // check if it is expired
    BOOL expired = (elapsed >= maxElapsed);

    return expired;
}