Posted by Julie Clover
The popular Mac app Bartender appears to have been quietly sold about two months ago, with neither the previous nor the current owner providing customers or potential customers with information about the sale.
The deal came to light after some Reddit users saw an alert from MacUpdater informing them that the company behind Bartender has been quietly replaced. MacUpdater warned users that updates to the app from version 5.0.52 could be potentially unsafe due to a lack of transparency about the situation.
Bartender's new owners responded to the Reddit thread and confirmed that Bartender had been acquired, but did not explain , why clients were not notified or why a certificate change occurred without a specified explanation.
Hello, new Bartender owners! Our team purchased Bartender from Ben S., the original developer, two months ago. As we prepare to release updates to Bartender, we needed to re-sign the app with Apple using our company information, replacing Ben's information. This resulted in a one-time certificate change.
In truth, we should have noted this in the release notes, but since we could not retroactively update them, we included this fact in our blog and shared it with users when they send us emails. We worked closely with Ben to understand his vision for Bartender. Our goal is to implement many of the improvements he has planned and fix any bugs found over the past few months to improve the Bartender experience.
Reddit users have asked the owners of Bartender for more information about their identity, but there has been no response followed. The Bartender site was updated with information about the certificate change after users began seeing pop-ups requesting the new permissions, and while the blog post called the new certificate request “pending and valid,” no background information about the purchase was provided. In a Reddit thread, the owners claim that they posted information about the sale on the site, but this turned out to be untrue.
At this time, it appears that the new owners of Bartender have no plans to inform customers about the change in ownership, but users should be aware that the app has been sold and is no longer updated by the original developer. The new owner's intentions are unclear, but as Reddit users have noted, the situation raises some concerns.
Update: Ben Surtees, the original developer of Bartender, announced today that he sold the app to Applause three months ago. . There is no other information about the company, and Applause has not yet officially commented on the sale.
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