Installing Alfred's Powerpack

Posted on Sat 8th January, 2011

[Update: While Apple has added in-app purchase since this post was originally published, it has also brought in Sandboxing rules which affect our decision to put the Powerpack in the Mac App Store. You can read more on sandboxing in this Nov 2011 blog post.]

Since the Mac App Store was launched on Thursday, there has been a little bit of confusion over how to install the Alfred Powerpack after downloading Alfred from within the Mac App Store.

It's quite simple... You need to download Alfred from our website to use the Powerpack. Think of downloading the version from our website as downloading a Pro or fully-featured version of software from any website. Once you have done this, the Powerpack tab will allow you to enter the serial code you have received and you can enjoy Alfred at his best!

Why can't I just click a button to purchase in-app?

At this point in time, Apple does not support in-app purchase like it does on the iOS store. As soon as this feature becomes available to us developers, I will be right on it so purchasing Alfred will be as easy as clicking a single button!

What happens if I buy the Powerpack now or I already have a Powerpack?

Apple has not provided any mechanism for migrating users from outside the App Store into the App Store. We are not the only company to experience this - it has been talked about by Pixelmator, Panic and many more since launch.

This is not a problem in the slightest though as Alfred has been successfully updating itself automatically outside the App Store since the beginning of 2010. We have a wonderful community of users, including many Powerpack users, who enjoy the fast release cycle and sneak peeks into pre-release features - something we cannot offer to the Mac App Store.

As a user of the non Mac App Store, you will enjoy these benefits indefinitely :)