InstallBuilder for Mac

MacUpdate's download link gets Developer's version 17.1.0

The only way any OSX app should be distributed is within a DMG file. A good coded app doesn't need to put files everywhere. Hell, even the Apple programmers guideline says you shouldnt. But I guess for Windows this can be a handy app for devs. Said that, this app is way to expensive. I mean, there are dozens of free tools to do the same (Xcode has one for assembling pkg files)

The first thing everyone looks at is price before downloading it. You would think that $795 is absurd. When I first looked at it, even I thought it was too expensive. But, it's free to try the demo, so why not? The installation time might be long enough to pop a small bag of popcorn, but it's worth the wait and you only have to do it once. It's actually pretty fast after that. Opening it, I find that there are many features in this tool that are typical among installers that are necessary (ReadMe, License, etc.). There are also things like an uninstaller which many other programs that create installers never include. The average user can be frustrated removing something that does not have an uninstaller by means of traditional drag-and-drop to the trash/recycle bin, so it's great to include one in your install. Some installers provide optional splash screens, this one does, too. It has everything you will need. You might not only get this for the features, but you might also get it for the compatibility of the installs. The compatibility is impressive. It's not just Mac and Windows, but many other operating systems. It's great that this supports some of the less popular operating systems just as much as the popular operating systems. I haven't seen many other programs with such large compatibility. The reason why I don't want to buy this is because I will never need it, but, if you need the compatibility and/or features, this product is worth its cost. Try it and see what I mean.

In my opinion, this is a pretty good application. I installed it and tried it out. The installation did take about a minute to install, but that wasn't a problem. There are many features that I thought were incredible useful like an HTML License file. It's typical for most installers to have a readme and license. I looked at "Customization" and saw that it had support for many operating systems that I've never even heard of. There's octal file permissions for windows which is useful at times when you want to make something read-only or not. Another feature that I liked a lot was the Splash Image feature. I don't know why you'd need this but it's good to have one. The most useful feature was the Uninstaller so you could include an uninstaller in an installation. If I had the money for such an advanced application, I would buy it. You shouldn't deny this application because of its price.

This application costs too much. There are free tools to make installers for Mac OS X like Apple's Package Maker. There are also free tools to make Linux installers. There are also free tools to make Windows installers. Who would pay almost $800 when they can get something else that does the same thing for free? Besides, installers are annoying and are usually not needed unless you're installing system files.