Gatekeeper

OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion is out and it’s a great release. One of the most important new features of Mountain Lion is a security setting called Gatekeeper.

Gatekeeper allows you to specify what kinds of applications are allowed to run on your Mac. The default setting allows applications from the Mac App Store and identified developers. What are identified developers?

 

Identified Developers

An identified developer is someone who has signed up for the Mac Developer Program. With this program membership, a developer can get their application digitally signed by Apple. This application will run without complaint in Mountain Lion.

 

AppTrap Today

So what happens when you try to install AppTrap in Mountain Lion today? This happens:

Note that this only happens when you try to install the preference pane. If you already had AppTrap installed before upgrading to Mountain Lion then you won’t see this dialog at all and AppTrap will run just fine. However those who are trying to install AppTrap in Mountain Lion will see the above dialog.

 

Workaround

In the meantime, you can avoid this issue by right-clicking on AppTrap and clicking Open. The resulting dialog box looks very similar to the standard Gatekeeper one above, but it also has an Open button. Click that and AppTrap should install itself into System Preferences and run normally.

End Goal

The only way for me to make this dialog disappear is to sign up as a Mac Developer Program member for a $100 annual fee. With that membership I can digitally sign AppTrap. But I simply don’t have the money. I’m already paying for the iOS Developer Program membership which costs another $100 per year and I’m a student whose last term and associated tuition is coming up in September.

That doesn’t mean that I won’t get the membership. I just won’t be able to get it until next year. In the meantime, the above workaround will have to do.