[RobLewis]

Even Microsoft was on board for its Mac product at one time. IIRC early editions of Office for Mac installed by simply dragging a folder into /Applications. A lot of the actual under-the-hood work was deferred until you launched the program, but at least the basic install process was simple.

[mdawson]

Quote

Should they start using Apple?s Installer, even when their program doesn?t require it?

Well actually there is a value to all software going this route. From a security standpoint, drag and drop is perfectly fine for off-the-shelf, boxed software. In an age where much software is delivered through downloaded disk images, the simplification of dragging and dropping applications without any form of authorization has the potential to be disastrous.

While we are not there yet when it comes to malware, it is far easier for malware to be deployed via drag and dropping from a disk image that anyone can create and going through Apple?s installer. The time may come when the use of an installer, which was common pre-OS X, may be the best way to go again.