Can macOS App Store Apps load AU or VST plugins? I assume AU is ok because Logic does it (or do they have entitlements?) Does anybody have an experience getting a JUCE app through the review process?
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I have no experience getting anything through the review process, but as your app will need to be sandboxed it can only load plugins that don’t break your entitlements, AUv3 plugins will be deal with entitlements themselves removing the issue if I’m not mistaken.
Is there any up-to-date information on this? I’m thinking about releasing an app on the Mac App Store which can host plugins.
Disclaimer: All this is what I remember from my limited research on sandboxed plugin host application a while ago… So please correct me if I’m wrong here!
An app distributed on the Mac App Store has to be sandboxed. This again means that all plugins loaded by this app must be able to run in a sandboxed environment. Depending on how complex a plugin is, this might or might not be the case. A good example for a sandboxed host is Apple’s Garage Band, a lot of plugins run there without problems, but things start to become tricky if the plugin needs special file system access or networking resources in order to work as expected.
AFAIK Logic is the only non-sandboxed application available on the App Store, probably since Apple knows that they would upset quite a few pro users if their favourite DAW would stop supporting a lot of plugins. But this exception is of course only available to Apple, this is why you won’t find a lot of professional DAWs on the Mac App Store.
I’m sure the 30% cut has nothing to do with it 
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Let me correct: Sandboxing is one among other reasons why you won’t find a lot of professional DAWs on the Mac App Store
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