Given the proximity of this development to WWDC, it seems like there's a chance Apple has acquired Bartender and has incorporated its functionality into the next MacOS release.
Doesn't Apple usually just buy companies publically and then later announce that the product has been discontinued? That's what happened to Dark Sky.
I'd hope for Apple to actually incorporate this into the fucking OS itself so that we didn't run through these hoops for pretty basic functionality that has been in Windows for what, two decades?
If Apple wanted to implement a simlar feature, they would just do it. They wouldn't buy a 3rd party app when they could just do it themselves.
The value proposition of these kind of third party UI apps is that the developer cleverly figured out how to manipulate Apple's APIs to do something Apple didn't really intend. Apple themselves can just write their own private API to do it, they don't need the clever hacks.
An update to my own comment, above. After absorbing other comments, I no longer think it's a reasonable possibility that Apple has purchased Bartender. I think we have to assume it's likely to be a malicious actor. There could even be a state-level malicious actor ultimately behind it.
I'd hope for Apple to actually incorporate this into the fucking OS itself so that we didn't run through these hoops for pretty basic functionality that has been in Windows for what, two decades?