I've been waiting for this but if Apple has to approve an app first before releasing it to the Mac App Store then I will hate it! How about you?
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Mac App Store? Like or No like?
- Thread starter edtorious
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LOVE IT.
Seems to take all of the benefites of the iOS App Store while avoiding all the downsides. What more do you need?
Seems to take all of the benefites of the iOS App Store while avoiding all the downsides. What more do you need?
As long as you can still get other 'apps' not through the app store, it's alright.
Might we see jailbreaking for the mac!?
well hopefully the devs are not going to start getting greedy by releasing their apps thru app store so they can at least charge .99 cents on their apps, hate to see all the freewares gone
there should be an option to just donate also. It was clearly stated that the Mac app store is not the sole method of getting Mac apps. So anyone who posts reactionary nonsense about "closed", "forced", etc. needs to leave the internet.
As an optional thing (which, again, it is), I've been in favor of something like this for quite a while. I just hope they improve discovery and browsing options, because the iOS app store as-is needs work in that area.
--Eric
As an optional thing (which, again, it is), I've been in favor of something like this for quite a while. I just hope they improve discovery and browsing options, because the iOS app store as-is needs work in that area.
--Eric
Like it, since it's a really good, but not the ONLY, way to get apps. I also noticed that all the iLife and iWork apps are available (and separately too).
The automatic installation is really nice too. It will be nice not to have a million .dmg and .pkg files in my Downloads folder that I always forget to clean up.
The automatic installation is really nice too. It will be nice not to have a million .dmg and .pkg files in my Downloads folder that I always forget to clean up.
I like it. I think it will give developers the opportunity to showcase their apps and at the end of the day earn them more money.
This will make application discovery a lot easier for people! Not everyone is as good as us when searching for applications!
Plus, a lot of us already trust Apple with our credit cards, so this will make it really easy for someone to buy something without worrying about fraud.
I also find it interesting this is getting its own App and not somehow being integrated into iTunes (thank god!). They will no doubt link the accounts, but I am very glad they made this a separate app!
And one more thing, this makes complete sense with their philosophy of getting rid of optical drives. To install Pages I don't need the disk. There really is no reason to have a disk anymore. I guess it is only becomes important when you need to install a huge program and you have limited bandwidth. I guess that can be a huge problem!
I think in the end it makes complete sense. It makes discovering apps extremely easy. It makes it more "safe" and trustworthy. I would rather give Apple my credit card rather than some random website. It gives a consistent experience across iOS and OS X devices.
The only problem I see is the confusion between buying it on the web or through the app store. Online, the developer gets 100% of the money while on the app store they only get 70%. I hope they don't find some way to entice you to buy it online because then it could become a mess. I wonder if it could actually lower the prices online so it benefits the people that know how to find applications? At the same time, 70% of the money is still really good when you have a forum such as the App Store to get your application seen by a lot of people.
This will probably piss off a lot of people now, but it really does help the consumers in the end. When I first came to the Mac last year, it was slightly difficult to find the right applications to get. I knew nothing about it. If there had been a Mac App Store upon first boot-up, it would have been very fun to go through and see what applications people like. Think about all the people out there that get a Mac and don't really search for very useful applications. I have many friends who just stick with the stock apps plus Pages or Microsoft Word. This should greatly help them!
Plus, a lot of us already trust Apple with our credit cards, so this will make it really easy for someone to buy something without worrying about fraud.
I also find it interesting this is getting its own App and not somehow being integrated into iTunes (thank god!). They will no doubt link the accounts, but I am very glad they made this a separate app!
And one more thing, this makes complete sense with their philosophy of getting rid of optical drives. To install Pages I don't need the disk. There really is no reason to have a disk anymore. I guess it is only becomes important when you need to install a huge program and you have limited bandwidth. I guess that can be a huge problem!
I think in the end it makes complete sense. It makes discovering apps extremely easy. It makes it more "safe" and trustworthy. I would rather give Apple my credit card rather than some random website. It gives a consistent experience across iOS and OS X devices.
The only problem I see is the confusion between buying it on the web or through the app store. Online, the developer gets 100% of the money while on the app store they only get 70%. I hope they don't find some way to entice you to buy it online because then it could become a mess. I wonder if it could actually lower the prices online so it benefits the people that know how to find applications? At the same time, 70% of the money is still really good when you have a forum such as the App Store to get your application seen by a lot of people.
This will probably piss off a lot of people now, but it really does help the consumers in the end. When I first came to the Mac last year, it was slightly difficult to find the right applications to get. I knew nothing about it. If there had been a Mac App Store upon first boot-up, it would have been very fun to go through and see what applications people like. Think about all the people out there that get a Mac and don't really search for very useful applications. I have many friends who just stick with the stock apps plus Pages or Microsoft Word. This should greatly help them!
This. I agree wholeheartedly.
There's a lot of cool Mac apps that are out there, largely undiscovered. Suddenly they'll get a lot more attention, and hopefully drop in price a bit. Right now, I don't begrudge them their price at all, people need to make money. But if you can get your app to the stage where a lot more people can see it, if you make a good app, you sell more and everyone wins. Yes, I realize that volume doesn't always equal profit. But in the segment of utility apps that are often never heard of, I see this as a great boon. And I'm interested in jumping on board... so let's get that developer page updated, Apple.
As long as Apple never even thinks about locking down future Mac OS X versions to only run app store apps, then I think this is a good thing.
That is really my only worry, and has been since iOS popularity started shooting through the roof - hypothetical or improbable as it may be now. The iOS app store is obviously wildly successful, so what if they start thinking that a similar lockdown on OS X would only drive away, say, 5% of advanced users while bringing in another 20% of users who want the simplicity? Seems like a net win in that case, so would they make the jump?
I suspect it will never happen because those advanced users are typically the ones who advise less advanced friends and family. Make them mad and you won't lose just them as customers. But it's still a concern as today Apple has unquestionably moved a little closer to that horror.
Of course, a Mac app store will likely suffer the same problems as the iOS app store - primarily too much pure junk crowding out the few really good apps. Will be interesting to see how they evolve it to tackle this problem over the years.
Also will be interesting to see if all or most of the big guys jump in - Adobe, Microsoft, etc.
Edit: edtorious brings up a good point: what about freeware developers? Will Apple charge the same $99/year for developer access to the Mac app store? That seems like a good way to discourage freeware because who wants to pay for the privilege of giving something away for free? And at the same time, if this store takes off, any developers, freeware or not, may be forced to use it if they want their software to be noticed. The $99/year (as opposed to a one-time $99, say, for the developer tools) is my biggest gripe against getting into iOS development myself. Again, it will be interesting.
That is really my only worry, and has been since iOS popularity started shooting through the roof - hypothetical or improbable as it may be now. The iOS app store is obviously wildly successful, so what if they start thinking that a similar lockdown on OS X would only drive away, say, 5% of advanced users while bringing in another 20% of users who want the simplicity? Seems like a net win in that case, so would they make the jump?
I suspect it will never happen because those advanced users are typically the ones who advise less advanced friends and family. Make them mad and you won't lose just them as customers. But it's still a concern as today Apple has unquestionably moved a little closer to that horror.
Of course, a Mac app store will likely suffer the same problems as the iOS app store - primarily too much pure junk crowding out the few really good apps. Will be interesting to see how they evolve it to tackle this problem over the years.
Also will be interesting to see if all or most of the big guys jump in - Adobe, Microsoft, etc.
Edit: edtorious brings up a good point: what about freeware developers? Will Apple charge the same $99/year for developer access to the Mac app store? That seems like a good way to discourage freeware because who wants to pay for the privilege of giving something away for free? And at the same time, if this store takes off, any developers, freeware or not, may be forced to use it if they want their software to be noticed. The $99/year (as opposed to a one-time $99, say, for the developer tools) is my biggest gripe against getting into iOS development myself. Again, it will be interesting.
Directly copied from another post of mine in another thread.
The app store is a huge benefit to developers and consumers. It lets developers get their apps tot he masses.. And the masses to the apps.
The appstore is also an alternative, it is not the only way to get applications. You can still go to macupdate, the store..... google....... Or various torrent sites (legal, or illegal).
There is no need to jailbreak an operating system you are already given root access to.
The app store is a huge benefit to developers and consumers. It lets developers get their apps tot he masses.. And the masses to the apps.
The appstore is also an alternative, it is not the only way to get applications. You can still go to macupdate, the store..... google....... Or various torrent sites (legal, or illegal).
There is no need to jailbreak an operating system you are already given root access to.
I hope there will be an official support of Trial/Lite versions. While I might pay a few bucks for an unknown iPhone app, I'll certainly not pay $20+ (price of a typical Mac app) without trying it first, even if the reviews are good. If Apple won't support Trial versions, the Free category will be spammed with them again. It should be like it is with most Mac apps currently. You download the Trial version, try it for 30 days. And if you decide to buy it, you can continue using it without losing the data from the trial period.
I like the idea. Steve said it won't be the only place so I'm happy. Auto updates etc, makes it even better. Don't have a reason to complain
I think from the average consumer point of view (i.e. not a geek/nerd who follows the tech space) it's very useful, but personally I don't tend to install any apps other than my Twitter/IRC client and Onyx. Auto updates are an excellent feature in my opinion, because a lot of people just end up forgetting to update.
I disagree. The app store is a miserable mess, a disorganized pile of software. If you only look at the most popular 'top' apps, if you're looking to discover those then sure it's going to help; but beyond the top apps, it's spaghetti. The search feature is amazingly subpar.
The mac app store feels like a slippery slope into more iOS features making their way into OSX (as Jobs himself stated). iOS is fine for portable devices, but for a computer, it's a terrible choice.
I really like all of the new features in OS X that they showed, if this is that horrible iOS and OS X combining thing people are complaining about then I'm all for it.
Since it's not the only way to get apps, I think it is a great idea and I've been wanting something like this for a while. As long as Apple is strict about what apps they approve it should be a good place to find high quality programs that I may not have heard about otherwise.
well hopefully the devs are not going to start getting greedy by releasing their apps thru app store so they can at least charge .99 cents on their apps, hate to see all the freewares gone
And you're not being greedy for wanting free apps? It's 99¢
If the developer created something you want to keep using, then they deserve to be paid.
Please explain to me how google.com is less of a spaghetti mess than this will be for finding apps.
One of the important things that no one is understanding here, is that this eliminates the .dmg. Not every Mac users "gets" the concept of moving the application from the dmg to Applications directory, then ejecting the dmg and throwing it away.
This makes Windows with their mandatory InstallShield installs look COMPLETELY silly now.
I think they could have incorporated this into iTunes for the Mac. They didn't need a standalone store.
However, if this turns the app shopping experience into what it is for the iPhone/iPod/iPad...then it is going to be awesome.
Hopefully it will inspire even more development for the mac as well.
However, I'm going to call this now. If 10.7 is about a Mac App Store...10.8 will be: GameCenter for the Mac!!
However, if this turns the app shopping experience into what it is for the iPhone/iPod/iPad...then it is going to be awesome.
Hopefully it will inspire even more development for the mac as well.
However, I'm going to call this now. If 10.7 is about a Mac App Store...10.8 will be: GameCenter for the Mac!!
My thoughts exactly. If he would of said we can't get our software from somewhere else.... I would not be a happy camper!
If it makes panic more money to go via panic.com I'll keep doing it that way.
I do think there are a LOT of good Mac apps which don't get much attention. If your new to the platform and wanted an SVN client then you could quickly find Cornerstone and Versions on the app store, whereas with the current setup you might have to do a bit more work on Google.
I am concerned that while big open source project (I'm thinking Mozilla with Firefox) will likely pay the admission fee, what about a good IM client like Adium? Or the open source SequelPro?
I know you CAN get these tools by bypassing the app store, I suspect most people won't. They'll do it the convenient way (and the app store is convenient). Then the open source applications (which may be just as good or better) aren't on a level playing field.
I do think there are a LOT of good Mac apps which don't get much attention. If your new to the platform and wanted an SVN client then you could quickly find Cornerstone and Versions on the app store, whereas with the current setup you might have to do a bit more work on Google.
I am concerned that while big open source project (I'm thinking Mozilla with Firefox) will likely pay the admission fee, what about a good IM client like Adium? Or the open source SequelPro?
I know you CAN get these tools by bypassing the app store, I suspect most people won't. They'll do it the convenient way (and the app store is convenient). Then the open source applications (which may be just as good or better) aren't on a level playing field.