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Amazon's New Mac Download Store Takes On Apple's Mac App Store
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Its great that we now have some places to find unheard of software. The only thing that would really keep me buying from the Mac App Store exclusively is the auto-update feature, but if I can save $20 or so.. or get some freebies from Amazon.. I could live without it as I have for the last 10 years.
This can only be good for software developers, and as a consequence for Apple's hardware sales. The more software available, the better. And since so so many people complained about the 30% "Apple tax", I bet Amazon will give 100% of the purchase price to the developer.
Adobe. Microsoft. Anyone big enough that they don't care about the free marketing the app store gives them (or don't consider it worth 30% of their product because they're known enough and their product is very expensive).
I've seen some theorization that Apple charges 30% partially to offset the cost of all the free apps (which still cost Apple money to distribute).
However, I don't think developers distributing paid apps would like the fact that they're subsidizing free apps in that case.
Typical...I really dislike big American (sorry, USA not American
) corporations. If it wasnt for us brits, the iPad would either be a brick with a fan, or not exist You can thank Acorn computers, a little known British computer builder for your iPads and iPhones! Hopefully Amazon will hurry up and roll this out globally!
I hope that eventually Apple and Amazon will find a happy working relationship. Not that it is all bad now but I would like to see some synergy between the two. I think that Apple will benefit in the long run if their customers look to amazon for software and media in addition to Apple.
I urge you not to do business with Amazon for several reasons:
1) I used to buy books from them. I have bought books for the kindle and books for their previous DRM system. As of today, I can read none of the books I bought from them electronically over the past 7 years. None of this is my fault, either. They simply stopped supporting their previous DRM system, and nobody in their support group has a clue about it... and they somehow just "lost" my kindle account (and all of the rest of my amazon.com accounts.) They acknowledge they destroyed my accounts and promised to send me a coupon to repurchase my kindle books, but didn't do so. Every time I contact them, I have to talk to a half dozen people and deal with a half dozen non-sense responses only to get this promis again, and of course, never get my coupon. (fortunately, this only amounts to a couple books. after seeing how the sausage was made I stopped being an amazon customer.)
2) They do not treat their employees well. They have managers who are abusive, they engage in age discrimination, they get Indians and other foreign nationals over here promising them one deal and then fail to live up to the promise, but the VISA is such that the employee can not go to another business, lest they risk being deported, which is essentially a form of partial slavery (eg: they are still paid, but not paid what they were promised.)
If you've spent any time in the seattle tech scene, you've heard stories from ex-amazon employees about how horrible the place is to work for. I worked there and at microsoft and at a bunch of other companies over the years. MSFT was poorly organized and run, but their problems were all incompetance. All the other companies in Seattle I worked for varied in the quality of management but they were all on the up-and-up. The northwest has a culture of ... doing right by people. Of course, Amazon is founded by a yankee. The amazon culture is based on stabbing others in the back. Of all the companies I've worked for, every one of them, and all the people I worked for at them are people I'd work with or for again. This includes my peers at amazon, but amazon management and amazon the company I'd never work for ever again-- WORST JOB EVER. In fact, until I worked for Amazon, I'd never had a really bad job experience.... so even having been warned I went to work there because I couldn't believe it would be that bad.
Now I know, people are going to chime in and say I'm disgruntled or whatever. (Why is it people are sympathetic to abuse victims except when the abuser is in the workplace?) I got a settlement from amazon and while it doesn't come close to making me whole, it shows that they, in fact, know they were in the wrong.... yet it is cheaper to settle than to start treating employees decently (I guess they think.)
Anyway, frack amazon. They are scum and don't deserve your money. They are good at PR and have everyone convinced that they give a damn, but it isn't true. (In fact ,if you look for complaints from amazon employees on the web you'll find lots of people talking about how they were abused in various ways.)
PS- if anyone thinks this is actionable, bring it on. The truth is an affirmative defense against accusations of defamation. I'd love to have a day in court, and the consequent opportunity to tell my story to the press, in excruciating detail. I'll be sure to focus on the felonies I saw committed while I was there too.
1) I used to buy books from them. I have bought books for the kindle and books for their previous DRM system. As of today, I can read none of the books I bought from them electronically over the past 7 years. None of this is my fault, either. They simply stopped supporting their previous DRM system, and nobody in their support group has a clue about it... and they somehow just "lost" my kindle account (and all of the rest of my amazon.com accounts.) They acknowledge they destroyed my accounts and promised to send me a coupon to repurchase my kindle books, but didn't do so. Every time I contact them, I have to talk to a half dozen people and deal with a half dozen non-sense responses only to get this promis again, and of course, never get my coupon. (fortunately, this only amounts to a couple books. after seeing how the sausage was made I stopped being an amazon customer.)
2) They do not treat their employees well. They have managers who are abusive, they engage in age discrimination, they get Indians and other foreign nationals over here promising them one deal and then fail to live up to the promise, but the VISA is such that the employee can not go to another business, lest they risk being deported, which is essentially a form of partial slavery (eg: they are still paid, but not paid what they were promised.)
If you've spent any time in the seattle tech scene, you've heard stories from ex-amazon employees about how horrible the place is to work for. I worked there and at microsoft and at a bunch of other companies over the years. MSFT was poorly organized and run, but their problems were all incompetance. All the other companies in Seattle I worked for varied in the quality of management but they were all on the up-and-up. The northwest has a culture of ... doing right by people. Of course, Amazon is founded by a yankee. The amazon culture is based on stabbing others in the back. Of all the companies I've worked for, every one of them, and all the people I worked for at them are people I'd work with or for again. This includes my peers at amazon, but amazon management and amazon the company I'd never work for ever again-- WORST JOB EVER. In fact, until I worked for Amazon, I'd never had a really bad job experience.... so even having been warned I went to work there because I couldn't believe it would be that bad.
Now I know, people are going to chime in and say I'm disgruntled or whatever. (Why is it people are sympathetic to abuse victims except when the abuser is in the workplace?) I got a settlement from amazon and while it doesn't come close to making me whole, it shows that they, in fact, know they were in the wrong.... yet it is cheaper to settle than to start treating employees decently (I guess they think.)
Anyway, frack amazon. They are scum and don't deserve your money. They are good at PR and have everyone convinced that they give a damn, but it isn't true. (In fact ,if you look for complaints from amazon employees on the web you'll find lots of people talking about how they were abused in various ways.)
PS- if anyone thinks this is actionable, bring it on. The truth is an affirmative defense against accusations of defamation. I'd love to have a day in court, and the consequent opportunity to tell my story to the press, in excruciating detail. I'll be sure to focus on the felonies I saw committed while I was there too.
The "auto update" feature of the Mac App Store is the thing I hate the most about it. The fact that you have to open the App Store program in order to check for updates is a step backwards.
How exactly does this compete with the MAS? There have been online stores for downloads for ages. Is there a "store app" to download or something? Otherwise this seems like a nonsense article. The entire point if the MAS is that it's an app on your computer that gives you easy access to apps. The whole web browser thing is old news.
People hung up on profit margins need to realize that the purpose of a business is to make money. How much is not OUR decision.
Just don't buy a product if you don't see its value.
Here is an example of what goes on within the highly overpriced department stores:
Perfume
$ 100.00 Retail
$ 60.00 Wholesale to department store
-----------
$ 40.00 Department stores gros margin.
They have rent, personnel, advertising and and and
Manufacturers side:
Cost of goods, factory and office overhead, commision to sales person, national advertising, testers, samples, co-op advertising local market, push money (goes to sales girls) gifts with purchase, anticipated costs of returns and the line goes on and on.
Anybody who sees a number claimed to be a distributors "cut or "profit" needs to get off their couch and check out how businesses work.
I make my living making Apps that I sell exclusively thru the appstore. Apple takes their cut and I don't have a beef with the %30. In fact, I havent' ever seen any significant complaints from developers about this. It seems only freetard types get all upset about it.
The reality is, before Apple, it cost a whole lot more and you got a much smaller cut of revenue to sell into the mobile market-- if you even could get them to allow you to, which was hard to do if you weren't already a big company.
Apple delivers more than enough value to cover their %30, and I've not lost a minute's sleep over it. People who are developing their own content as a real business, know the value that apple provides and are happy to pay it.
Also, remember, Apple only takes %30 and pays well and regularly.
Amazon? For their android stor they take up to %70, AND they get to dictate what price the app sells for. You want to sell it for $9.99 but Amazon wants to run a special to bring in new customers? They get to have a sale on your app, and you get paid only $0.70! That's a whole lot worse than the guaranteed %70 apple pays you.
This is the case for Android apps and kindle books. I've not looked at the terms for their mac store, but I bet they are the same.
Amazon? For their android stor they take up to %70, AND they get to dictate what price the app sells for. You want to sell it for $9.99 but Amazon wants to run a special to bring in new customers? They get to have a sale on your app, and you get paid only $0.70! That's a whole lot worse than the guaranteed %70 apple pays you.
This is the case for Android apps and kindle books. I've not looked at the terms for their mac store, but I bet they are the same.
No. They are not. They are paying large fees for distribution to Akamai and others.
Incorrect. Previously there was no central place to check for app updates, so it's a step forwards. However, I do believe that one of the first changes they'll make to the store is a background update checker. Perhaps it'll be a part of Lion.
This can only be good for software developers, and as a consequence for Apple's hardware sales. The more software available, the better. And since so so many people complained about the 30% "Apple tax", I bet Amazon will give 100% of the purchase price to the developer.
Amazon will take their cut, don't be foolish.
But I'd bet it's cheaper in the Mac App Store than Amazon due to the direct integration as an OS Application makes for easier browsing and sales
Because it becomes a major PITA to keep your software running from machine to machine, and from OS to OS.
You never get updates.
you have to remember the serial number.
and in a few years when amazon abandons this business (which odds are they will*) you're SOL.
* Amazon loves to announce things like this. They do it all the time, anything that is "hot" they get into. They dabble for a few years, put out a half assed product, and if it doesn't take off immediately, they reassign the team to soemthing else. Then the service just goes stale and becomes inceasingly non-functional until they shut it down. Amazon has started a search engine- several times, used to provide magazines, catalogs, menus, movie times, maps to compete with google maps, etc. etc.
Every time Jeff Bezos has a fever dream they jump into a new market. Some of them work and they stick around, like AWS (which, by the way, never ran on amazon infrastructure, contrary to the lies they told when they launched it) ... but the ones that don't just get abandoned when Jeff goes on to some other new hot thing.
Apple is careful to introduce new products, and they tend to do so in a way that they can support for a very long time.
Umm, you do know that Apple uses Amazon's servers, right? Amazon has some of the most reliable servers on the planet..
This can only be good for software developers, and as a consequence for Apple's hardware sales. The more software available, the better. And since so so many people complained about the 30% "Apple tax", I bet Amazon will give 100% of the purchase price to the developer.
Typically, Amazon TAKES %70 as their Cut.
PS: using the phrase "apple tax" invokes my prejudice that causes me to assume you know nothing.. it reminds me of the people who think macs are overpriced and who think %30 is a large cut.
I think you're confusing Akamai.
Amazon does NOT have "most reliable servers." Amazon's systems are completely half assed. I know this because I have watched the store go down... regularly. Everyone in the company knows when it happens and it happens more often than you think. Something like once every other day, and more often than not, a major part of the store is down or at reduced functionality for hours at a time.
Further, I guess you didn't hear about the major outage of AWS that took out most of the silicon valley startups a few weeks back.... took days to get back on line, and some of those businesses never recovered.
The outage was purely due to incompetent design on Amazon's part, in fact.
Between the App Store, Steam, MacGameStore and now Amazon, I’m really liking my options as a Mac gamer! Of the above, the Mac App Store certainly works the best, but having options is good. More selection, more price-shopping, more competition.
Much the same way I prefer to buy music from iTunes (MP4 format) than from Amazon (MP3 format), but if Amazon has a great deal, or an album Apple doesn’t, I’ll gladly buy from Amazon too.
Much the same way I prefer to buy music from iTunes (MP4 format) than from Amazon (MP3 format), but if Amazon has a great deal, or an album Apple doesn’t, I’ll gladly buy from Amazon too.
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I'll bet that Amazon does not impose thugery about the code base like Apple does.
I'll bet that Amazon does not impose thugery about the code base like Apple does.