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Amazon's New Mac Download Store Takes On Apple's Mac App Store

ZOMG! Competition is good for us! I'm so original I came up with that! Yay I love competition! <3<3<3 I'm soooo original for saying this! Yay! /sarcasm

Sometimes competition can be good but geeze people, come up with something worthy to post.
 
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us only

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Looks like at least the "game" part of the store is US only...
 
mingoglia said:
If you think it takes 30% of the profit of apps to pay for the overhead of the appstore and that Apple isn't making a healthy profit you're either in denial or you're drinking the Kool Aid.
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Why don't you try and run the numbers yourself? This really just depends on what you consider a healthy profit. The App Store is currently a negligible percentage of Apple's profits.

Just for a round number, let's say they paid out $1 billion in 2010. That means Apple's share of the revenue was about $425 million. That's about 0.7% of their annual revenue. Even if you were to assume that every penny was profit, you are only talking about 3% of their annual profits. But of course, Apple actually does have expenses including transaction fees, marketing, and overhead, and more.

Say Apple has a great deal with credit card companies and only pays 2%. That's $28.5 million. Is it really that hard to imagine that Apple put $400 million into the App Store last year?
 
rjohnstone said:
The only way Apple can do that is to make OS X only install apps with a digital signature from the Mac App Store.
Basically turn it into iOS.

That would pretty much put Lion in the trash heap for anyone with half a brain.
No one in their right mind would want to intentionally lock themselves out the ability to install apps form other sources.
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One approach I thought of would be to have a "secure" side of OS X that only digitally signed apps from the App store can run in and the other side would be a sand boxed system that you can install whatever you want. The "secure" side would include all the system software, Mail, Safari, etc..
 
maclaptop said:
I'll happily give some of my money to Amazon, they have good karma.

The absence of angry "Sue Everyone" mentality from Amazon is refreshing. :)
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amazon doesn't really have patents that they need to protect. Part of having patents is protecting your IP's.
 
USA Only & a box costs 1/2 as much as the download

USA only, but that's to be expected - it'll gradually go international I'm sure.

Seems the Call of Duty 4 box ($25) is 1/2 the cost of the download version ($50).
 
maclaptop said:
I'll happily give some of my money to Amazon, they have good karma.

The absence of angry "Sue Everyone" mentality from Amazon is refreshing. :)
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Evidently, you just don't visit amazonrumors.com. Amazon appears to me to file more lawsuits than Apple. It just seems like Apple is sue happy because they are sued so often. They are the most sued company in tech the last 3 years or so.
 
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chrono1081 said:
ZOMG! Competition is good for us! I'm so original I came up with that! Yay I love competition! <3<3<3 I'm soooo original for saying this! Yay! /sarcasm

Sometimes competition can be good but geeze people, come up with something worthy to post.
Click to expand...

Like this?
 
AppleScruff1 said:
Like this?
Click to expand...

OMG! You started a recursive loop of unoriginality! You fool! You doomed us all!

On a more serious note, we need a filter that turns the "competition good" mantra into "cluck cluck cluck cluck" or something more interesting.


xxBURT0Nxx said:
amazon doesn't really have patents that they need to protect. Part of having patents is protecting your IP's.
Click to expand...

*coughOneClickPurchasingcough*
 
NAG said:
OMG! You started a recursive loop of unoriginality! You fool! You doomed us all!

On a more serious note, we need a filter that turns the "competition good" mantra into "cluck cluck cluck cluck" or something more interesting.
Click to expand...

Now you're making me feel guilty. I ruined the forum. :D
 
What's Not To Like?

The competition is good and their offerings complement what the Mac App store offers.

A win win for Mac owners.....

Oh...and "cluck cluck cluck...bawhCack!!!"
 
wackymacky said:
Works in New Zealand, and the prices for some things are cheaper than from Apple (I guess on the basis they both calculate exchanges rates!)
Click to expand...

You sure about this? Everything I clicked on has this little note in the product description (you have to scroll down a bit to see it):

"Currently, this item is available only to customers located in the United States and who have a U.S. billing address."
 
macsmurf said:
I don't get the subscription fee either. I wouldn't mind doing a couple of small apps for my own benefit, at least at first, but I'll be damned if I'm going to pay Apple $100 a year for the privilege. Having to program in Obj-C should be a high enough price in itself. Come to think of it, they should be paying me :D

I think Apple are missing out on a lot of potential developers down the line because of the ($100) subscription fee.
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I'm sure you are correct, however those potential developers are still dealing with puberty. It's a low bar to jump however it does keep the kiddies out from underfoot.
 
GFLPraxis said:
If it's on the Mac App Store, you can't sell it anywhere else for a lower price.
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I think you have it backwards. This stipulation is actually part of the terms for Amazon's new store, which is one of the reasons why most indie Mac developers (including myself) refuse to do business with them — despite having gotten pitched by Amazon repeatedly over the last few months. So don't be surprised by the fact that there's hardly any Mac shareware on Amazon's store.

(Think about it: if you signed terms like these, you couldn't even sell your app as part of a bundle without adjusting the Amazon wholesale price accordingly.)

Now, as for Apple's Mac App Store, which page of Mac_Schedule_2.pdf is this requirement on? I just skimmed that document once more, and I can't find it.
 
Peter Maurer said:
Now, as for Apple's Mac App Store, which page of Mac_Schedule_2.pdf is this requirement on? I just skimmed that document once more, and I can't find it.
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I think they are confusing this with Apple's in-app publication subscription terms, which I believe prohibits the selling of subscriptions for lesser prices outside of the in-app purchase model.

-mpm
 
dscuber9000 said:
How does this handle updates?
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econgeek said:
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.
Click to expand...

That's not quite correct :) All Feral games bought from any online store from Amazon to Direct2Drive use the same Feral DRM and updates system (apart from AppStore which uses Apple's system). We do this so no matter where you like to buy your games you always get the same and consistent experience.

This means your purchase (and all updates) will keep working regardless of what happens in the future with the digital store you bought the game from originally.

Our DRM allows you register up to personal 5 machines at any one time and you can deactivate and reactive as many times as you like. The game NEVER "phones home" and you only need to activate online once the first time you play the game. If you buy a DVD version you can just use the DVD in the drive (like a console) instead of registering online if you don't like the idea of online activation, however you can remove the need for the DVD at any time by clicking on activate online button.

Edwin
 
ArtOfWarfare said:
Who realistically complains about Apple's 30%? They aren't making a profit from that 30%, that's what it cost them to buy the hardware and pay the employees to keep the app store running.
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I just love the way how you rabbit on. Like you haven't just made all of this up!
 
shokunin said:
I don't trust amazon.com at all. They deleted one of my accounts, long time customer 10+ years, over 120 orders on the account and they deleted it because I had 4 returns over the past 12 months. They only restored it after much complaining, and the fact that I had gift certificate balance that is illegal to just "wipe" out. With that wipe-out all the past orders, receipts, everything would be gone.

I wouldn't trust them with my serials or receipt of software.
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I had way more than 4 returns in the past 12 months, including THREE macbook pro exchanges due to problems with the machine. I am a prime member, however, and purchase a ton of stuff from Amazon. So I don't know if that is related. I do love Amazon's amazing service, however, I hope they don't become weird suddenly and cancel my account like they did to you.
 
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