Apple Begins Accepting Mac App Store Submissions

[0815]

Price fixing by Apple? Not allowing the creator to do as he/she likes with their product.

The creators of the product can do with it whatever they want. Nobody is forced to use the MacStore to distribute the Application. It is your choice how you want to distribute. But if you choose any distribution model, you have to play by the rules of that model. It is not uncommon that distributors/retailers set rules like this. You don't like the rules - choose another way to distribute, luckily there are options.

 

[dgree03]

You can sell it outside of the MacStore, but not for cheaper than in the MacStore.

It is your choice:

- if you choose to take advantage of the MacStore infrastructure offered to you by apple, you can use it, in return you are not allowed to sell the app otherwhere for cheaper

- if you want to pay yourself to setup the infrastructure for selling, downloading, payment, update mechanism, review system, ... etc you can choose to do so and sell it for whatever you want.

LOL. This is ridiculous.

That would be like walmart telling me that I cannot sell my app at target at a lower price. LOL.

Also how much does amazon take when they sell a product like software?

 

[0815]

LOL. This is ridiculous.

That would be like walmart telling me that I cannot sell my app at target at a lower price. LOL.

Also how much does amazon take when they sell a product like software?

Interesting - I didn't know that I could sell my Applications through Walmart.

What does your contract with Wallmart say? How much of the sales price do they keep for stocking, displaying, handling the sales, ... etc ?


But get real: Retailers often have exclusive deals producers that products can't be sold anywhere else. Producers that don't like it don't sign these kinds of contracts. They can sell it somewhere else or sell it thorough that same retailer with a less favorable deals. Selling prices are often set in contracts and they often have a clause that you cant sell them somewhere else and you get in return some service (e.g. favorable placement of product).

so yes if you have a contract with Wallmart to sell your Application - they might (depending on the contract you signed) that you can't sell them for cheaper at target.

 

[Piggie]

I still don't like it, sorry.

Apple make an App store, you may not want to be part of it, but because they have made this artificial store, you WILL loose business if you don't put your software onto it, are people may not look elsewhere in the future.

So you will almost be in the position of very small sales DUE TO the new app store.

But if you do go with this you have to give Apple 1/3rd of your sales, and you cannot sell elsewhere at a different price.

they are really locking people in.

It's like a free choice between staying out in the cold of coming in, but if you come in you stick to our strict rules, so in a way it's almost no choice.

It's going to be another controlling aspect coming from Apple.

The more Apple do things like this, the more and more I'm turned off with negative feelings towards the company which is a shame.

 

[dreamsburnred]

Hopefully the no trial restriction doesn't do too much damage.

 

[cmwade77]

I was surprised at the 30% split, but reading the posts from people who obviously know more about selling software, I'm really excited for this. There will be another Mac myth gone; the one about Macs having no software.

Imagine booting up your Mac for the first time and having access to a bunch of high quality apps sorted by category according to your needs. Don't forget the reviews, easy payment, and easy updates.. Many first-time Mac users don't know where to get apps for Macs and this will solve that. Pretty revolutionary if you ask me.

This will be the number one reason that this will be a success, as long as you can install programs from other methods as well, then companies can choose which way they want to distribute, but I think many will opt for the App Store, yes there are cheaper ways, but the advertising a lone will make it worthwhile.

But they must offer free trials of all software (14 day minimum).

 

[Piggie]

Remember though there's more to it than just numbers.

I hate to think how many more programs there are for the PC than there are for the Mac. 100x 1000x ?

But none of that matters. Just as the iPhone, iPad app store. How much of it is quality?

 

[heisetax]

My vote is against the Mac App Store

Apple does not need to get in & try their best to take over the Mac software distribution. We need to tell all of or software companies that we will not purchase their software through the Mac App Store.

 

[twoodcc]

this is good. hopefully the store opens before 90 days, with some nice apps at launch

 

[JustSomeDude]

Except the App Store could out compete independent developers. This would make the App Store basically the only place to get applications. It seems likely that one day it will be the only place.

I think this is unlikely. The Mac's situation is not analogous to iOS devices. Developers have to have a machine to develop on - the mac is the machine you are developing on and for, unlike the iPhone.

Although Xcode by itself might be sufficient for some percentage of developers, it really is not sufficient for many developers. This is not because of any faults with Xcode - developers just need a lot of flexibility and power that cannot be accounted for in one tool (or even several).

To keep a healthy environment for developers they're going have to the keep platform open - at least for developers(which a regular user with knowledge could access if became a developer only restriction, which I doubt).

 

[Bernard SG]

LOL. This is ridiculous.

That would be like walmart telling me that I cannot sell my app at target at a lower price. LOL.

Your argument is ridiculous. Walmart and Target decide the price they're going to sell your product, not you.

 

[jb1280]

Apple does not need to get in & try their best to take over the Mac software distribution. We need to tell all of or software companies that we will not purchase their software through the Mac App Store.

why should we do that? because there are such wonderful and perfect schemes in place to both distribute and find, purchase, download, and install mac software today?

If we take religion out of the question for just a second, can't we agree that, while not difficult, the current process of downloading a file, mounting the image, and installing the application could and should be much easier?

 

[Piggie]

Your argument is ridiculous. Walmart and Target decide the price they're going to sell your product, not you.

Unless you are Apple and you tell them what price they are going to charge consumers.

That's the stupid thing, Walmart, Target or anyone should buy stock from Apple then decide for their own store and infrastructure costs what price they are going to sell the item to the public for.

How any "consumer" can argue that a manufacturer price fixing items that stores can sell to the public is a good think I will never know.

For a manufacturer to price fix what a store can sell an item to, and not allow a store to decide for itself the level of profit it will take would be a recipe for disaster in the larger real world. Personally I think it should be illegal to do so.

 

[Mochi Hana]

As long as Apple doesn't eventually lock its users down into using only this store for Mac apps, I'm fine with with a Mac App store. I suppose it could be useful, especially for apps that one might not find otherwise.

 

[Bernard SG]

Unless you are Apple and you tell them what price they are going to charge consumers.

That's the stupid thing, Walmart, Target or anyone should buy stock from Apple then decide for their own store and infrastructure costs what price they are going to sell the item to the public for.

How any "consumer" can argue that a manufacturer price fixing items that stores can sell to the public is a good think I will never know.

For a manufacturer to price fix what a store can sell an item to, and not allow a store to decide for itself the level of profit it will take would be a recipe for disaster in the larger real world. Personally I think it should be illegal to do so.

Well, of course, there will always be a factor about who's got the leverage.
iPad (I believe that's what you're talking about) is in short supply. It's the outlets who want to offer it, rather than Apple being desperate to place it each and everywhere.
But I take your point as a valid one. However, we're talking about products that bear a lot of technicalities, especially guarantee, user support etc, you can't return a can of Coca Cola because the taste varies from what you expected.

 

[applefan69]

The same reason they sell software through Best Buy, Target, etc. That 30 percent gets you in front of a ton of eyes. Aside from Aspyr, I can't name another software developer off the top of my head that offers downloadable software for Mac. It's also similar to Amazon offering downloads of stuff like Norton Internet Security. I bought that for my mom's computer and saved $9 going through Amazon instead of Symantec for a download.

It's also much easier for the user to go through the Mac App Store, which will probably look just like the iTunes Store, instead of through X developer's website. It looks more trustworthy since Apple backs it.

I would like to know whether trials will be available, and if so, how will they be done?

Ideally apple should incorporate a trial system right into the OS. This way there doesnt need to be serial numbers anymore for 'demo' versions. I think there should be one version but two options: "Buy" "Try" . Simple,right? Apple likes simple...

Obviously "Buy" buy's but "Try" could result in maybe some ## hours trial. OR ## of times the Application is opened. In a perfect world the developer would get to choose the trial limits too.

 

[0815]

Unless you are Apple and you tell them what price they are going to charge consumers.

That's the stupid thing, Walmart, Target or anyone should buy stock from Apple then decide for their own store and infrastructure costs what price they are going to sell the item to the public for.

How any "consumer" can argue that a manufacturer price fixing items that stores can sell to the public is a good think I will never know.

For a manufacturer to price fix what a store can sell an item to, and not allow a store to decide for itself the level of profit it will take would be a recipe for disaster in the larger real world. Personally I think it should be illegal to do so.

Apple does not tell you for which price you should sell your software. You can open up your own shop or upload it to anywhere and sell it for whatever you want.

However if you want to use APPLE owned infrastructure they have every right to make the rules for it. You are not forced to use apple owned infrastructure. You can build your own, you can show around for alternatives. You have CHOICE.