Mac OS X Lion Set for Summer 2011 Debut, Mac App Store to Launch Within 90 Days

[Ivan P]

Did anyone notice how there was not one visible icon on the traditional desktop, IE: Macintosh HD, and not even one finder window??

Fresh installs of Snow Leopard have absolutely nothing on the desktop either, you have to open Finder's preferences and tell it to show hard drives on the desktop, so not even Macintosh HD will be visible unless the user does that. It's not something that they've only just done with Lion.

 

[pondosinatra]

Yeah that's false. There's nothing to imply that you couldn't organize windows exactly how you do on Snow Leopard.

I didn't say you couldn't. I just pointed out that instead of re-architecting the OS from scratch they just continue to throw new interfaces into the mix with each release and in some cases (Quicktime, iTunes) with each app upgrade. Sad really.

 

[cmaier]

I'm not impressed with any of the new additions, unless this update is $30, count me out. Paying $120+ for this update when I'm currently satisfied with SL is a nogo.

Right, because the stuff they showed yesterday is all they will change.

 

[pdpardue]

lion...

anyone else think that naming it lion signifies it's going to be the last of 10.x? The lion is the king right, can't really think of anything that could come after lion that would be 'better' than lion. Perhaps 11.0 is soon on it's way?

 

[repete7]

App Store is a great thing too. Soon, legal apps will be found as easily as cracked ones. if the prices go down as well (not at iOS level of course), I'm sure the cracked/legal apps ratio will go down on a lot of mac. MacUpdate won't like it though...

I'm sure MacUpdate won't like it because their business model is to sell programs at a discount...but I don't understand what you mean by "cracked." Everything I see on Macupdate is legal.

 

[cfountain72]

I think that the 70/30 revenue ratio for author/apple in the Mac Store is a huge down side. While the Mac App store certainly may bring newfound attention to an application which previously would not be as known to the public, Apple's goal is to get more Mac marketshare, and more profit from that. While the App store may give Apple profit from leeching off developer's apps, no other operating system has that...When Apple gets 30%, which is a big chunk of my money, it is discouraging not only for the developer but for the end user - especially a user like me with limited amounts of money - to purchase anything, because I know that the money is not going to who it deserves to be sent to.

You're young, but you seem smart. One thing to bear in mind is that this is essentially free marketing for developers and their software, and Apple only gets paid if you actually sell something (unless they start charging for the App submissions.) You will find in life that the cost of a product is almost never the sole determinant of its end price. When you buy a box of cereal from your local grocer, the grocer adds an amount that they feel is necessary to cover the cost of the store itself, along with employees, utilities, insurance, etc, etc. You are also paying an additional amount for the distributor who drives the cereal from Battle Creek, MI to the grocer's distrubution hub. So what you are basically saying is that you only want to pay Kellogg's for your cereal, and not everyone else in the chain that gets it to you.

Another example: if you ever try to sell your house, you will have the option of using an agent (and adding his/her commission to what you ask for your property), or try going at it alone. Doing it yourself can cost you less, but using an agent will invariably help put your home in front of more potential buyers.

It's not that dissimilar with the App Store. The Store has to be 'built.' They need Employees to staff it (customer service, app reviews, dba's, etc.) And, for 30% of your asking price, you get to put your software in front of a lot more potential buyers. Considering how difficult it can sometimes be to find Mac Software, this could definitely be a win/win for consumers and developers.

Peace be with you.

 

[monsieurpaul]

I'm sure MacUpdate won't like it because their business model is to sell programs at a discount...but I don't understand what you mean by "cracked." Everything I see on Macupdate is legal.

Of course, MacUpdate is legal. My point was that for Mac as for PC it is more easy to find cracked softwares on a few torrents or newsgroups sites that the legal ones scattered among hundreds of developer's websites.

 

[BobHail]

I hope that Lion will be pure 64-bit OS! No more 32-bit!!!

So all the developers can´t be lazy anymore and are forced to write 64-bit versions.

 

[Mr. Wonderful]

I hope that Lion will be pure 64-bit OS! No more 32-bit!!!

So all the developers can´t be lazy anymore and are forced to write 64-bit versions.

Better get Apple on that.

 

[repete7]

Of course, MacUpdate is legal. My point was that for Mac as for PC it is more easy to find cracked softwares on a few torrents or newsgroups sites that the legal ones scattered among hundreds of developer's websites.

I understand you now. I don't agree with your point because I've never used bit torrents and I've never had trouble finding legal software, but I understand what you mean.

 

[xm156]

Finding the Finder

Fresh installs of Snow Leopard have absolutely nothing on the desktop either, you have to open Finder's preferences and tell it to show hard drives on the desktop, so not even Macintosh HD will be visible unless the user does that. It's not something that they've only just done with Lion.

Yes, good point. I was less concerned about the lack of desktop icons, and more concerned with the fact that there was not one finder window shown in the demo.

The demo made me feel like we were leading in a direction where eventually you could see no finder windows, and only getting to apps by the iOS method of apps grid... does that make any sense?

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

My take on the Mac App Store?

Finally, we get an official package manager for OS X. Linux perfected the unified application management approach years ago, and we finally catch up.

You must be smoking something.

Linux never perfected anything. Their package managers SUCK. They are all incompatible with each other and various Linux distributions so the net effect is that authors have to pack their distributions for a dozen different popular distributions OR someone else has to do it for them. This is why you see separate "repository" sites for every freaking distribution out there with hundreds of people having to maintain them to keep up with the latest software. It's fracking ridiculous!!! Firefox comes out. Hold on, you can either install it the old fashioned way (maybe compile it too on some distributions) or WAIT until someone gets around to adding it to the repository (ironically, if you install the official binary yourself, it updates itself just like the Windows/OSX versions; but if you use package managers, you don't get automatic updates. You have to wait (sometimes weeks) to get a newer version. I won't even get into the situations where things like RPM fail to manage dependencies properly (sometimes it just fell apart for no discernible reason). Then Mandriva's automatic updates somehow missed something somewhere along the way one time and the whole package manager thing fell apart on me (this was just 1.5 years ago) and I had to install a new version from scratch. Linux sucks.

 

[jmor]

I really hope that they have some more killer features that they're waiting to show off, it looks okay but nothing particularly exciting unfortunately, although there is a lot of time.

 

[NJMetsHero]

That Mac App Store is a joke...

I mean sorry... What apps do you expect to get there? Whatever company is developing "real" applications for the mac wont give away 30% just for having the application placed in the app store so its easier to download and install it.

Maybe developers like the guys from Delicious Library will just put a free app into the app store which is nothing more than a link to the website where you can download the full application the usual way with one click :-D

Wanna bet? The increased number of app downloads is going to make up for that 30% really quick for a lot of app developers. They don't have to pay to host or credit card fees. If this model works on iOS, it'll work on the Mac too.

 

[QuarterSwede]

Wanna bet? The increased number of app downloads is going to make up for that 30% really quick for a lot of app developers. They don't have to pay to host or credit card fees. If this model works on iOS, it'll work on the Mac too.

Agreed. I also understand that if a dev wants to go through any other publisher the split is in the 20s anyway so its not that far off to be in a store that the average joe will definitely go to.

 

[psalazarc]

Uhmm the Mac App Store worries me...

At least it seems that they are indeed tweaking the GUI a little bit.
Appart front the trafic lights, you'll se that in the OSX Lion landing page,
the App Store has no apparent scrollbars (aqua).
This could kind of confirm the iOS like scrollbars, which to be honest isn't
really surprising.

But I should wait an see how it turns out. I don't want to make a judgment without seeing the final product.

 

[tigress666]

Honestly, I really like the idea of the app store for mac. There are a lot of plusses.

Yes, I'll be screaming bloody murder if Apple decides that they only will sell software through the app store (mainly cause I don't see MS or Adobe selling their software that way and without some of those main companies making software for the mac, it will kill the computer as a computer is useless without software and the mac not running the main/popular programs would really kill the market for Macs).

But, as long as they don't there are a lot of good things. I can buy software from small companies without worrying about if they are valid or not or where my credit card info is going (always feels a bit iffy buying from an online company I've never heard of). I can easily look through catagories when I'm looking for a certain thing and see what is available. There will be reviews I know aren't picked and chosen by the company trying to sell the software plus with more target audience going in one spot, more reviews will happen. Plus, being on a tight budget, I'd be all for free apps that were paid by iAds (or something like that). I don't mind viewing a few ads in turn for having a useful app I don't have to pay for myself (Well as long as the ads only show up when I have the program open).

From a consumer point it's a great idea. I can't say from a developer cause I'm not one.

 

[Mal]

Gotta say, though, one thing I hope they allow companies to do directly through the app store is demo versions. I suppose if they support the same type of in-app purchases as on iOS, that'll be one easy way to do it, but considering that there is no mechanism currently for a time-limited demo on iOS apps, but that's common in the Mac world, I hope they'll support that. Maybe it won't matter because the way the apps are made won't change, but I'd hate to have to download a demo version outside the app store and then go buy the full version from the app store.

jW

 

[LPPU]

I have a question. I bought my Macbook at Best Buy in January of this year. It's the white 13 inch model. It has Snow Leopard on it. When Lion comes out, are they going to discontinue providing updates for Snow Leopard, such as security updates?

 

[Mal]

I have a question. I bought my Macbook at Best Buy in January of this year. It's the white 13 inch model. It has Snow Leopard on it. When Lion comes out, are they going to discontinue providing updates for Snow Leopard, such as security updates?

Apple's policy has been to support the current and previous versions of the OS. Snow Leopard should continue to receive security updates and bug fixes, until the new OS after Lion is available.

Of course, that depends on their policy remaining the same, but I doubt there's much chance of that changing.

jW

 

[Adey]

Gotta say, though, one thing I hope they allow companies to do directly through the app store is demo versions. I suppose if they support the same type of in-app purchases as on iOS, that'll be one easy way to do it, but considering that there is no mechanism currently for a time-limited demo on iOS apps, but that's common in the Mac world, I hope they'll support that. Maybe it won't matter because the way the apps are made won't change, but I'd hate to have to download a demo version outside the app store and then go buy the full version from the app store.

jW

Perhaps what we'll see (hopefully) will be akin to the "download sample" in iBooks or "Lite" versions on the App Store. Perhaps the Lite (demo) versions will be what we get in some Demo versions now - not so much time limited (though that's still possible) but more "Save Disabled" or lacking some features?

 

[twoodcc]

for some reason it seems to me that apple is kinda throwing 10.7 together almost. it's like they didn't have many good ideas for it, so took some from the iPad in the last few months, and threw it together for preview

 

[xshawn117x]

I like Mission Control A LOT and I like that they're going fullscreen. (And for the record, no... this isn't the same as "maximize." It's about having apps have interfaces designed specifically for fullscreen.)

And... one more thing:

THIS IS NOT THE SAME AS CONVERGING iOS AND OS X!

Man that sucks...I can't stand the Mac OS X way of making windows bigger. I wished they had the maximize feature just like in M$ Windows or GNU/Linux distros.

They also silently updated the MacBook Pro... the i7 is now maxed out at 2.8ghz... this is really wrecking havoc on my purchasing decisions!

I know, right?

 

[xshawn117x]

My take on the Mac App Store?

Finally, we get an official package manager for OS X. Linux perfected the unified application management approach years ago, and we finally catch up.

I imagine the likes of Microsoft and Adobe will want to negotiate on those profit splits, but for the smaller-time and indie guys I think this could be a good deal. Having all my OS X apps be managed and updated through a single, clean interface makes me think happy thoughts.

Wait...are you saying that the Mac App Store is a package manager?

 

[faroZ06]

Full Screen - Great! Now the green button has a real use that is easy to understand. A lot of apps will make great use of it.

Launch Pad - Great! Now I don't have to open Finder and scroll through a huge list of apps to find that one app I rarely have to use and don't put in my dock. I do hope they change the way folders look.

Mac App Store - Fantastic! I central place to get applications is something that computers have been needing for a long time. Now I don't have to Google them to try and find the official Website, it's down-right stupid simple to download and install, updates are just as easy, and hopefully they take on the same prices that the iPhone App Store gets.

Mission Control - Great! Just yesterday I was using Expose with a PDF with huge screenshots of a Website with instructions, and it was difficult to tell which window was Safari and which was Preview. Now they have the app icon floating above them, so that solves that problem.

Hooray Lion! I can't wait to see what else Apple brings to it. *crosses fingers for tabbed Finder*

I agree. The app store is like the one in Linux (which rocks). You can just go there and hit download on everything that's free . It makes it easier to not only get free stuff but to get shareware too. If I actually want to pay for shareware (don't hold your breath) it's really annoying to do the whole Paypal transfer and whatever. Once, I bought Marble Blast, and they never gave me the stupid serial, and I told them and they still wouldn't give it to me. So for now I just redownload when trials expire