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No In App Purchases or Game Center for Mac App Store

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Apr 12, 2001
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Apple yesterday announced the publication of an updated version of its iTunes Connect Developer Guide (PDF), offering new information on policies and procedures for developers looking to have their applications featured in Apple's iOS App Store and forthcoming Mac App Store.

A number of details about the features supported (or not supported) for Mac App Store applications have surfaced in recent weeks, including a lack of support for demo and trial versions or promo codes, and as noted by 9 to 5 Mac, the new iTunes Connect Developer Guide further reveals that such iOS features as in app purchases and Game Center are not supported for Mac App Store applications. The guide also notes that customer reviews for Mac App Store apps are not available "at this time", although that distinction may simply be because the store has not yet opened for business.

While Apple could eventually choose to add support for these features in the Mac App Store, they do not appear to be making the cut for the store's debut, which is reportedly still on track for next month. Consequently, it is unknown whether Apple is limiting the features because it has no intention of ever supporting them or if it simply is choosing to prioritize the initial offerings in order to get the Mac App Store up and running as quickly as possible.

Article Link: No In App Purchases or Game Center for Mac App Store
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2010/12/10/no-in-app-purchases-or-game-center-for-mac-app-store/
Sounds like it's gonna be really strict to me. So Steam couldn't be in the App Store because you can buy things within the app? Makes no sense to me.

Or do they mean you can't buy things and it charges your App Store account?
 
ghostlyorb said:
Sounds like it's gonna be really strict to me. So Steam couldn't be in the App Store because you can buy things within the app? Makes no sense to me.

Or do they mean you can't buy things and it charges your App Store account?
Click to expand...

I am thinking that it wont support buying stuff from within the app and then those charges would be billed to your app store account. That is the only thing that makes sense to me. Apple will provide you the access to purchase the app but then wont tie your app store account to another dev's program.
 
Sounds better

Thanks goodness. At least for now the Mac App store won't be littered with crappy 99 cent games.
 
MacRumors said:
Consequently, it is unknown whether Apple is limiting the features because it has no intention of ever supporting them or if it simply is choosing to prioritize the initial offerings in order to get the Mac App Store up and running as quickly as possible.
Click to expand...
There's a third possibility: they haven't decided yet whether to offer these features.
 
Seems like they’re starting small (in terms of feature list) which is probably for the best.

The main thing I’d want is simply easy purchasing/downloading (like iPhone or Steam) but I’m sure other capabilities will come in time.
 
What have I missed?

When did Apple ever promise Game Center for Mac?
 
good start

Apple will adjust little later, they just need to start asap, because Google is already starting with their Chrome Store.

Game Center makes sense because playing the same game on iPhone, iPad and now on Mac will have advantages from touch to mouse controlled.
 
Game Center is just a bigger project. There needs to be a supporting Mac app for logging in and tracking achievements and time to test, etc. It's also not as straight forward how to integrate into Mac Apps as far as interface goes.

It will come. There are too many great uses for it and virtually no downsides.

In-app purchasing will come, too, but I bet there is some concern about it being hacked. It's a bit trickier when on a full operating system. Once implemented, however, in-app purchasing is a better deal for Apple. Still 70/30 split, but the dev has to handle the downloads.
 
If true, Apple is again making surprising mistakes

Unfortunately, Apple is again hurting the quality of its app store by not allowing demo versions. This is wonderful only for developers with poorly working software that sounds good from its description and screen shots. The iPhone app store is littered with examples of applications that sell well but don't work, and it is hurting the entire iPhone ecosystem. And, No, lite version are not a solution.

It would be so easy to allow downloads of a demo version, which would allow a user to check basic functionality and interface. This would increase sales by giving users far more positive buying experiences and confidence in the app store. Why doesn't Apple do this? The 24-hour return policy on the Android store is also unfair to developers, but adding demo versions would be such an easy way to create a superior store.

If it allows demos, Apple should only allow reviews to be submitted by those who choose to purchase the software, as otherwise those using the demo will often try to drive down the price with complaints (seen in early days of the app store when anyone could submit reviews).
 
I would hate to see in-app purchases allowed in applications on the Mac. It opens you up to unauthorized charges then trying to fight against it when apps can go off on their own and run up charges.
 
Game Center can thrive on iOS devices ad I hope to see a lot of progress on that, but Valva's Steam is better for desktop gaming. No need to compete with them.
 
old-wiz said:
I would hate to see in-app purchases allowed in applications on the Mac. It opens you up to unauthorized charges then trying to fight against it when apps can go off on their own and run up charges.
Click to expand...

In-app purchases are already allowed in applications on the Mac. The only news here is that developers won't be able to use the Apple ID version that Apple offers.
 
jaw04005 said:
My prediction is Game Center will come with 10.7 Lion.
Click to expand...

I think a lot of the features will come with lion and be lion specific so they can build in os specific tools to handle them. Hopefully lion has far better file sync'ing which would then reduce the bandwidth needed for in app purchase and updates on large programmes.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; de-de) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7)

sooo why should any software company bother to make their software apple "friendly" plus sharing the profit if they could just release in on their own website without any guidelines to follow. dont see te appeal for big companies at least
 
bushido said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; de-de) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7)

sooo why should any software company bother to make their software apple "friendly" plus sharing the profit if they could just release in on their own website without any guidelines to follow. dont see te appeal for big companies at least
Click to expand...

Because most Mac users don't go around looking for software on sites, but they'd find it on this App Store, meaning more potential sales. And people like us can still buy it from their site if we choose.
 
bushido said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; de-de) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7)

sooo why should any software company bother to make their software apple "friendly" plus sharing the profit if they could just release in on their own website without any guidelines to follow. dont see te appeal for big companies at least
Click to expand...

Yeah. :rolleyes:
 
Sambo110 said:
Because most Mac users don't go around looking for software on sites, but they'd find it on this App Store, meaning more potential sales. And people like us can still buy it from their site if we choose.
Click to expand...

I agree completely. If you look at any non-technical Mac user they most likely don't even know about the concept of downloading apps from the internet with a browser. In their minds an "app store" is where you get apps.
 
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