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The Mac App Store and planned obsolencence

talmy

talmy

macrumors 601
Original poster
Oct 26, 2009
4,729
340
Oregon
Don't rely on the MAS to download the same app in the future -- you may be hit be obsolescence with your system! Save the downloaded app just like you would save distribution CDs/DVDs!

In January 2011 I bought iMovie 11 in the Mac App Store. This was back in the Snow Leopard days, of course. While my major systems are all Lion now, and have been upgraded, I decided to install iMovie 11 on an older Mac mini with Snow Leopard. I can no longer do it! iMovie has since been "upgraded" and no longer will work on Snow Leopard. I can't download the old version from the store. Looks like the same would be true for iPhoto bought at that time, if I had done so.

I can find nothing in the Terms of Service about purchased products becoming obsolete like this, and am writing Apple.

Edited to add -- I bought a MBP a few months ago which came with iLife11, of course through the MAS. The store now shows iMovie 11 purchased in March 2012 instead of January 2011. That might be the root of the problem. I'll see what Apple says.
 
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That's a good tip, and I hope I can remember it in the future. I still have installations of iLife '11 on mine and they were from disc, so I am good on that front.
 
That's been my concern all a long. What happens if I bought an app and then its gets pulled from the app store (it happens often enough on the iOS app store).

MAS offers some nice advantages but I generally look to the developers site to purchase the app before I go to the MAS.
 
And Apple's reply (in part):
Apple is not response for the loss of any purchases or the loss of the ability to update an older app version. We encourage customers to back up their hard disks regularly. If an item needs to be replaced, you can restore your purchases from the backup and avoid the need to purchase replacement copies of titles from your collection. That is why we strongly recommend customers back up their purchases on a regular basis.
Click to expand...

So there you go. They want you to rely on "the cloud" and then again, then tell you to make your own backups!
 
That's disappointing, they should have built in the ability to purchase older compatible versions into the MAS.
 
Okay, but...

Aren't most the apps cheap enough to buy again, anyway?

Not saying I disagree with your overall point, but now that something like Pages is $20 instead of part of a much pricier bundle, purchasing a newer version doesn't seem all that terrible.

But more to your point, the idea that we can't buy older versions for older computers is pretty crappy.

I'm treating everything I buy as a license. Cheaper price, but I have no ability to transfer that license. Lame, but it's helped me not lose stuff.
 
26139 said:
Aren't most the apps cheap enough to buy again, anyway?
Click to expand...

The point is that it isn't the issue with buying the app. But upgrades to the apps that obsolete your computers. If you have a computer today with Snow Leopard on it, and the app gets updated to support Lion, you can no longer upgrade that app or even re-install it. Yes, this seems to be a bit of an issue. My work machine has Snow Leopard on it, not Lion because, well, because. My home machine has Lion on it. I have an app that i use on both machines, but with the recent upgrade to the app it requires Lion. Thus if I wanted to re-install on my work computer, I can't. There is no way to say, reinstall version x. Thus this can obsolete your machines!

Say you have a MBP (like mine, C2Duo 2.2GHz, 8600M GT 128MB), it's quite old. If, let's say, Mountain Lion is unsupported, I'm stuck with Lion. But now I use iWork all the time. If I had to reinstall, I'd be stuck because I can't. Software obsoleting Hardware.
 
Have never used MAS, will not ever use MAS, have always backed up downloads before installing - along with frequent HD backups, just in case I screw something up on installation.

When MAS came out, I had a feeing that corralling would be the order of the day - IOS gave me the clue.
 
talmy said:
So there you go. They want you to rely on "the cloud" and then again, then tell you to make your own backups!
Click to expand...

And anyone who doesn't make backups either has nothing of any value on their computer, or is an idiot.
 
OllyW said:
Out of interest, how do you back up the installation files from the Mac App Store so you can reinstall the app in the future?
Click to expand...

Mac App Store applications are self-contained. Backing up the .app in the Applications folder is all you need to do. If they place any content anywhere else it does it after the first time it's been run, and will do it again from the .app if necessary.

jW
 
talmy said:
...They want you to rely on "the cloud" and then again, then tell you to make your own backups!
Click to expand...
Please.

Apple wants you to "use" iCloud, not "rely" on the cloud, and they created it as a service with the goal of making portability easier. It can also be used as one component of your backup strategy, but that was not the goal; that is just a side benefit. Never did they imply that a single copy in "the cloud" should be your sole backup strategy, nor did they imply that making local backups should be. Users should probably be doing both of those things, at a minimum.

You benefit from having iCloud available primarily as an aid to portability and secondarily as one more component of a sound backup strategy, and they benefit because it makes the Apple ecosystem more attractive and harder to stray from. Win win. They didn't sink 100's of millions into cutting-edge data centers just for their health, even if the services it provides are mostly free of charge to Apple customers.

And they don't "tell" you to do anything. They "suggest" that you have a sound backup strategy, which has been good advice since day 1, and advice given regularly by, well, everybody.

There is no conflict here in what their positions are on these two separate subjects, and there is no hypocrisy in it either. They are clear in what iCloud is there for and there is no intended obfuscation regarding why they offer it. While is is a completely different subject, that can be said about their recommendations for a backup strategy as well.

Trying to connect that Apple's position regarding the cloud and their position regarding backup strategy are somehow in opposition to each other is ludicrous; its apples and oranges, not to mention completely incorrect.

Let's all take off our tinfoil hats and stop pretending their positions regarding either subject might be conspiratorial, and unless we are 5-year-olds, lets stop scraping the bottom of the barrel for reasons to moan about it.
 
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TyroneShoes2 said:
Please.

Apple wants you to "use" iCloud, not "rely" on the cloud, and they created it as a service with the goal of making portability easier. It can also be used as one component of your backup strategy, but that was not the goal; that is just a side benefit. Never did they imply that a single copy in "the cloud" should be your sole backup strategy. You benefit from having it available primarily as an aid to portability and secondarily as one more component of a sound backup strategy, and they benefit because it makes the Apple ecosystem more attractive and harder to stray from. Win win.

And they don't "tell" you to do anything. They "suggest" that you have a sound backup strategy, which has been good advice since day 1, and advice given regularly by, well, everybody.

There is no conflict here in what their positions are on these two separate subjects, and there is no hypocrisy in it either. They are clear in what iCloud is there for and there is no intended obfuscation regarding why they offer it. While is is a completely different subject, that can be said about their recommendations for a backup strategy as well.

Trying to connect that Apple's position regarding the cloud and their position regarding backup strategy are somehow in opposition to each other is ludicrous; its apples and oranges, not to mention completely incorrect.

Let's all take off our tinfoil hats and stop pretending their positions regarding either subject might be conspiratorial, and unless we are 5-year-olds, lets stop scraping the bottom of the barrel for reasons to moan about it.
Click to expand...

Rly? I think these guys have a legitimate point to make here. While there are certain advantages of having the MAS, it definitely has limitations and problems that are not present when you own a physical disc. Your attempt to play with terminology shows that you are not really reading the posts before commenting.
 
I keep backups, but backups aren't really the issue here. I've got multiple computers. I bought iMovie '11 in January 2011 when only Snow Leopard was out and installed it on two of my computers. When Lion came out I upgraded those computers to Lion. Somewhere along the line there was an iMovie upgrade that caused the app to become Lion only. If I had know that was the case (and they certainly didn't tell me!) I could have easily archived a copy.

Now 18 months later I wanted to install iMovie '11 on an additional computer that is still running Snow Leopard and find out that iMovie '11 will no longer run on that system.

Now let's look at the current crop of computers. You get no media, and are told of no way to create media, and they have implicitly promised to restore your OS and applications from the cloud. What faith is there, really, that you will be able to do this another 18 months down the line when we've not only moved to Mountain Lion, but the next OS version beyond that, 10.9, and all the current application downloads are 10.9 only?

But as I said originally. Be sure to back up every application you buy! And create disk images for all the OS X installs as well.
 
talmy said:
Now let's look at the current crop of computers. You get no media, and are told of no way to create media, and they have implicitly promised to restore your OS and applications from the cloud.
Click to expand...

To which the answer is what you - and Apple - been saying: back up soon and often - and if you're the sort of person who is likely to replace a faulty hard drive, go to the extra trouble of making a bootable backup.

I agree that (a) Apple should make it easier to make an OS restore disc (the unofficial method is well documented, but not by Apple, and AFAIK relies on you having downloaded Lion from the App Store) and (b) it is too soon for them to start pulling Snow Leopard compatible Apps from the store.

However, let's put this in context:

Most big-box PC manufacturers have been going down the 'no restore media' route for some time, in favour of 'restore partitions' although they do tend to give you the option of burning DVDs.

Non-Apple software, even when supplied on disc, often features 'software activation' so if the publisher has dropped support, or their computer decides that you're trying to break the license, your DVD is just a drinks coaster. The version on the DVD is usually out-of-date by the time you get it anyway, and needs to download updates and patches, so again if the publisher has dropped support you're hosed. Sometimes those patches include critical security updates, and by the time you've connected to the internet to download the patch, you're infected (this has actually happened to me with Windows XP).

Often on PC, you can't restore individual applications from a backup without major hacking, because the installer scatters files and registry settings far and wide across the system drive - you either have to restire the whole system drive or re-install the application from the media (see "software activation" above) - Mac Apps do tend to be self contained, but not always (*cough* Adobe CS *cough*).

...and if you don't have your media (or if the DVD has failed) it is often hard to find older versions of software for sale.

So, on the positive side, the App store has some benefits: you *can* backup your apps, they've enforced the self-contained principle, there's a reasonable license that covers all your Macs and the DRM is much less intrusive than most "activation" systems. They've also put a heavy downward pressure on the cost of software.

I confess that I'd be worried about buying 'big ticket' software costing $$$ though the App store, though. Its also a pain if you want to get, say, half-a-dozen colleagues set up with a particular App.
 
Mal said:
Mac App Store applications are self-contained. Backing up the .app in the Applications folder is all you need to do. If they place any content anywhere else it does it after the first time it's been run, and will do it again from the .app if necessary.

jW
Click to expand...

So it should be possible to back up a previous version of an app from my Time Machine back ups?
 
OllyW said:
So it should be possible to back up a previous version of an app from my Time Machine back ups?
Click to expand...

Yipes! I didn't think of that, I just knew that my cloned disks would be too recent to have to old version. Sure enough, Time Machine had the older version when I went back in time.

What's particularly diabolical is that it wasn't a new product that was not Snow Leopard Compatible, but a point release (less than a year after introducing Lion) that made an existing app not Snow Leopard Compatible. If you are going to drink the Apple Kool-Aid about the newest and greatest, you'll have to drink the glass all the way down. Just a sip won't do!
 
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