The Mac App Store from the view of a developer

I hope you are advertising outside of the App Store as well.

Most of our sales come from direct advertising to our customers through magazines and websites they frequent.

Moving distribution to the App Store increased our sales by about 22%. Customers cite ease of purchase and confidence in their purchase as a result, compared with the third party distribution we used to use.

If we were only selling 50 copies a day we would close up shop...

You still need to advertise. The App Store is just a distribution center, not a marketing plan...

 

From a user:

It stinks.

It's very hard to find an application you might be interested in by simply browsing. The categories are too broad, and it seems everything gets lumped in with everything else. I only discover applications I want that are in the MAS if the developer's web site points me there. MacUpDate, for example, is a much better source.

I like the ease of updating from the MAS, although it's marginally better than autoupdates within the app. The licensing is great, however. Developers selling outside the MAS store should match it, especially if they're selling family oriented software.

I'd love to be able to review software I own. But I can't unless I've purchased it from the MAS. Pity for the developers moving from shareware to the MAS; they lose tons of favorable reviews to get them started.

The upgrade path is gonna be an issue. We're used to favorable discounts for long term use of an application. Switching to "full price" even so often, even if adds up to the same amount over time, is going to be an issue.

Rob

 

And one more viewpoint from a user:

I see quite a few developers that warn on their web sites that the "MAS version may not be as fully featured" as the version bought directly from their website.

This I do not understand, but I apparently run the risk of getting an inferior product (relatively speaking) from the same developer depending on where I buy it.

Not good from a consumer perspective.

 

I have never used MAS (hate the whole concept), but I must second your MACUPDATE recommendation. A daily visit is all it takes to keep me up to date with the more useful apps.

 

I *THINK* this is due to Apple policies more often than the developer. There seem to be more restrictions on how the app can operate. An example that I seem to remember is 1Password, which needed to reduce functionality a bit to use the MAS. I could be mis-remembering.

/Jim

 

I really appreciate your thoughts and thanks for sharing. This is a subject I always enjoy reading, the hard work that Mac Developers put in, and all the insight that can be gained from their experience.

I looked at your website and I'm wondering what your business strategy is?

I'm on my iPad so I can't check out your pricing at the MAS and I didn't see app pricing on your website.

I see that you have many innovative and interesting GUIs. I like that from a creative standpoint but I wonder if you might be better off having one or two GUIs across your products. I also think that having so many products may cause a strain on your developmental resources, but only you know that.

The advent of the iTunes and MAS app stores have created a new type of developer, what I refer to as hit n run. (sidenote at the end) They make many apps and sell them cheap, hoping to gain revenue in volume. I believe that their effort would be better spent developing fewer apps with more features, and charging more. Many of my most used apps are developed by a small team that only write 5 or less apps. Some are Panic, Omnigroup, iFlicks, iDentify, Textexpander, Liitle Snitch, Moneywell, Little App Factory, and CulturedCode (they only have one product really but on three platforms).

I noticed that on your website, you have several apps that do similar things, albeit via a different GUI. Local weather and travel weather could be combined into one app and charge the amount of both apps combined. Same with many of the clocks and timers, combine them into one app and charge more.

As a user, not developer, I want to use less apps, but I want each app to do more. I understand that the App stores bring out the cheapskates but many of us are willing to pay for something we feel is useful to us. I'm annoyed by so many menu bar apps, and now someone has created an app to consolidate and hide many menu bar apps.

I haven't used your apps but as an example, a combined weather app would be useful rather than two seperate ones. Of course I can get the weather for free on the net, but if want want to see my local weather for the current day, plus the weekend in another city where I'm traveling for a wedding or business trip, your combined app may get prime real estate, being active all day on my second screen.

I say this all as constructive criticism, not intending any insult.

Side note:
The hit n run idea was what I thought of when I read an article by one of the Macworld editors, maybe it was Chris Breen?

It was an editorial about some software companies that actually, maybe it is only one company, I don't know if he ever figured it out, that kept pestering him for a Macworld review. The companies were making 10+ versions of the same video conversion software with different GUIs, selling for profit, based on open source software. The abuse of open source software was not an issue. The issue that the editor took was the spamming of Macworld and other Mac-centric forums with fake user reviews of their software. Almost all of the software reviews and recommendations were posted the same month the the poster joined the forums.

 

I use MAS only for free products. Not going to re-purchase stuff I already own, that is for the birds IMHO.

If I buy something I don't already own and the functionality is the same between the 2, I *might* purchase from MAS but using AppFresh, I can keep my applications updated easily as it is.