Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Why are people still buying FaceTime?
- Thread starter mactumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
A great number of Mac users are still running Snow Leopard, which does not include free Facetime. Why does it matter what other people buy?
Because it gives the writer the opportunity to be rudely judgmental about others choices.
Less than 1/3 of Macs run 10.6. Seems like it would be very hard to be #1 on the app store if less than 1/3 of Macs support your app.
Irony.
Apple-friendly analysis: At the moment, Better Rename is the #2 best-seller. "See and talk with the grandkids," vs. "Rename your files." Which do you think is going to sell better? 1/3 of Macs is still a lot. Based on comments in the App Store, FaceTime usage seems to be driven by iOS device usage, and iOS device ownership is much greater than Mac ownership. So, you own an aging Mac (not capable of free upgrade to Mavericks). One or more family members acquire an iOS device...
Less Apple-friendly analysis: Why don't they have, "Included in Mac OS X Lion, Mountain Lion, and Mavericks, click here for a free upgrade to Mavericks (if your Mac can run it)" written boldly in the app description?
Final Analysis: Business is business. Apple has learned that free OS upgrades more than pay for themselves in terms of customer satisfaction/retention/spending, and free OS upgrades are a benefit that Microsoft and the makers of Windows PCs can't afford to match. FaceTime, on the other hand, is something that people purchase out of need, and at $0.99, is not likely to negatively impact customer retention. Why give it away for free when, clearly, people are willing to pay the price of one iTunes Store song (or a McDonald's Value Menu burger) to see the smiling faces of their relatives half-way 'round the world?
When FaceTime for Mac debuted in 2011, there were far more systems running Snow Leopard, and zero running Lion, Mountain Lion and Mavericks.
It's likely that the Apple Store rankings are all-time totals. It doesn't matter that the majority of the purchases were from two years ago.
Do you know how many Macs are in use? There are roughly 75 million in the OS X installed base. One third of that is 25 million.
Again I ask: who cares what others choose to buy or for what reason? Who cares which app is #1 or #14 or #723, for that matter, except possibly an app developer who's envious of the success of a competitor?
It's irrelevant how many Macs there are when we're talking about rankings. If there were 10 trillion Macs, with 33 trillion running 10.6, it would make no difference to the rankings. Still only 1/3 of Macs would be pushing an app to the top of the rankings and that's disproportionate and thus interesting.
It matters because it gives clues about the the success of the Mac App Store. Apple is secretive about sales numbers. If it is true that an old app that only the older 1/3 of Macs would need is a top seller, then that says something about app store sales numbers. If that doesn't matter to you, then maybe you should stop posting on this thread. If there was ever a place that people might care about this, then I would think it would be in the "Mac Apps and Mac App Store" section of MacRumors.
That makes no sense at all. Of course it's relevant. The rankings are based on how many buy an app. The more potential buyers, the more may buy the app.
No, it doesn't give clues. Apple freely gives enough numbers to illustrate the success of the Mac App Store. You're not going to figure out specific sales numbers based on the ranking of a particular app. Your initial post indicates no interest in Mac App Store sales numbers or success, but rather an interest in insulting users who buy an app that you don't think they should be buying. People buy what they want or need. If you need or want the app, buy it. If you don't, then don't.
Well now, if you're going to take that attitude we might as well just delete half the threads on these forums.
Wait......
This doesn't make any sense at all. How could 33 trillion be a third of 10 trillion? And being on 1/3 of Macs doesn't mean you can't top the charts. I'd wager that less than third of all Mac users buy apps on the store every day.
Clearly it was a simple typo. He probably meant to say 100 Trillion. This is obvious by his claim of 1/3 of all Macs.
His logic is actually sound... provided that sales were driven by Macs in isolation. Statistically, it would be very unlikely that an app would be #1 running only on the oldest systems. However, in the case of FaceTime, it is skewed greatly by the fact that FaceTime is now running on iOS and for all the good reasons stated in previous posts... people not able to upgrade still want FaceTime.
/Jim