Would a Windows App Store (made by Apple) be a good idea?

[nick9191]

Obviously it would be a lot of hard work. Implementing a whole API on to Windows, but let's look at the advantages:

- For starters with a few simple UI tweaks, all of the Mac App Store apps could run on Windows, giving them a decent base to work off of. Some would say "what's the point of owning a Mac then?" But I'll cover that in a moment.

- If Apple could make it successful, what we would then begin to see is some developers building their software for Windows in Apple's API, in Apple's Objective C language and publishing it only on Apple's store! This is where it gets huge. Suddenly Apple has an ever growing piece of the pie on Microsoft's own platform.

- Back to the "well what's the point of owning a Mac if all our Mac Store Apps are on Windows?" To reverse that, suddenly a load of Windows only software is on the Mac, with a few tweaks. Now this part, this exact part, is the biggest part of all. It's software that makes or breaks a platform. Just look at Microsoft's command line DOS, beating Apple's GUI based OS, simply because the Mac had jack all software. It's all about software (and price obviously, which Apple does not try and compete on at least in the low end market, but software is equally important). Whilst the Mac App Store is going to give a massive shot in the arm for Mac development, this would be much larger than that.

 

[Razeus]

Obviously it would be a lot of hard work. Implementing a whole API on to Windows, but let's look at the advantages:

- For starters with a few simple UI tweaks, all of the Mac App Store apps could run on Windows, giving them a decent base to work off of. Some would say "what's the point of owning a Mac then?" But I'll cover that in a moment.

- If Apple could make it successful, what we would then begin to see is some developers building their software for Windows in Apple's API, in Apple's Objective C language and publishing it only on Apple's store! This is where it gets huge. Suddenly Apple has an ever growing piece of the pie on Microsoft's own platform.

- Back to the "well what's the point of owning a Mac if all our Mac Store Apps are on Windows?" To reverse that, suddenly a load of Windows only software is on the Mac, with a few tweaks. Now this part, this exact part, is the biggest part of all. It's software that makes or breaks a platform. Just look at Microsoft's command line DOS, beating Apple's GUI based OS, simply because the Mac had jack all software. It's all about software (and price obviously, which Apple does not try and compete on at least in the low end market, but software is equally important). Whilst the Mac App Store is going to give a massive shot in the arm for Mac development, this would be much larger than that.

Put the pipe down. Back away.

 

[MacDawg]

First, it would never happen

Second, it would require FAR more than a few simple UI tweaks

Third, it would never happen

Did I mention it would never happen?

 

[Eidorian]

The are rumors of an application repository for Windows 8. Among other things...

Hopefully CES 2011 will have something on Windows 8.

 

[nick9191]

First, it would never happen

Second, it would require FAR more than a few simple UI tweaks

Third, it would never happen

Did I mention it would never happen?

I can name a decent handful of things that Apple would apparently never do according to MacRumors, but then went ahead and did. Intel and the iPhone, to name the two largest. This is another one of those things that looks completely unrealistic, but would bring home a hell of a lot of cash, just like Intel and the iPhone.

RE: UI tweaks. I must admit, I'm not a Mac developer, or even anything bigger than someone who messes around with his own code now and again. So I'll be the first to admit, I have little authority to talk on the matter at least from a technical standpoint. However, I'm not talking about Windows Apps being sold through an Apple Store, I'm talking about porting an entire API. Java, and more importantly OpenStep spring to mind. Same language, same API.

 

[Isair]

I can name a decent handful of things that Apple would apparently never do according to MacRumors, but then went ahead and did. Intel and the iPhone, to name the two largest. This is another one of those things that looks completely unrealistic, but would bring home a hell of a lot of cash, just like Intel and the iPhone.

RE: UI tweaks. I must admit, I'm not a Mac developer, or even anything bigger than someone who messes around with his own code now and again. So I'll be the first to admit, I have little authority to talk on the matter at least from a technical standpoint. However, I'm not talking about Windows Apps being sold through an Apple Store, I'm talking about porting an entire API. Java, and more importantly OpenStep spring to mind. Same language, same API.

Java is compiled to byte-code and then the byte-code is interpreted to machine code via JVM, so please don't give Java as an example. Porting all of Apple's APIs to an OS like Windows is way too much work than you can imagine, not to mention that it is not worth it. Also you do realize that even if we assume that all of Apple's APIs do exist on Windows, and there is an objective-c compiler that we can use on Windows, people will have to use Windows to compile their applications for it. For it to be otherwise Apple will have to somehow magically get the rights for writing a cross-compiler for Windows that spits out proper PEs on Mac OS, which can never happen.