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Leaving the Mac App Store

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Re: Leaving the Mac App Store

#241

Post by s73v3r »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #144
jonknee wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is a real shame because it's great to not worry about billing information, key management and pushing out updates (for both users and developers).

How viable would it be for a third-party alternative to act as a 'broker' between customer and developer, just to handle those aspects you mention?

Not very unless you set yourself up as a store, in which case you've got the problem of trust, both on the developer side (why should we deploy to yet another store), and the customer side (why should we trust your fly by night store).

Re: Leaving the Mac App Store

#242

Post by jasonlotito »

to3m wrote: post #183
sosborn wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It asks for my password literally every 15-20 seconds. This hasn't been my experience at all. I wonder what's going on because that sounds super annoying.

As far as I can tell, it's not universal, but still somewhat common. (My computer has always done it ever since I bought it new in April.) It is a bit annoying. But since I use the MAS so irregularly, I can get by. I do wonder what the cause is, though. I'm less certain I'd like to know how Apple have so far failed to get to the bottom of it.

I've had the same issue. And yes, it's annoying. The MAS is frustrating at the best of times.

Re: Leaving the Mac App Store

#243

Post by forgotmypassw »

WorldMaker wrote: post #50
roosterjm2k2 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steam seems to remember for a while... i've played Euro Truck Sim while traveling with no internet...

It varies with different games on Steam. Steam doesn't require its DRM, so some games have no DRM, even when installed by Steam, which is great. More critically, though, Steam also doesn't require its DRM be exclusive so some games are protected both by Steam's DRM and something else, where that something else may have its own weird requirements before launching a game.

That's why we should promote DRM-free software distributions - like GOG.

Re: Leaving the Mac App Store

#244

Post by eveningcoffee »

SneakerXZ wrote: post #233
eveningcoffee wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would they gain at the end? Control and from there perhaps more money. I would leave their system and also many others. Yes, but what if there are only about 100k of such people?

There is too many ifs and perhaps... stop speculating. If it was really good choice, they would already do it.

Well, the original question was What if they restrict running compilers? and not What if they remove compilers?.

Restriction might be a requirement of special licence.

This would effectively remove ability to execute arbitrary code from most of the users.

The ones who want to run arbitrary code or develop software will have to pay. If someone complains about this, they would be told to shut up and would be explained how this is actually a benefit for majority of the users.

Anyway, I will stop here.

Edit: I think that Apple is not doing it only because it is not their focus at the moment.

Re: Leaving the Mac App Store

#245

Post by janfoeh »

dangero wrote: post #229
xenadu02 wrote: post #204

The worst part about this is all the problems are easily solved if Apple simply put the resources into it. * The actual MAS store app itself is a horrible piece of garbage wrapping a bunch of web views. Just make it a real native app and rewrite it. * Sandboxing is great, but there will always be things that fall outside the sandbox. Have a "Power User / Developer Tools" category and associated checkbox in iTC that s…

"The actual MAS store app itself is a horrible piece of garbage wrapping a bunch of web views. Just make it a real native app and rewrite it." Native app is not really a black and white concept when you're talking about an app that mainly just interprets and displays live data it receives. If it's not html, then it's going to be xml/json/some other markup with a custom presentation layer on top. Why would that be bet…

You're probably right. I would still agree with the parent in that they feel like a badly done webview wrapper, because the symptoms are so similar.

iTunes Store, App Store, MAS, Apple Music — there is definitely a pattern there, at least on the desktop. I find them all similarly clunky, slow, ugly and unpleasant to use.

Apple almost seems to be inherently incapable of creating a decent store front, and I am curious as to why they have that organizational blindspot.

Re: Leaving the Mac App Store

#246

Post by pkamb »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #145
cmdkeen wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is ridiculous when Steam is there as a shining example of what a store could be. Not having to worry about keys and updates is fantastic for me, plus good discovery and upselling opportunities for developers. Someone is going to crack desktop app stores one day and do very well. The cost of entry is high (not necessarily in cash, more in reputation) but there are plenty of players who could do it. There's even…

I love when the top two comments on a story really nail it. In this case I think the parent comment combined with the GP comment capture the issue, when the App Store concept is implemented poorly, it negatively effects user experience, vendor experience, and customer satisfaction. When it is done well, it enhances those things. The key is that Apple has not pulled off a successful App Store concept for MacOS yet, an…

> Apple has not pulled off a successful App Store concept for MacOS yet

They really did, for the first year or two of the Mac App Store's existence. It was great. All of the "$10 utility apps" would be there today if not for Sandboxing.

Maybe this wouldn't have included the apps where the 30% or poor support for upgrades/subscriptions would really impact sales (Adobe, Microsoft, perhaps, interestingly, Sketch...), but sandboxing is the only outstanding issue that prevents you from shipping an app to the Mac App Store.

Re: Leaving the Mac App Store

#247

Post by s73v3r »

jonknee wrote: post #152
oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How viable would it be for a third-party alternative to act as a 'broker' between customer and developer, just to handle those aspects you mention?

Steam has done well with that model for games, but being Mac only would be a tough sell. Apple's big advantage was instantly getting the App Store on every Mac.

Who says they have to be Mac only? It'd probably work out better to be on all major platforms, that way you can sell the feature of buy once, run on all platforms the software runs on. You also could allow single platform things onto your store too, like Sketch.

Re: Leaving the Mac App Store

#248

Post by insanebits »

eveningcoffee wrote: post #80
song wrote: post #3

I avoid buying from the mac app store as much as possible. If Apple ever decided to change mac os x to no longer allow external applications, I would switch to Linux right away. I don't want to do that because I do like the os X better a GUI... But there's no way I'd stay on a system that wouldn't allow me to do what I want with it.

I don't want to do that because I do like the os X better a GUI I think that in the current pity world of 16:9 displays, actually Ubuntu has the most logical GUI layout because they conserve the vertical screen real estate as much as possible. This means they merge global toolbar, menu and window title bar when windows are maximized. I see that OSX has followed this trend but their solution seems to be more ad-hoc an…

This is relevant on the laptops or devices with smaller screens mostly, 1080p(24in) monitors are fairly common those days which gives more than enough screen estate to fit at least 2 side by side windows, ~100 char width text is recommended width for text reading.

And as for linux distro with a good GUI I would suggest looking into Elementary OS which is a ubuntu based and UX oriented. I used it on a daily basis for about 6 months and had good experience (not excellent though, it has some issues but what doesn't?)

Re: Leaving the Mac App Store

#249

Post by s73v3r »

ThomPete wrote: post #52

I used to have an app in the MAS but recently removed it and is using Paddle instead. There are so many things wrong with the MAS. Sandbox is the biggest complaint I have. I can understand it with the iOS to some degree. At least there they are constantly providing new features and hardware changes to help apps keep being innovative. To give an example of the Sandbox issue. We are using AppleScript for some of our lo…

"You would think that at least people would be able to turn off such a thing with apps they knew were ok. But no."

If you allow that, then "Amazing Super Awesome Free Desktop Calendars" is going to ask for it as well.

Re: Leaving the Mac App Store

#250

Post by coldtea »

chc wrote: post #188
coldtea wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Besides the chance of a word-play on the famous quote, is there any substance behind this at all? What would be the problem with finding a curator? It's not unlike how music industry has always worked -- from the era of finding a radio producer you like to the era of following a playlist on Spotify on some genre you like.

I have the same trouble finding good curators as I do finding good games. I don't know what curators are good just like I don't know what games are good. I'll look at someone and I'll think, "Is this person really any better than filtering by genre and then randomly buying games?" And I don't feel confident the answer is yes a lot of the time. I feel like I need a meta-curator. I agree that this is not a particularly…

>I have the same trouble finding good curators as I do finding good games. I don't know what curators are good just like I don't know what games are good.

You should have even more trouble finding good curators than finding good games.

But the idea is that you need to find a curator ONCE, and then they suggest lots of games for years.

A curator not being 100% perfect it's OK too -- after all even one's self buying games they read about or even try their demos, will pick some dudes. It's unreasonable to expect a curator (or a recommendation) service to not do that too.

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