If too many devs flee the app store, then chances are Apple makes the app-store mandatory for installing new apps.
What happens when you dump the App Store?
101–110 of 127 posts
Re: What happens when you dump the App Store?
#102If too many devs flee the app store, then chances are Apple makes the app-store mandatory for installing new apps.
Not really. This is about MAS not iOS appstore. There's no way Apple can require MAS-install, everybody would up and leave the ecosystem entirely (too many useful tools can't even fit in MAS's restrictions) and MAS has never had much value-add for the constraints and cost.
Re: What happens when you dump the App Store?
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even if you're not the mighty Rogue Amoeba, services like FastSpring[1] seem to make it pretty easy. [1] http://christiantietze.de/books/make-money-outside-mac-app-s... #noaffiliation
This is why I mention Kagi. When you go all-in on a third party service it might tank and then where are you?
Even when I was selling through Kagi, I had a backup payment service running simultaneously (Plimus, then later FastSpring). I could switch between them in just a couple of minutes by changing some if statements in my PHP code. I even had hidden 'coupons' I could give to customers to redirect to another provider, if Kagi wasn't accepting their card for some weird reason.
Don't hard-link to a third party service. Abstract everything through your own site that you have 100% control over, so you can swap out the underlying services whenever you want.
Re: What happens when you dump the App Store?
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
They're also a very savvy company that has their own store. They didn't have to do any work other than turn off the App Store listing. Smaller developers may have to go through considerable pain and anguish in setting up their own store, or they can suffer through even more angusih and pain when the store they entrusted to do their sales goes down in flames, as with Kagi. https://tidbits.com/article/16665 Being self-…
We started small and with no obvious path for going from the app we'd made, to running a company. Nevertheless, we were able to figure it out back in 2002, and it's gotten easier since. It's slightly more work to sell outside the App Store, yes, but it's really just not that difficult. If a developer plans to make a living, or even just side income, from app sales, it's work that's worth doing.
If you started in 2002, and particularly if you have been actively link-building since then, you have a huge advantage in terms of visibility SEO-wise.
It's quite simply much harder to build a link profile in 2017 than it was 15 years ago.
It's not impossible, but don't underestimate the difficulty of starting up now. I started things in 2002, I'm still starting things now, and building an independent web presence now - at least, one which anyone will find - is considerably more difficult.
(Technically it's much easier - getting the actual website serving to the Internet is easier. But that was never the hard part.)
Re: What happens when you dump the App Store?
#105Re: What happens when you dump the App Store?
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interesting never thought about it like that. To me the icon indicating it's app store is this: https://developer.apple.com/app-store/marketing/guidelines/#... But now you actually got me wondering if I should change it.
Yeah, that's not the app store icon, it's the generic Apple icon for an application. I would leave it, it indicates a Mac app, but not a MAS app.
I think when coupled like this, "[logo] buy" it gives the impression of "something apple".
Personally I thought that it would either open the app store, or that is was something related to Apple pay (although that one needs "[logo] Pay").
It felt a bit misleading.
Re: What happens when you dump the App Store?
#107Re: What happens when you dump the App Store?
#108Re: What happens when you dump the App Store?
#109The value-add of the mac store is just not very good anymore. There are only three reasons people might buy something from the mac store vs. from the developer directly: 1. To keep it getting updates through the app store vs. having to download from the developer when a new update comes out. 2. They found it in the mac store, and thus purchased it in the mac store. 3. They trust apple to reduce the risk of malware wh…
A huge problem with the Mac App Store is that it is not a service for listing “all Mac software that exists” but it NEEDS to be. I would argue that the potential benefits to the platform for listing all software are huge, even if many pages end up being little more than links to external web sites. Sure, Apple wants a cut of sales but they’re already listing totally-free apps so they’ve shown that money isn’t everyth…
Users perceive the app store as giving a level of curation and security. If it became a list of "all Mac software that exists," and one of those turned out to be dodgy, Apple's image would take a real hit.
Also, what would listing software that hasn't been through the submissions process actually mean? That the app is verified by Apple? That going to the site and putting your credit card number into the shopping cart is guaranteed to be secure? That other things that haven't been listed yet are not as favoured in some way?
I'm not saying I like the app store model, or that they can't have a second tier of lower-scrutiny apps. I do think it would need a lot of thought and care, however.
Re: What happens when you dump the App Store?
#110The value-add of the mac store is just not very good anymore. There are only three reasons people might buy something from the mac store vs. from the developer directly: 1. To keep it getting updates through the app store vs. having to download from the developer when a new update comes out. 2. They found it in the mac store, and thus purchased it in the mac store. 3. They trust apple to reduce the risk of malware wh…
> 1. To keep it getting updates through the app store vs. having to download from the developer when a new update comes out. For me this is the number one reason for not buying via the Mac AppStore. At this point almost every mac app uses the tried and tested Sparkle update mechanism [0], which is very fast and rather unobtrusive. I'm mostly done updating through sparkle before I even see the list of available update…
Sparkle is ahead of whats available on windows, but I still find it super annoying. I hate going to use a program and - just at that point I most want to get work done, I get annoying popups. "There's an update available! Quick - make some decisions about it! click" ugh wait for download "Restart the app to continue!" click "Heyyy, check out our new features! clickkkkkkk".
Its a total momentum killer. Like, imagine if randomly (every month or so) instead of loading immediately hackernews took 1 minute to load instead, and it required that you babysit it the whole time while you hit "next".
Personally I wish all apps used Chrome's update mechanism. Its unobtrusive, the patches are tiny compared to the size of Chrome and it works great. Most users don't even know the updates are happening.
Thats how I want all apps (and, frankly, my OS) to update. Just, silently and reliably. No annoying popups. No decisions to make when I'm trying to get work done. No waiting for the update to happen. Update yourself quickly in the background, and do it without bothering me.
Given how long chrome's updater has been out I'm surprised there's no embeddable Sparkle-like version for 3rd party apps to use.