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Apple brings App Store to Mac OS X

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Re: Apple brings App Store to Mac OS X

#181

Post by netcan »

chc wrote: post #104
tlrobinson wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you say it's the least risky way to release a commercial product when Apple has the ability to reject your product at will?

My girlfriend has the ability to slit my throat at night without me having any way to resist, but I still think being around her is less risky than, say, walking across the freeway. A hopeless situation that is extremely unlikely to occur is less of a risk than a slightly-less-bad situation that is very likely. In practice, it seems like the difficulty of getting eyeballs and converting them into sales is generally m…

I wish I could say the same.

Re: Apple brings App Store to Mac OS X

#182

Post by YooLi »

mkramlich wrote: post #135
YooLi wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They aren't censoring Mac apps, they are choosing what gets sold in their Mac software store. Same way Best Buy isn't censoring porn by not stocking it on the shelves of their stores. If you are tin-foil-hatting this and thinking soon the Mac App Store will be the only way to get software on the Mac, then guess what, you can use Linux or Windows. If they do something stupid the market will let them know about it by l…

Censorship is censorship even if it's possible to get a thing through some other means. For example, if a library banned books by Mark Twain, yet you could get it from another library or from Amazon, or in another country, most reasonable people would still call that censorship. If all the governments on Earth got together and outlawed Mark Twain, that would be censorship even if in theory you could fly to Mars, and…

By your logic then every company that sells any kind of product is engaged in censorship because they don't carry every possible product ever made. Also, I didn't say Apple couldn't do monumentally stupid things, I said if they did they would know about it when it affects their bottom line.

Re: Apple brings App Store to Mac OS X

#183

Post by darkandbrooding »

tlrobinson wrote: post #35
danilocampos wrote: post #21

This is very exciting. The problem of distribution and monetization for desktop software is significant and largely unsolved. Steam is already proof that a digital store can make desktop users really happy, but it addresses gamers, who are cheerful early adopters. Most other people who don't game only know this model through their mobile device, but now they're ready for more. As for developers? For more than half of…

I'm not so excited about this. Am I the only one who thinks this is Apple's first step in exerting more control over developers and users on the OS X platform like they do on iOS? EDIT: to all the replies about how you still have a choice of distribution on OS X: yes, you do right now, but who knows how long that will last? As I said, this might be the first step in locking down the platform. I don't believe this wil…

You need a compiler to build iOS and OS X apps. Once you have a compiler on your machine, how can someone else prevent you from creating or running arbitrary executables?

In order to lock down the desktop so as to make a Mac App Store the only way to obtain executable content, Apple would have to fundamentally re-invent the way people build iOS and OS X apps. I just don't see developers sticking with the platform once Xcode is a hosted web app. Chasing away their developer community would effectively cede the market for mobile apps to Android.

Apple's strategic, long term focus is clearly and unambiguously "mobile computing for the common man." Providing a dirt-simple app distribution platform makes sense within the context of mobile computing. Making it substantially harder to create iOS apps, relative to other mobile platforms, is contrary to Apple's strategic goals.

Re: Apple brings App Store to Mac OS X

#184

Post by danilocampos »

orangecat wrote: post #170
danilocampos wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not so excited about this... this might be the first step in locking down the platform. Of course you're not excited about this. You're a brilliant nerd who founded a startup that invented a new programming language . This isn't for you. Or for me. Getting to be Nerd Jesus every time a computer runs into trouble is gratifying. We get to be important. We get to trick out our gear to do all kinds of goofy, custom…

I don't understand the geek self-flagellation that iOS has caused. It seems to have instigated the meme that if a platform appeals to geeks then it must necessarily be unfriendly to normal users, and I would think Mac OS X itself shows that to be false... What the iPad, and the iPhone before it, has taught us is simple: people want a computer they understand. They want technology, but optimizing for Nerd Jesus has gi…

> I don't understand the geek self-flagellation that iOS has caused.

A product like the iPad, which didn't exist a year ago, provides an interesting reference for what computing could be outside the existing rules. My mom has a much, much easier time using the iPad than her Mac, and can do many of the same tasks with it.

Oh, orangecat. Look at these strawmen.

> OS X is actually completely unusable unless you're an uber-nerd.

Not really. It's just a lot more usable for nerds. And less so the less you know about technology. Again, compare this to the iPad, whose usability remains about the same regardless of where you exist in the tech savviness distribution. Once you learn how to use it, which is easy, you're fine.

> How does getting rid of the terminal improve the experience

It... doesn't. Liking the terminal, like caring about compilers or kernel extensions, signals being a technical user. Getting rid of kexts or gcc would be similarly irrelevant to the user experience.

Re: Apple brings App Store to Mac OS X

#185

Post by iloveponies »

derefr wrote: post #121
jcromartie wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the ability to do whatever you want with OS X is going anywhere. A huge chunk of Apple's Mac business is with developers (of all types) and power users. A move like that (point 1) would be utterly suicidal.

To put it another way: how would you develop (and more importantly QA) OSX apps, if you couldn't do it on a Mac? Would they put out "OSX SDK Edition"?

Scarier idea: Charging, or restricting access to Xcode only for those who have paid the developers subscription.

Re: Apple brings App Store to Mac OS X

#187

Post by mjfern »

Today, Apple announced four key products at its “Back to the Mac” event:

- An application store for OS X

- Facetime for the Mac, which links with Facetime on other Apple devices

- An instant-on MacBook Air, 11” and 13” models, starting at $999

- The next major version of the Mac OS X, “Lion” (and iLife 11)

Individually and as a collection, these new product announcements are interesting. Apple is extending the value it delivers to its Mac customers by launching a combination of new hardware (MacBook Air) combined with an innovative operating system (OS X Lion), building out a collection of new complements (OS X application store), and further linking Macs with Apple’s other thin computing devices (via Facetime).

If we step back, and consider today’s announcements from a broader perspective, we can gain some insight about Apple’s overall corporate strategy with respect to its position in the future of computing.

Apple’s recent product innovations have largely focused around thin devices, first the iPod, then the iPhone and Touch, the Apple TV, and recently the iPad. The new MacBook Air coupled with the new Mac OS X Lion represents a natural progression from the iPad. While Apple’s other thin devices are better suited for consuming content and media, the new MacBook Air is Apple’s first thin device that is particularly well suited for creating content and media (note that Apple is referring to the new MacBook Air as “The Next Generation of MacBooks”). Meanwhile, the new OS X application store extends Apple’s success with iTunes and the App Store to the Mac environment, thus further establishing Apple’s presence in cloud services and online media. Facetime, along with other services such as MobileMe, provides the linkages that begin connecting all these thin devices and services together.

Looking broadly, Apple is now pushing the frontier on two key fronts. On the one hand there’s thin device computing with the iPod, iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, and now its new MacBook Air products; each targeting a distinctive market segment, roughly arranged by those customers seeking to consume (iPod) or create media (new MacBook Air). On the other hand, Apple is developing a range of cloud services and online media with iTunes, the current App Store, and now the new OS X application store. iTunes already operates across platforms and, despite its name, now includes much more than music, given it also provides a gateway to movies, TV shows, Podcasts, Audiobooks, and so on. As Apple continues to push forward on these two fronts it will soon have developed a full and coherent line of thin device hardware, a unified and powerful operating system (iOS/OS X, and slight variants), and a tightly integrated set of cloud services and online media.

In closing, today’s product introductions, along with Apple’s rapid progression over the last decade in thin devices and cloud services, brings into stark relief the gap between Apple and the historical high flyers in personal computing, such as Dell and HP. It appears Google is the only company that fairs a chance to stay competitive in this breakneck race.

(I just posted this to my blog and submitted the post to HN. If you enjoyed the read, I'd appreciate an upvote (article title is "A broader view on Apple's 'Back to the Mac' Event").

Re: Apple brings App Store to Mac OS X

#188

Post by amackera »

danilocampos wrote: post #105
tlrobinson wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not so excited about this. Am I the only one who thinks this is Apple's first step in exerting more control over developers and users on the OS X platform like they do on iOS? EDIT: to all the replies about how you still have a choice of distribution on OS X: yes, you do right now, but who knows how long that will last? As I said, this might be the first step in locking down the platform. I don't believe this wil…

> I'm not so excited about this... this might be the first step in locking down the platform. Of course you're not excited about this. You're a brilliant nerd who founded a startup that invented a new programming language . This isn't for you. Or for me. Getting to be Nerd Jesus every time a computer runs into trouble is gratifying. We get to be important. We get to trick out our gear to do all kinds of goofy, custom…

I simply refuse to believe that locking a platform down is the best way to improve user experience. There has to be a better way!

Re: Apple brings App Store to Mac OS X

#189

Post by msbarnett »

jonhendry wrote: post #146
tensor wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to look further than iOS to see that yes, it is a problem. Charging developers a yearly fee aside, excluding apps that Apple is not comfortable with due to competitive reasons is a HUGE problem. Also, a lot of us who develop on OS X actually use the unix tool chain. Something like homebrew or fink just won't fit into the app store framework. Edit: that said, I do see the positive aspects of it. So long…

The App Store guidelines pretty much rule out most big applications. Just like the iOS guidelines, you can't download loadable code bundles, you can't use your own licensing system, your own update system, etc. Matlab, Photoshop, etc, are not compatible with the guidelines, so unless Apple wants to do away with entire market segments, they're going to continue allowing traditional development and installs, with the A…

Yeah, exactly.

It seems pretty clear to me that this is aimed at enticing small developers who are interested in finding a way to get exposure and don't want to deal with the hassle of setting up their own licensing and billing infrastructure. It's probably great for a one-man hobbyist looking to turn a small profit on the side.

It's manifestly not going to be interesting to companies that already have mind-share and marketing arms and multiple retail channels, and why would it be? They don't need the exposure or the overhead.

That more than anything else ought to indicate that this isn't some dastardly plot to lock down the desktop.

Re: Apple brings App Store to Mac OS X

#190

Post by ezy »

JofArnold wrote: post #34
danilocampos wrote: post #21

This is very exciting. The problem of distribution and monetization for desktop software is significant and largely unsolved. Steam is already proof that a digital store can make desktop users really happy, but it addresses gamers, who are cheerful early adopters. Most other people who don't game only know this model through their mobile device, but now they're ready for more. As for developers? For more than half of…

I wonder if this means something for Steam? The UX for the Mac App Store is almost certainly going to be better than Steam's clunky app... And then I wonder about Game Centre too? It's not that great at the moment, but with Jobs meeting Zuckerberg the other day.... But yes - definitely excited! /me stops speculating and gets back to work

Actually, the app store for ipad is pretty damn clunky (steam isn't great, but I like it better). Honestly, I dont think they have anything to fear... They are, after all, cross platform. Game Center is a pile of schlock at the moment... I suspect, at least for AAA titles... steam will remain top dog.
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