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Mac App Store: Open for Business

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Re: Mac App Store: Open for Business

#121

Post by jfager »

zavulon wrote: post #98
statictype wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not. The traditional method(s) will still work. For me the main selling point of the centralized app store is that you get all updates in a single place instead of having each app spawn it's own update mechanism.

> It's not. The traditional method(s) will still work. For now. I'm willing to bet any amount that in 5 years (most likely a lot sooner) this will be the only "legal" way to install software on your Mac (and you'll probably need to jailbreak your Mac to install apps through command line or something). In another 5 years or so, Windows will follow.

At which point every developer (except those working on platform-specific projects) would switch their work machine to Linux.

Phones and tablets went that way because they're new devices that weren't already entrenched in people's daily lives, and they're complementary to your primary machine. The fact that they're locked down is a dealbreaker for many, but it doesn't imply a wholesale ship-jumping like locking down a desktop would.

[Edited to clarify that I wasn't talking about the platform developers would target, but would themselves use].

Re: Mac App Store: Open for Business

#122

Post by robryan »

statictype wrote: post #46
roadnottaken wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really that's a pittance. And it'll keep people from blatantly spamming the App reviewers with garbage.

Yeah but it kind of sucks for open source apps

Would be a good gesture if they were to make it free for open source apps, even free apps that are closed source but don't contain ads.

Re: Mac App Store: Open for Business

#123

Post by achompas »

sfphotoarts wrote: post #107
pclark wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iTunes is by far the worst Apple product in terms of software engineering

Care to back thar up with some explanation. Having switched to iTunes long ago and use it daily without ever having problem I fail to see your point.

iDevice backups take forever and the iTunes Store is frustratingly slow to browse.

Re: Mac App Store: Open for Business

#124

Post by zavulon »

jfager wrote: post #121
zavulon wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not. The traditional method(s) will still work. For now. I'm willing to bet any amount that in 5 years (most likely a lot sooner) this will be the only "legal" way to install software on your Mac (and you'll probably need to jailbreak your Mac to install apps through command line or something). In another 5 years or so, Windows will follow.

At which point every developer (except those working on platform-specific projects) would switch their work machine to Linux. Phones and tablets went that way because they're new devices that weren't already entrenched in people's daily lives, and they're complementary to your primary machine. The fact that they're locked down is a dealbreaker for many, but it doesn't imply a wholesale ship-jumping like locking down…

I'm not sure they'll lose every developer to Linux. App Store will provide incredible exposure for their apps, which just may make it worth it for them.

Re: Mac App Store: Open for Business

#126

Post by pilif »

larsberg wrote: post #79
pilif wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's especially bad is that the apps are installed as root and belong to root. This means that removing them causes a password prompt. I wonder if the inexperienced user understands that for installing you need to provide the apple store password, but for uninstalling, you need to provide the admin password of your machine.

Inexperienced users will never notice because they only have one password.

That depends. My mom and dad share the apple account (why buy all apps twice) but not their machines. I'm going to have a hard time explaining this to them.

Re: Mac App Store: Open for Business

#128

Post by rbritton »

generalk wrote: post #29
watty wrote: post #11

Is adware prohibited from everything in the store? It seems like every windows application I download has some sort of toolbar bundled but maybe this isn't a problem on Mac.

You don't see a lot of that on the Mac, mostly because of the culture. A lot of the big players in the Mac development world have been developing software since the 90s or earlier, so have a tangible sense of quality about their work. Newer developers are usually attracted to developing Mac software for that reason, and they don't want to disrupt it.

It's becoming increasingly more popular for developers to release a free, ad-laden version in addition to the paid version though. NetNewsWire is one example and Kiwi is another.

Re: Mac App Store: Open for Business

#129

Post by J3L2404 »

smackfu wrote: post #112
roadnottaken wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really that's a pittance. And it'll keep people from blatantly spamming the App reviewers with garbage.

It just means the garbage will be submitted by people with $100. There's plenty of junk on the iOS App Store which has the same developer license required.

Can you imagine the volume of junk without $99?

Also it helps pay for the reviewing of apps, although they still take a loss on running the appstore, last I heard.

Re: Mac App Store: Open for Business

#130

Post by thwarted »

gaiusparx wrote: post #40
pclark wrote: post #2

Is it just me or is the .app an abomination of a UI? Why does Apple now have three different window control styles? http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20635/Screenshots/r3da.png Why are there back buttons ("like a browser") but you can't click hold to get the contextual drop down? The navigation (Featured, Top Charts, etc) are so far away from the other controls (Back and Forward) its insanely awkward to use. It feels kind of .…

Guess the UI is in transition to a more standardized one in Lion.

Standardized until it's changed in Alley or Calico.
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