Mac App Store: Open for Business • Hacker News Board

Re: Mac App Store: Open for Business

#141

Post by axomhacker » Thu, Jan 06, 2011, 4:36 PM UTC

rudd wrote: post #43

I will say this: Apple is not afraid to leave old technology behind. While website XYZ aims to support multiple versions of every browser, including those released a decade ago (IE6), Apple won't even support Leopard with its new store, which was the version that came with the Mac I got just over a year ago.

Supporting old browsers by XYZ: you have to, to profit.

Supporting old OS by Apple: of course they want you to upgrade, to profit.

I would not say that's because Apple is brave, it makes business sense.

Re: Mac App Store: Open for Business

#142

Post by rmc » Thu, Jan 06, 2011, 4:37 PM UTC

watty wrote: post #19

kleiba wrote: post #18

Is this like synaptic et al.? I mean, do you get updates automatically? That would be great! Also, a central packaging tool helps avoiding multiple installations of the same software, when dependencies can be tracked and resolved. If that is what this is: cool.

One of the sections says "Since developers are constantly improving their apps, the App Store for Mac keeps track of your apps and tells you when an update is available. Update one app at a time or all of them at once, and you’ll always have the latest version of every app you own." Doesn't sound like auto-update though.

APT/synaptic etc. don't 'auto-update' installed software. Some manual intervention is required. However it's possible to update all your software in one go, with one command. That's a great feature.

Re: Mac App Store: Open for Business

#143

Post by rmc » Thu, Jan 06, 2011, 4:37 PM UTC

jonprins wrote: post #81

rlmw wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't do dependency tracking, but will notify you of updates. I don't think Mac developers believe in packaging libraries, since it requires the same version of the library for all programs. The preferred way to do things is statically compile all of your dependencies into your binary. This has the advantage that you can just drag your .app bundle around.

Which, considering disk space is cheap, is a better way to do it than getting stuck in apt dependency hell.

That never happens. Unless you start mucking around yourself.

Re: Mac App Store: Open for Business

#144

Post by tommi » Thu, Jan 06, 2011, 4:42 PM UTC

powrtoch wrote: post #139

Disappointed to see Twitter among the most popular apps. For mobile devices the native-app-front-end-for-existing-websites was arguably necessary and beneficial, but for desktop clients it really feels like a big step back to start moving back out of the browser.

I highly disagree. Native apps can provide way more better integration to your desktop and therefore improve the user experience. E.g. showing a consistent (growl) popup for tweets is not possible as far as i know from the web version. And that's just a very simplified example.

Re: Mac App Store: Open for Business

#145

Post by absconditus » Thu, Jan 06, 2011, 4:44 PM UTC

tvon wrote: post #89

ugh wrote: post #50

Arrrg! No way of uninstalling apps in one central location. Why, Apple, why? There is this nice list of installed apps, why doesn’t it have an uninstall button? It doesn’t make any sense. I guess you are expected to drag apps to the trash like before? That sucks.

I often wish Apple employed a few longtime linux users to point out certain glaring deficiencies (primarily in app/library management, and in how Spaces works).

You mean like Jordan Hubbard, the cofounder of FreeBSD (I know that FreeBSD is not Linux)?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordan_Hubbard

Longtime UNIX users are not Apple's primary customer base.

Re: Mac App Store: Open for Business

#146

Post by elvirs » Thu, Jan 06, 2011, 4:48 PM UTC

elvirs wrote: post #27

Buy, download, and even redownload. its amazing how apple expected customers to pay for the same digital product over and over.

apple fanboys were offended by my observations, my apologies :) (but i still stick to my point)

Re: Mac App Store: Open for Business

#147

Post by jhawk28 » Thu, Jan 06, 2011, 4:51 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #31

If you get an error 100 ( http://yfrog.com/h4b9kkp ) attempting to download any apps, clear /Library/Caches and ~/Library/Caches. Something to do with the Terms and Conditions acceptance not firing.

I just had to remove the Apple cookies. This is done by Opening Safari -> Preferences -> Security -> Cookies. Search for apple. Select them all. Remove Selected.

Re: Mac App Store: Open for Business

#148

Post by axod » Thu, Jan 06, 2011, 4:51 PM UTC

roadnottaken wrote: post #24

psnj wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vigorously agree. I have no idea why I have such a hard time using iTunes, but I do consistently, even doing really simple and obvious things. It horrifies me.

To be fair, it's a pretty complex program that does very sophisticated things behind the scenes. I used to hate it, and I still mostly do. But I notice that the only people that really hate it are powerusers. There are hundreds of millions of people out there that find it delightful and enabling. It probably says something good about your UX if you're only bothering powerusers.

I think there's a pretty compelling argument that iTunes has become a monolithic abomination trying to do a thousand things. Split it up into more programs that each do something simple and well.

Re: Mac App Store: Open for Business

#149

Post by robgough » Thu, Jan 06, 2011, 4:52 PM UTC

borism wrote: post #5

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 .…

because iTunes is the most hideous part of Apple experience. luckily it's only needed for music... ...oh wait

I agree, and am hoping they will sooner, rather than later, rewrite it from scratch.

I did just move to an SSD over Christmas though, and must say it is significantly better now - especially noticeable is I no longer seem to be getting beach balls during iPhone syncing.

Re: Mac App Store: Open for Business

#150

Post by Tichy » Thu, Jan 06, 2011, 4:52 PM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #74

Tichy wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't close apps on the Mac either (you can, but it is only for experts). I guess no uninstalling is just the logical extension of that concept.

Actually, that's a pretty clever optimization for caching, IMO. The user tends to leave apps in memory, leading to much snappier performance on machines with sufficient RAM. EDIT: And if you're savvy, you can always manage memory manually and quit from the top menu or from the Dock.

And the local disk is just a cache for the cloud. So installed apps are just cached files from the cloud. Hence my analogy holds.