Mac App Store: Open for Business • Hacker News Board

Re: Mac App Store: Open for Business

#151

Post by brudgers » Thu, Jan 06, 2011, 4:53 PM UTC

fwdbureau wrote: post #78

Call me old fashioned, but I fail to see how implementing a corporate middleman between developers and users can be a progress... OK, from a developer's stand point, this could be really beneficial (distribution, centralization etc), but as a user, it feels like seeing independent record stores about to be crushed by a shiny new Virgin Megastore. I can't help to hope this will be an immense failure

>" independent record stores about to be crushed by a shiny new Virgin Megastore."

I don't think that's an accurate comparison because:

1. the Virgin Megastore doesn't get 30% of the revenue from the independents.

2. the Virgin Megastore doesn't get copies of the customer lists and sales records of the independents.

3. the Virgin Megastore can't slap their logo on everything in the independents' stores.

4. the Virgin Megastore cannot easily create their own competing versions of the independents merchandise.

Re: Mac App Store: Open for Business

#152

Post by Tichy » Thu, Jan 06, 2011, 4:53 PM UTC

generalk wrote: post #73

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.

I don't follow. Command+Q and AppNameMenu->Quit both disagree with you.

Have you tried to explain that to your mum?

Re: Mac App Store: Open for Business

#153

Post by ugh » Thu, Jan 06, 2011, 4:53 PM UTC

anto1ne wrote: post #140

ugh wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The App Store is not part of iTunes.

App Store app is just a different interface to the itunes servers, you can try to copy links in App Store and you'll see the exact same kind of url as for tunes, movies, iOS apps, etc... In fact I don't understand why they didn't integrate App Store in iTunes. Maybe they realized iTunes is crap, or they didn't want to change the icon once again. Doesn't make me feel like they have long term strategies lately.. kind o…

I’m not sure those technical details matter at all.

If you ignore iTunes, Apple doesn’t do kitchen sink apps. Their apps might not have razor sharp focus (you can do a lot of different stuff with iPhoto) but in general they stick to one theme (but everything in iPhoto has something to do with photos). I’m a fan of the hypothesis that the only reason iTunes does so many different things is that it has to run on Windows. Apple might not want to ship a few different apps for Windows, they might want to keep it all together. Apple might already have split iTunes into a few different apps if they only had to run on the Mac.

The App Store doesn’t run on Windows, it doesn’t have the same problem so Apple just reverted to their default non-kitchen-sink approach.

Re: Mac App Store: Open for Business

#154

Post by pavlov » Thu, Jan 06, 2011, 4:53 PM UTC

anto1ne wrote: post #140

ugh wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The App Store is not part of iTunes.

App Store app is just a different interface to the itunes servers, you can try to copy links in App Store and you'll see the exact same kind of url as for tunes, movies, iOS apps, etc... In fact I don't understand why they didn't integrate App Store in iTunes. Maybe they realized iTunes is crap, or they didn't want to change the icon once again. Doesn't make me feel like they have long term strategies lately.. kind o…

In fact I don't understand why they didn't integrate App Store in iTunes.

The App Store installs itself as the second-highest icon on your Dock, just after the Finder. That's an amazingly prominent placement.

Remember that most people will be getting the Mac App Store unwittingly as part of the Mac OS X 10.6.6 update. If they didn't have a separate Dock icon for it, those people would never find out it exists.

Re: Mac App Store: Open for Business

#155

Post by trotsky » Thu, Jan 06, 2011, 4:54 PM UTC

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

Have the terms changed so radically from the mobile store? At least there licenses like the GPL are incompatible with the extra restrictions that Apple places on the software it distributes, causing software to be removed or refused.

Re: Mac App Store: Open for Business

#156

Post by Groxx » Thu, Jan 06, 2011, 4:55 PM UTC

J3L2404 wrote: post #129

smackfu wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>Can you imagine the volume of junk without $99?

No need to imagine: http://www.android.com/market/

Re: Mac App Store: Open for Business

#157

Post by albertzeyer » Thu, Jan 06, 2011, 4:56 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.

If you do it right, you don't really have problems with dependencies itself. Also look at other package managers like Portage (Gentoo).

The actual problem, from an app developer point of view is that you can't ensure that the lib behave exactly in the same way as on the developers system (and that may not just because of different versions but also because of different compiler settings etc). In many cases, the app developer also has some own patches inside some of the libraries to integrate them better into his application. It is often utopic to wait and hope to get those patches upstream.

Re: Mac App Store: Open for Business

#158

Post by ugh » Thu, Jan 06, 2011, 4:57 PM UTC

dominostars wrote: post #136

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.

> Why, Apple, why? Probably because it's version 1.0

I don’t think that should ever stop you from complaining.

Re: Mac App Store: Open for Business

#159

Post by pavlov » Thu, Jan 06, 2011, 4:58 PM UTC

I'm impressed with the Mac App Store so far. Pretty bold of Apple to push it so prominently onto every Mac user's Dock as part of a point update to the operating system.

My little landscape generator app, Turtledoveland, is currently at #5 on the Top Paid list for the Graphics & Design category.

I'll be sure to let HN know what kind of sales numbers that actually means, once the numbers come in...

Re: Mac App Store: Open for Business

#160

Post by anto1ne » Thu, Jan 06, 2011, 4:58 PM UTC

pstinnett wrote: post #37

There are a lot of apps that I'm surprised to not see in the store on launch day. Versions, Kaleidoscope, Skitch. I'd like to see a way for open source apps to show up here too, because I think managing my applications from the Mac App store will be nice.

Most of the apps I use are not there too, we'll have to wait a bit I guess. What about Chrome and Firefox. are they forbidden and they didn't bother submitting ?