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Mac App Store: Open for Business

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Re: Mac App Store: Open for Business

#201

Post by philwelch »

etherealG wrote: post #85
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

distribution already exists! it's called the internet. fire up a website, have a downloadable app, and you're done. I don't understand why people keep saying the same for "app stores" like iphone and android, and now osx too. why can't I just search for an app on a search engine, goto that apps website, download it and run/install it? how does this system benefit me as a user at all?

It doesn't, because you're clever and knowledgable about computers. Unfortunately, not all users are like you. Tell an ordinary user to search for an app on a search engine ("what's that? oh, you mean google!"), goto that apps website, download it, and run/install it, and before you know it he'll have a dozen Bonzi Buddies stealing his credit card numbers.

Re: Mac App Store: Open for Business

#202

Post by calloc »

runinit wrote: post #185
sfphotoarts wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Lack of support for third party codecs (FLAC specifically). Lack of auto conversion support when transferring to devices. "Genius" Playlists never work for anything obscure Ping is terrible Lack of tagging support (no autotag feature) I use mediamonkey (i'm on PC), once you switch you can never go back. I can organize my collection exactly how I want it from in the software, i can browse my harddrives to preview musi…

I do believe that by installing Perian you get support for more formats in iTunes as well as Quicktime.

Re: Mac App Store: Open for Business

#203

Post by xyzzyb »

pclark wrote: post #8
rimantas wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iTunes is just fine on OS X. And yes, the second style is iTunes specific, I guess to keep consistency between normal and "mini" mode.

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

Big reverse opinion from me. I'm big into cataloging and organization of my files. iTunes rescued me from a complex nest of mp3 folders and got me into a unified metadata interface that allows me to slice and dice my collection anyway I choose.

For example, the following smart playlists: - Top 100 highly rated songs that haven't been played in a month - Five random Simpsons episodes (hooray bus entertainment) - Unrated songs - Highly rated songs from the 90s - etc.

My wife and I use frontrow (just a skin over iTunes really) to manage our media library: dozens of movies, hundreds of tv shows, thousands and thousands of songs. Couldn't be happier with it.

Re: Mac App Store: Open for Business

#204

Post by elvirs »

J3L2404 wrote: post #195
elvirs wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how is it wrong? apple advertises the fact that they will let buyers 'even redownload' for free the app a customers bought earlier. what is so great about it to advertise? is not that normal? I dont like the fact that apple makes a normal thing sound like a favor it is doing to its customers. which part is wrong in it?

This part: >its amazing how apple expected customers to pay for the same digital product over and over. Or are you trying to pretend you didn't say that?

and why are downvoting like a kid everything i say, even questions :) its a conversation dude, chill.

Re: Mac App Store: Open for Business

#205

Post by philwelch »

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.

Why would that be? Apple sells more than enough machines to developers to know better than that.

Yes, iPhones and such are locked down. That's the difference between iPhones and Macs.

Re: Mac App Store: Open for Business

#206

Post by calloc »

rimantas wrote: post #12
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 .…

Why does Apple now have three different window control styles? http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20635/Screenshots/r3da.png Only three? That makes very consistent interface then. Why are there back buttons ("like a browser") but you can't right hand click to get the contextual drop down? Back buttons are there, you know, to get back. Very common usage pattern. Contextual drop down? Not that common. Even Safari does not have it…

    Back buttons are there, you know, to get back. Very common usage pattern. Contextual drop down? Not that common. Even Safari does not have it. Neither does Opera on OS X.
Yes, right click doesn't exist, but click and hold certainly does in Safari give you an context menu to go back one or more. The same does not exist for the app store.

Re: Mac App Store: Open for Business

#207

Post by steveklabnik »

statictype wrote: post #113
generalk wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You're right. But at the same time I wonder how many users understand the distinction. You can get 'rid' of a window by either hitting the red x (which I presume is the same as Ctrl-W), Alt-Clicking the dock icon (which I presume is the same as Ctrl-H) or going to Menu->Quit (Ctrl-Q). It's easy to understand this, once you realize that window management is app-centric and is organized by Application rather than indiv…

I know that an appeal to tradition isn't exactly the most persuasive of arguments, but the core Mac fanbase has been doing things this way for decades. I happen to like it a lot more.

Those few inconsistencies suck, though. Bad apps, what are you going to do? Well, you could reject them from a store...

Re: Mac App Store: Open for Business

#208

Post by philwelch »

microtonal wrote: post #66
rimantas wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know. Let's say I wan't to host it myself, I'd pay about $240 per year for Linode VPS.

I'd pay nothing, and host it on GitHub. In fact I, and many others do.

If your users are the "compile from source" crowd, I agree the Mac App Store has no benefit to you.

Re: Mac App Store: Open for Business

#209

Post by jamesk2 »

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

The app store significantly reduces the friction needed to discover and install apps. In the first 10 minutes of using it, I discovered 3 useful apps and installed them all without loading a disk image, installing it, dragging the mounted disk image to the trash, then deleting the disk image file.

This morning's productivity is probably blown...

Re: Mac App Store: Open for Business

#210

Post by twodayslate »

etherealG wrote: post #85
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

distribution already exists! it's called the internet. fire up a website, have a downloadable app, and you're done. I don't understand why people keep saying the same for "app stores" like iphone and android, and now osx too. why can't I just search for an app on a search engine, goto that apps website, download it and run/install it? how does this system benefit me as a user at all?

Bundled with OS. One click and easy to use. Not everyone is a "tech geek" and for some even turning on a computer is hard.
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