The Mac App Store’s future of irrelevance • Hacker News Board

Re: The Mac App Store’s future of irrelevance

#61

Post by arihant » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 3:46 PM UTC

Bobby_Tables wrote: post #7

The iOS App Store does the same thing with changing the rules in the middle of the game, but it is not subject to potential irrelevance because it is the only place to get software for iOS devices. So the obvious solution for Apple is to make the Mac App Store the only place to get software for MacOS. I'm actually a little surprised this didn't happen in 10.8.

This probably won't happen in OSX, I think.

What Apple may do is stop developing MacOS altogether and make a variant of iOS for desktop after OSX (or simply rebrand). And I don't think this would be a total shock for the users by the time. Largely because Metro app would be following the store model too.

Re: The Mac App Store’s future of irrelevance

#62

Post by jseliger » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 3:47 PM UTC

jawngee wrote: post #26

I'm pulling my video editor Shave ( http://shavevideo.com ) out of the Mac App Store for these reasons, though most specifically the lack of paid upgrades. For a $10 video editor that, quite frankly, beats the pants off a lot of crap out there for day to day editing tasks, I can't afford to devote the time and resources it requires to maintain it without it having a baseline level of income. Not having an upgrade pat…

Shave actually looks pretty appealing to me on OS X. Does it support 60fps (unlike iMovie), and will it accept input formats other than the iPhone's?

(Sorry if I missed the answers on your website: I browsed through and didn't find them, but that might be my fault.)

Re: The Mac App Store’s future of irrelevance

#63

Post by smoody » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 3:48 PM UTC

spiralpolitik wrote: post #15

smoody wrote: post #3

It seems to me that there's an opportunity for someone to create a knock-off of the Mac App Store without the restrictions . I'd be a customer.

Already done a long time ago: http://appbodega.com (Although I believe Bodega launched a few years prior to the Mac app store)

Sometimes being early is the same as being wrong -- we've seen that time and time again. If a new player were to come along and capture the momentum of this meme, I personally believe that they'd stand a better chance than a player who has been in the space a long time. It's unfortunate, but that's just the way it is -- or always has been.

Re: The Mac App Store’s future of irrelevance

#64

Post by tnorthcutt » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 3:48 PM UTC

I think I agree with everything Marco says in this article except for

Apple can never require an App-Store-only future

I think they can, and will, regardless of their sandboxing or other policies.

Re: The Mac App Store’s future of irrelevance

#65

Post by insaneirish » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 3:49 PM UTC

zemo wrote: post #31

this whole article goes over my head, because it assumes the reader is already familiar with the sandboxing issue. I'm not a desktop OS X developer; I'm not familiar with the topic. I searched around and the only articles I could find are blog posts about how the sky is falling, with no sources from Apple that plainly state the app sandboxing requirements. If you're going to write an article about how some upcoming t…

Marco's general audience knows about this issue. There is no need for him to elaborate on something well known to his readers.

The burden is on you to educate yourself.

I don't open a calculus book and complain it doesn't teach me algebra first.

Re: The Mac App Store’s future of irrelevance

#66

Post by jawngee » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 3:51 PM UTC

jseliger wrote: post #62

jawngee wrote: post #26

I'm pulling my video editor Shave ( http://shavevideo.com ) out of the Mac App Store for these reasons, though most specifically the lack of paid upgrades. For a $10 video editor that, quite frankly, beats the pants off a lot of crap out there for day to day editing tasks, I can't afford to devote the time and resources it requires to maintain it without it having a baseline level of income. Not having an upgrade pat…

Shave actually looks pretty appealing to me on OS X. Does it support 60fps (unlike iMovie), and will it accept input formats other than the iPhone's? (Sorry if I missed the answers on your website: I browsed through and didn't find them, but that might be my fault.)

It supports anything that QuickTime can play, some formats better than others. But I use it to edit DiVX. Note, that it will always save a quicktime movie, even if you are editing an AVI or MPEG, but it won't re-encode, it just changes containers. Email me jon@interfacelab.com and I'll hook you up with the latest version that supports AVCHD.

Edit: Does not support WMV, even with Flip4Mac.

Re: The Mac App Store’s future of irrelevance

#67

Post by fredsted » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 3:54 PM UTC

spaghetti wrote: post #48

zemo wrote: post #31

this whole article goes over my head, because it assumes the reader is already familiar with the sandboxing issue. I'm not a desktop OS X developer; I'm not familiar with the topic. I searched around and the only articles I could find are blog posts about how the sky is falling, with no sources from Apple that plainly state the app sandboxing requirements. If you're going to write an article about how some upcoming t…

I'd like to understand the implications of sandboxing too. It must have some large negative impact on Instapaper for Marco to care this much. What is it?

Here's a document that goes in-depth about app sandboxing:

http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Securi...

Re: The Mac App Store’s future of irrelevance

#68

Post by jiggy2011 » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 3:55 PM UTC

Yhippa wrote: post #30

moron wrote: post #23

Marco is accusing Apple of having made a critical strategic error. Where are all the people who call him a member of the Apple cult and all that crap? Funny how they disappear when it comes time to talk about what Apple is doing wrong.

To me the tone of the article is that he is worried that Apple is missing chances of further enhancing lock-in to the Apple brand, specifically on the Mac OS desktop platform. The guy re-purchased apps he already had so that he could help with that lock-in. I see the rationale for doing that but when you start throwing free cash on duplicate app purchases to enhance lock-in I don't know what could be more cult-like.

In the article he says he did it for the purposes of convenience. I don't understand why anybody other than apple would be interesting in "helping" with lock-in.

Re: The Mac App Store’s future of irrelevance

#69

Post by pooriaazimi » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 3:55 PM UTC

sujal wrote: post #14

tomflack wrote: post #9

I've nightmares about endless apps having their own updaters. Adobe/Microsoft updaters really are the culprits here. Its this that makes me wish the app store would drop these product-killing restrictions. I don't trust every app developer to do updaters.

Many (most?) indie mac apps use Sparkle ( http://sparkle.andymatuschak.org ) to autoupdate. It's generally easy to use, so most people don't need to go the microsoft/adobe route.

Sparkle is amazing. For years and years, I thought it was actually part of the OS, as almost every app I had used it. That's how ubiquitous it is on the Mac!

Edit: Very interesting! The guy behind Sparkle (Andy Matuschak) is actually an Apple employee, working on UIKit! http://andymatuschak.org/

> By day, I work on UIKit to help other people make things.

Re: The Mac App Store’s future of irrelevance

#70

Post by modernerd » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 3:55 PM UTC

spaghetti wrote: post #55

jawngee wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is getting customers of version 1 onto version 2. There is no way to do this with MAS. I have a mechanism built into Shave so I can push "news", but it's annoying and bad user experience.

Why can't you update the app and hide most of the new features behind an in-app-purchase paywall?

New users who purchase the updated app would have to pay again to get the latest features.