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

Re: The Mac App Store’s future of irrelevance

#201

Post by ohhmaagawd » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 8:42 PM UTC

pnathan wrote: post #178

ohhmaagawd wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you gave absolutely no reason why you prefer going outside the app store.

It should be obvious, but to make it even clearer. - Centralization of control. Apple has frequently jacked around with iOS programs being allowed/disallowed; why should we let some central authority control what we have on our computing devices? - Centralization of malware. Monocultures are subject to waves of viruses. - Limitations. The more interesting your app, the more places it needs to touch. A "fun" limitatio…

Do you have any evidence for your claim that malware would be worse due to centralization?

Apple has a very good record on malware via both the mac and iOS app store, best I can tell.

I completely get why a dev would hate the app store, but form an average consumer standpoint - it seems brilliant. Unless you are scared of Apple finding out that you installed "Evernote" or "Twitter". OMG!

Re: The Mac App Store’s future of irrelevance

#202

Post by magoon » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 8:45 PM UTC

franzus wrote: post #159

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…

One of the most annoying things about the app store are the review times. With our app ( http://armadilloapp.com ) we had to wait over 5 weeks to get into the store. 2 weeks till the first review, then there was a rejection where I had consult Apple's DTS which took another week to get resolved plus another 2 weeks waiting for a new review. Now we have version 1.0 in the app store and have version 1.1 waiting for rev…

I second this. The review times can cause real problems for development, and it is a concern that gets very little attention these days.

Re: The Mac App Store’s future of irrelevance

#203

Post by lukifer » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 8:50 PM UTC

spaghetti wrote: post #155

lukifer wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except the developer takes a hit there, too. Given that not everyone needs every feature, users end up subsidizing each other's desired improvements as part of a major upgrade. On top of that, not all features have clear lines that can be drawn around them, technically or marketing-wise. It's a great model for games and certain specific types of apps (Paper is very clever). But to push all apps onto this model is hig…

I'm not sure if the developer necessarily takes a hit. Say I have $15 to spend on a video editing app. $10 for the initial app and $5 for the only premium feature I want results in me giving $15 to the developer (less Apple's cut etc). However if the developer adds 5 new features to the app and I have to choose between buying features that I mostly don't want and can't afford or not spending the money I'll most likey…

If you wanted/needed the feature badly enough (ie, it was a mission-critical tool), you might pay much more for an update that included your desired feature in addition to stuff you don't need (or even stuff you might not yet know that you want). Also, the extra "wasted" revenue helps pay the developer for the thankless but necessary task of under-the-hood improvements, whose costs have to absorbed elsewhere.

I'm not saying the model can never work, but it's not a good fit for every product. The developer should be able to create the relationship with their customers that they think fits best; sometimes that will be IAP, sometimes subscriptions, sometimes upgrades. There will never be "one business model to rule them all", or else we'd see all marketplaces naturally converge in that direction.

Re: The Mac App Store’s future of irrelevance

#204

Post by Tyrannosaurs » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 9:07 PM UTC

ghshephard wrote: post #150

bluesnowmonkey wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In a world where malware is increasingly a problem I don't see that as the case. There is malware out there in torrent land, sure. But if you acquire software from reputable sources (like a paid app store, referral from a friend, heard about it on a forum like HN, package repository), malware just isn't a concern. If you put malware on an app store, the world will notice, its rating will tank, and people will stop…

"malware just isn't a concern." - beg to differ. The fiasco over Path (of which I continue to be an avid user) shows that Malware is an issue even in the iOS store. Sandboxing, and absolute limitations over what data any given application has access to, is the future for OS X applications.

Path wasn't malware, it was stupidity.

Re: The Mac App Store’s future of irrelevance

#205

Post by Tyrannosaurs » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 9:12 PM UTC

jonknee wrote: post #86

Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That wasn't the case for me. Gatekeeper was on for appstore and signed applications and I had to disable it to install something I downloaded (ironically because OS X told me to - X11).

Right click and choose open. Don't double click the app. It definitely works.

Ah yes. Didn't know about that.

Re: The Mac App Store’s future of irrelevance

#206

Post by spudlyo » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 9:40 PM UTC

bishnu wrote: post #112

spudlyo wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the same thing as I was reading John Siracusa's review of Mountain Lion. My stomach sunk when I saw the default 'gatekeeper' options. [ ] Mac App Store [x] Mac App store and identified developers [ ] Anywhere Seems likely at some point down the road the third option will no longer exist. My next project is getting Linux to run on an old MBP. I still love their hardware, but OSX is getting fuckin' uppity. I…

It doesn't seem likely to me at all. In fact I think it's much more likely that you'll see THIS permissions system end up on iOS than vice-versa. It's actually a fantastic security feature for the average user, so it doesn't worry me that much.

Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little... oh fuck it.

Re: The Mac App Store’s future of irrelevance

#207

Post by Garwor » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 9:51 PM UTC

jopt wrote: post #183

Garwor wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other developers will happily come along, work within Apple's guidelines, and sell to the giant slice of the pie chart. It's obviously a radically different model of software development, and one that's probably far less appealing to current developers, but that's what happens when industries change. The incumbents never like it. The same thing's coming to Windows, too, thanks to the Windows Store. The whole industry…

That makes it sound like sandboxing is a matter of personal taste, and that if I as a developer consider my self "too good to sandbox" someone else will eat my lunch. I fully agree with your line of reasoning in many other debates about the App Store, and I'm not against appliance computing. Take the 30% cut, for instance. If Smile had discontinued TextExpander's App Store presence because they didn't like the 30-70…

I don't disagree with you at all; I just think that in the appliance-computing future where your computer is basically a toaster, the vast majority of users (ie, potential software customers) won't care about the "missing" apps at all. It's not a coincidence that most of the apps running up against sandboxing are tools aimed at power users -- third-party email clients, application launchers, BBEdit, backup tools, etc. These are specialized apps for users on the thin end of the bell curve. I don't think Apple cares much if they lose all the people who care about third-party text editors if they're able to start selling computers to millions of other ordinary people who have heretofore been terrified of installing software on their computers.

I'm not happy about it either; I guess I just understand what Apple's trying to do, and why Microsoft seems so eager to follow suit by setting up its own store. The "you have to be a computer guy to use computers" era is almost over.

Re: The Mac App Store’s future of irrelevance

#208

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 9:51 PM UTC

jopt wrote: post #183

Garwor wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other developers will happily come along, work within Apple's guidelines, and sell to the giant slice of the pie chart. It's obviously a radically different model of software development, and one that's probably far less appealing to current developers, but that's what happens when industries change. The incumbents never like it. The same thing's coming to Windows, too, thanks to the Windows Store. The whole industry…

That makes it sound like sandboxing is a matter of personal taste, and that if I as a developer consider my self "too good to sandbox" someone else will eat my lunch. I fully agree with your line of reasoning in many other debates about the App Store, and I'm not against appliance computing. Take the 30% cut, for instance. If Smile had discontinued TextExpander's App Store presence because they didn't like the 30-70…

[deleted]

Re: The Mac App Store’s future of irrelevance

#209

Post by Caballera » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 10:01 PM UTC

I don't know if it's been said or discussed before, but why don't Developers just make yearly revisions to sell on the Mac App Store, or even the iPhone iOS app store. You could have a Genericproductname'2012 or '12, and next year release a 2013 ('13) that has the new features, then remove the prior versions.

Re: The Mac App Store’s future of irrelevance

#210

Post by eridius » Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 10:09 PM UTC

josh2600 wrote: post #197

eridius wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Centralization of malware. Monocultures are subject to waves of viruses. This is a completely nonsensical argument. Malware has absolutely nothing to do with the distribution mechanism of the program in question.

I think he was driving at the idea that people who make malware tend to go for larger ecosystems. The reality is that everything you do on a network involves some form of risk. You can mitigate these risks by performing tasks in a standardized way using only approved software, but a packaged Zero-Day that's tuned for your environment will generally succeed. Getting a Kaspersky Payload isn't that hard to find any more…

I don't see how any of what you said is relevant. The distribution mechanism (Mac App Store) has absolutely nothing to do with everyone running the same software. And in fact the required sandboxing (one of the alleged problems with the Mac App Store) goes a long way to mitigate a lot of risks in remote exploits.

If the Mac App Store had a grand total of 5 apps then I could see where you're coming from, but it launched with over a thousand apps and it's had 1.5 years since then to acquire many more. There's no monoculture.