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The Mac App Store’s future of irrelevance

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Re: The Mac App Store’s future of irrelevance

#121

Post by MatthewPhillips »

brudgers wrote: post #45
tadhgk wrote: post #17

Future of irrelevance to who exactly? The 1-in-10000 users who like to play with root level access and scripts and stuff perhaps, but do the other 9999 even notice the change? I'm thinking not. Granted it's a big change from earlier times, the strategy of sandboxing works really well for security and general OS integrity (as iOS has proved) in a world that has no patience for fragmented and exploitative software. Per…

"Microsoft is going the same way too with Metro." Not exactly. Metro and its app store are only "half" of Windows 8. The other half isn't sandboxed in the walled garden style. To put it another way, Microsoft isn't building the Windows App Store on the back of existing software, but from the ground up using only sandboxed apps. Microsoft isn't likely to create the sort of moving target for developers that Apple has r…

> Metro and its app store are only "half" of Windows 8.

The parent said "going the same way". It seems pretty obvious to me that they are deprecating the desktop and Windows 8 is just step 1 of that.

Re: The Mac App Store’s future of irrelevance

#122

Post by kevindication »

Contrast this end-user experience with that of Steam's. These are essentially the exact same applications except that Steam has 1) carefully cultivated a huge, multi-platform ecosystem of apps and 2) has never willingly broken the application's environment.

Steam is arguably the only game distribution platform of significance (yes, yes, battle.net and its limited selection of widely played titles) and will continue to dominate because of the careful thought they've put into distribution.

Seems like Apple should take a lesson, no?

Re: The Mac App Store’s future of irrelevance

#123

Post by groovylick »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #116
larrik wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with all of your first sentence. As a full-time Linux/Django and iOS developer, switching over to the Mac from Ubuntu is f'ing painful . Linux's reputation is far worse than it deserves.

What was painful about it?

Once you have used a quality package manager everything in the osx ecosystem is painful to use.

Re: The Mac App Store’s future of irrelevance

#124

Post by retr0rocket »

Terretta wrote: post #33
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…

Have you tried purchasing the "latest" version of World of Warcraft? You can't. There is no standalone "latest version". You have to purchase the original, and each version since, and finally the current version. Correlate those game content / game mechanics updates with In-App Purchases, and it's clear how someone could offer "major upgrades" if they stop thinking in terms of version numbers and start thinking in te…

did you just compare a game with a 15$ subscription and 40$ expansion packs for major updates and lvl bumps to a 10 dollar app? do you realize how asinine that is and how dumb you sound?

if i want to get to current content in WoW i would of had to get Vanilla(50$ at release) + burning crusade (40$ at release) + wrath of the lich king(40$ at release) + cataclysm(40$ at release) PLUS every month im paying 15$ on subscription

if i just buy vanila i would be limited to 1-60 content, not allowed full access to any of the later continents and cities, skills, talents, cant pvp properly, not allowed in arena, cant do any endgame, and am generally wasting my time. how is that at all conducive to what you are saying? for any real application that does work or major game that requires constant updates you cant expect support and update for 10$ that's completely unfeasible.

you sound like someone who never played world of warcraft in his life, and it baffles me how you came up with such a nonsensical rebuttal

Re: The Mac App Store’s future of irrelevance

#125

Post by brudgers »

monkeyfacebag wrote: post #74
brudgers wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Microsoft is going the same way too with Metro." Not exactly. Metro and its app store are only "half" of Windows 8. The other half isn't sandboxed in the walled garden style. To put it another way, Microsoft isn't building the Windows App Store on the back of existing software, but from the ground up using only sandboxed apps. Microsoft isn't likely to create the sort of moving target for developers that Apple has r…

FYI, this is not true for Windows RT (the ARM version). That version will only support applications purchased through MS's store. Given that MS is clearly pushing for Metro to be the future of Windows, I think this is somewhat concerning.

On the other hand, Windows on ARM is an extension of the Windows franchise in the same way that WP7 with it's app store is. In a sense it is like talking about the iPad when discussion the Mac App store...or would be if iOS applications ran on the Mac.

Metro is a future of Windows, just as Server Console mode is (though admittedly on a potentially different scale).

Re: The Mac App Store’s future of irrelevance

#126

Post by cageface »

This even may reduce the long-term success of iCloud and the platform lock-in it could bring for Apple.

Apple is never going to have the kind of platform dominance that would make iCloud really compelling. At least the other vendors realize that they need to operate in a polyglot world.

As much as I like my MBA and iPad I refuse to lock my essential data into a system I can only really access with hardware from a single vendor.

Re: The Mac App Store’s future of irrelevance

#127

Post by brudgers »

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #121
brudgers wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Microsoft is going the same way too with Metro." Not exactly. Metro and its app store are only "half" of Windows 8. The other half isn't sandboxed in the walled garden style. To put it another way, Microsoft isn't building the Windows App Store on the back of existing software, but from the ground up using only sandboxed apps. Microsoft isn't likely to create the sort of moving target for developers that Apple has r…

> Metro and its app store are only "half" of Windows 8. The parent said "going the same way". It seems pretty obvious to me that they are deprecating the desktop and Windows 8 is just step 1 of that.

Well of course, it's all in what one believes to be the way Apple is going in regards to the Mac platform. In the context of the original article, that way was toward a walled garden in which the wall was moving and growing higher from a developer's perspective in order to effectively bring more applications in house.

I don't see Microsoft going that way because they give a shit about software developers.

Re: The Mac App Store’s future of irrelevance

#128

Post by bluesnowmonkey »

cletus wrote: post #120

There are two issues that are coming up here: sandboxing and paid upgrades. They are quite different. As a consumer I am completely for sandboxing for myself and for other consumers. In a world where malware is increasingly a problem sandboxed apps will become the norm. That's the reality we live in. Sandboxing being a requirement means that I can fairly safely install anything from the (future) Mac App Store. The OP…

> 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 downloading it. Reputation is the sandbox.

Re: The Mac App Store’s future of irrelevance

#130

Post by 89a »

Aloisius wrote: post #8

What software besides Postbox has pulled out? The author makes it sound like there is a mass exodus. I've bought most of my software outside the App Store, so I'm not tuned in.

I believe Panic with Coda has said the non-MAS version will be getting features that are impossible on the MAS version
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