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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

#171

Post by jiggy2011 »

coderdude wrote: post #167
jiggy2011 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny , for years Apple were all like "Macs can't get viruses!" now they're saying "we need app store lock in too prevent malware!". I guess there's a distinction to be made between actual malware and software that co-installs crap (Ask toolbar etc) but often end users do not see that difference. Besides, if something has passed app store verification then surely Apple are happy that it is not malware? Therefor…

>Besides, if something has passed app store verification then surely Apple are happy that it is not malware? I'm not so sure. What is their process for verifying that an app is not or does not contain malware? If it's simply to run the software and see what it does then they can really only verify that apps aren't immediately misbehaving. What if the app is set to do its misdeeds after the 100th time it is run, or af…

I assume they do some form of reverse engineering on analysis on the binary also.

Re: The Mac App Store’s future of irrelevance

#172

Post by franzus »

groovylick wrote: post #123
pavel_lishin wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was painful about it?

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

And once you've seen Mac UIs everything in the X11 ecosystem is painful to use.

Re: The Mac App Store’s future of irrelevance

#173

Post by franzus »

gwkoehler wrote: post #34
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.

Here's one thing I imagine: 10.9 by default won't allow apps outside the App Store, and you have to buy the 10.9 Server upgrade to have this privilege. They would bundle XCode with it or something to rebrand it as a "developer-friendly" add-on, and developers will be happy to pay, but all the consumers will be chained to the App Store.

Heh, good luck with that. Any pro user who needs more functionality than a ToDo-app will be enraged.

Re: The Mac App Store’s future of irrelevance

#174

Post by jawngee »

crag wrote: post #95
jawngee wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I use Shave.. and thanks. What are you gonna do about Perian shutting down?

This bummed me out, not only for Shave, but as a user. But, you know, Apple's direction with media is a little f'd in my estimation. AVFoundation is dope, but it's a huge step back from QuickTime. Shave 2 is written using it, and so far (and it has a long ways to go), it's not half what the QuickTime version is.

Re: The Mac App Store’s future of irrelevance

#175

Post by ohhmaagawd »

spudlyo wrote: post #99
Aloisius wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That will be the day I go back to Linux.

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…

what's wrong with "identified developers" only? You don't want to pay the $100 a year to be in the mac dev program?

Re: The Mac App Store’s future of irrelevance

#176

Post by runjake »

bluesnowmonkey wrote: post #128
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…

  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.
Are you kidding me? Have you missed the large number of browser-based vulnerabilities, from Flashback and MacDefender, to the huge number of vulnerabilities the latest Safari fixed?

Re: The Mac App Store’s future of irrelevance

#177

Post by Garwor »

jopt wrote: post #92
Garwor wrote: post #43

The neckbeards will buy from the developer. The ordinary customers Apple has been relentlessly targeting for a decade will buy from the Mac App Store. Which group is bigger?

It's not about where we buy our apps, it's about where we sell them. If the App Store doesn't work for developers, it won't work for users. The users can't buy stuff that isn't there just because they outnumber the developers.

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's headed toward appliance computing. Maybe you can sell software to Linux users.

Re: The Mac App Store’s future of irrelevance

#178

Post by pnathan »

ohhmaagawd wrote: post #166
pnathan wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a consumer, I only buy from the App Store when it's absolutely required. I vastly prefer to live outside the App store and the Sandbox. I haven't gotten malware in years, and I don't particularly expect I'll get it in years to come; if I do, it'll probably be a zero-day in Flash, OpenSSH or HTML5. So, anecdotally, as one consumer, if you have a program in the Mac App Store, I really won't be buying it unless its a…

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" limitation I noticed this morning is that Mail.app's sandbox poses significant limitations to GPGMail. That's not good- hopefully I can continue to have encrypted email at will with Mail.app. Fortunately, the open source world provides encrypting email clients.

- Should Apple know what I have installed? App stores give them that knowledge. Is there a right that App stores take away?

Obviously, I have no great faith in Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, or the other centralization advocates. I don't see that I should.

Re: The Mac App Store’s future of irrelevance

#179

Post by Aloisius »

ohhmaagawd wrote: post #175
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…

what's wrong with "identified developers" only? You don't want to pay the $100 a year to be in the mac dev program?

Political activists in China no longer able to anonymously release software?

Re: The Mac App Store’s future of irrelevance

#180

Post by spudlyo »

ohhmaagawd wrote: post #175
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…

what's wrong with "identified developers" only? You don't want to pay the $100 a year to be in the mac dev program?

What's wrong with Apple trying to control which binaries it will and won't let you run on its OS? Doesn't Apple always have your best interests at heart?
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