I don't know about this App Store. I right now think the iPhone App Store is way to over bloated right now and is hard to find applications when surfing for a certain function. Then Apple will introduce an OS X App store that will exhibit the same bloat problem.
I disagree.
"Apps that duplicate apps already in the App Store may be rejected, particularly if there are many of them. Apps that are not very useful or do not provide any lasting entertainment value may be rejected. Apps that are primarily marketing materials or advertisements will be rejected. Apps that are intended to provide trick or fake functionality that are not clearly marked as such will be rejected."
As long as they stick to that rule (and there's no reason to believe that they won't), I don't see a problem. I'm definitely looking forward to a 'safe' store. It's one of the things I love about the App store on the iPhone.
And how can Steve prevent you going to a web site such as Version Tracker and downloading software from there?
Simple, sandbox apps just like they do on the iphone. Make no mistake, if Jobs had the internet to easily install applications in an appstore from day 1 of the mac then he would have done. There would be no such thing as being able to install your own software
This will be huge for Mac gaming. It will be the turning point for the Mac and games. It will spur development of games developed for OS X (without DirectX) that are as fast as any PC and eventually faster.
Oh and of course, the second they heard this MS started work to come up with a PC App Store, I guarantee it.
I can't really see mac gaming catching PCs. For one macs will never be as fast as gaming PCs and be affordable. You can build a gaming PC for less than £1500 that is faster than anything apple make apart from a ridiculously expensive mac pro. Second DirectX is one of the few things MS do extremely well, there is a whole gaming industry built around it. I don't see that changinig because angry birds for the mac is on the way....
First, no flash with the new Backbook Airs, then no Java, then app store and all the restrictions and then in a few more releases, no app installs outside of app store.
Good bye OS X, it was a nice ride while it lasted.
All those things "will" benefit the user. Thank you apple.
I'm glad you undermined your own post by putting "will" in quotes, meaning that you don't really think they will benefit the user. (quotes <> bold) Y'see, there are several clauses in there that really won't benefit end users at all.
"cannot install code or resources in shared locations."
OS X is a multi-user environment. It drives me nuts when I install an app as one user and the next user logs in and cannot run the app because the installer put all the config. files in ~/Library instead of /Library. This clause, strictly interpreted, means apps can no longer store their data in/Library. It remains to be seen if that's how Apple reviewers will interpret it. \
"Apps that do not run on the currently shipping OS will be rejected."
So utilities that fix deficiencies in older OS'es or make older OS's more tolerable (Onyx comes to mind) are now verbotten? Nice, Apple. \
"Apps that are set to auto-launch or to have other code automatically run at startup or login without user consent will be rejected."
That would preclude any font managers (Suitcase, UTC, etc.) that need to run at launch so they precede any apps that need fonts.
This is indeed a rather massive pile of fail, as another poster said.
Mac app store is great for apple, sucks for mac developers. Users will start to expect that all mac apps are on the store, and apple will start taking a 30% cut of every mac app sale. That's a crapload of money to apple, for doing essentially nothing but providing hosting space. On top of that you have to deal with apple's BS submission guidelines.
Most apps already have built-in autoupdating via sparkle, and for the most part can be uninstalled by dragging to trash, so I don't see how apple even offers any additional functionality to app downloads.
This just looks more and more like a big, wet, steaming pile of fail.
And Steve has NEVER backpedaled before or turned around 180 degrees on his past statements? Riiiight.
Two years from now, this will be our only choice for software.
Except in this case is just not practical to do that - Jobs knows damn well that every single app can run in the way that the App Store requires - abandoning such apps would be the equivalent business move of shooting yourself in the foot with a cannon - something that no CEO is that dumb to do. And lets not point out that Steve is not all powerful - he is still answerable to the board - if he tries and do anything that will compromise their sales he will be out in a minute.
The kind of change that you outline is not a 180 - it's abandoning 30 years of precedent. It just won't happen that way - Jobs is too pragmatic.
I haven't seen many mentions of one of the biggest strengths of the upcoming mac app store, and that is integration with iOS. Think about how many iphone/ipad apps there are that want to communicate with the computer. Sharing files, syncing information, etc. Currently this is usually done by having these iOS companies either try and build and distribute a mac title, or have a website or some sort of other 'hack'.
I'm just saying it will be nice to see companies offer a complete 'suite' of applications for the entire mac ecosystem, offering integration and yet also device specific differentiation for the same app. There are going to be some pretty sweet offerings imo. As an end user and a developer, i'm excited.
With all your real life developer/publisher experience it should be trivial
The astute reader will note that I'm not the one who made an unsupportable claim. Thank you for proving my point.
You wrote:
Quote:
Most distribution mechanisms where the developer doens't have his own merchant account (most don't) take anywhere from 10-50%.
How many devs don't have their own merchant account?
And among that subset, how many aren't using Element-5, Digital River, PayPal, or any of the other solutions that take less than 10%?
Sure, the relatively tiny fraction of Mac devs who have boxes on store shelves will see a larger cut at 70% over what they're getting now. But not only is that a tiny number of products when compared to the Mac ecosystem as a whole, being in the App Store isn't anything like being on the shelf at a physical store: in the App Store your app is just one in a million that you hope the user will stumble across when searching.
In that regard, it's not much better than relying on Google right now, and arguably worse since you have less control over your SERPs.
"cannot install code or resources in shared locations."
OS X is a multi-user environment. It drives me nuts when I install an app as one user and the next user logs in and cannot run the app because the installer put all the config. files in ~/Library instead of /Library. This clause, strictly interpreted, means apps can no longer store their data in/Library. It remains to be seen if that's how Apple reviewers will interpret it. \
"Apps that do not run on the currently shipping OS will be rejected."
So utilities that fix deficiencies in older OS'es or make older OS's more tolerable (Onyx comes to mind) are now verbotten? Nice, Apple. \
"Apps that are set to auto-launch or to have other code automatically run at startup or login without user consent will be rejected."
That would preclude any font managers (Suitcase, UTC, etc.) that need to run at launch so they precede any apps that need fonts.
This is indeed a rather massive pile of fail, as another poster said.
Suitcase would probably be fine, the key is "without user consent". Which means all it has to do is ASK the user first. However, if I'm understanding everything the fact Suitcase installs a preference pane would preclude it from being accept since that goes in A) a shared location and is not part of a "single app bundle".
The other thing is what about applications that install "content" like sound effects etc. These cannot be "bundled" in the app and must be installed someplace else, preferably someplace shared so all users can get to it!
The "store" looks like it's a bad idea, a really, really bad idea, and clearly, in my opinion, even the quotes coming from Apple haven't been well thought out.....just like the list of requirements!
Did you dust off an iOS app store rant? Because it looks awfully familiar. Again, quoting and saving for posterity. Let's meet back here in a year and see how things work out...
And while I find the sudden concern for the poor developers charming (we must think of the children, er, developers after all!) I also find the timing a bit disingenuous if not downright fascinating.
I don't have Apple's sales figures, so let's just take some median numbers, shall we??? Let's let "hundreds of thousands" of Mac developers be equal to 500,000, and let's let "tens of millions" of Mac users be equal to 50,000,000.
Let's say, for the sake of argument, that each one of these 50,000,000 buyers goes out and buys 1 application from each of these 500,000 developers. That equates to:
50,000,000/500,000=100 copies sold. By God...your rich!!!
50,000,000 (buyers) x1(app) x500,00 (developers) = 25,000,000,000,000 .... a bit more than 100. Either you're using a "new kind of math" or I'm still half asleep ..... which is it?
50,000,000 (buyers) x1(app) x500,00 (developers) = 25,000,000,000,000 .... a bit more than 100. Either you're using a "new kind of math" or I'm still half asleep ..... which is it?
Uuuuh, more developers doesn't make more sales. I thought his point was $ going into a developer's pocket (in which case he needs to multiply it by 0.7, then 0.7 again due to Apple's with-holding BS).
Neither of your maths is working.
Again, are any developers outside of iPhone development salivating at this proposal? Sure, iPhone devs have already been brow-beaten to think this is already fair, but Mac devs know better.
No they won't. Complex applications that install files outside their own bundle are not eligible for inclusion in the store.
So MS Word, for example will never be in the app store because it installs fonts on your computer.
Even if there was no policy against that, you won't see any non-Apple flagship products in the app store given the revenue split.
When MS sells you Office, your money goes directly into their account, not some Apple bank. Not only are their costs lower, but they handle their own taxes and pocket nearly all of it. Everyone else gets shafted by Apple and the IRS.
Expect to see a lot of freeware and silly gimmicks on the app store. A race to the bottom. For useful commercial apps it will be an abysmal failure.
I know Steve's wet dream is to sandbox the OS and only allow app store installs. It won't happen with Lion, but at some point there will be a sanitized iMac-OS like the iOS only for desktop Macs and it will be sandboxed and made to run on cheap hardware (possibly a netbook?). It won't be installed on Mac Pros initially (if they even exist at that point), but the beginning of the end will be clear.
Hopefully by then the patent system will die and some other megalomaniac billionaire will come out with something all together better (perhaps an OS without a filesystem) and we can run OS X in a VM and move on.
I'm glad you undermined your own post by putting "will" in quotes, meaning that you don't really think they will benefit the user. (quotes <> bold) Y'see, there are several clauses in there that really won't benefit end users at all.
No they won't. Complex applications that install files outside their own bundle are not eligible for inclusion in the store.
So MS Word, for example will never be in the app store because it installs fonts on your computer.
That alone should debunk the whole "the mac store is going to be the only option to install software someday" conspiracy theories. Apple knows darn well that there is no way all apps can install and operate in that way and no way they should. Any application that has any sort of work-flow design that involves separate programs (like Adobe products, Microsoft products and even Apples own Final Cut Software) would not work that way. There is no way that Apple would be so dumb or even so controlling as to basically give a competitor such an advantage by killing off programs that customers use. I cannot imagine that Apple would ever do such a thing - it would be nonsensical that they would even want to do this.
Comments
And Steve has NEVER backpedaled before or turned around 180 degrees on his past statements? Riiiight.
Two years from now, this will be our only choice for software.
And how can Steve prevent you going to a web site such as Version Tracker and downloading software from there?
I don't know about this App Store. I right now think the iPhone App Store is way to over bloated right now and is hard to find applications when surfing for a certain function. Then Apple will introduce an OS X App store that will exhibit the same bloat problem.
I disagree.
"Apps that duplicate apps already in the App Store may be rejected, particularly if there are many of them. Apps that are not very useful or do not provide any lasting entertainment value may be rejected. Apps that are primarily marketing materials or advertisements will be rejected. Apps that are intended to provide trick or fake functionality that are not clearly marked as such will be rejected."
As long as they stick to that rule (and there's no reason to believe that they won't), I don't see a problem. I'm definitely looking forward to a 'safe' store. It's one of the things I love about the App store on the iPhone.
And how can Steve prevent you going to a web site such as Version Tracker and downloading software from there?
Simple, sandbox apps just like they do on the iphone. Make no mistake, if Jobs had the internet to easily install applications in an appstore from day 1 of the mac then he would have done. There would be no such thing as being able to install your own software
This will be huge for Mac gaming. It will be the turning point for the Mac and games. It will spur development of games developed for OS X (without DirectX) that are as fast as any PC and eventually faster.
Oh and of course, the second they heard this MS started work to come up with a PC App Store, I guarantee it.
I can't really see mac gaming catching PCs. For one macs will never be as fast as gaming PCs and be affordable. You can build a gaming PC for less than £1500 that is faster than anything apple make apart from a ridiculously expensive mac pro. Second DirectX is one of the few things MS do extremely well, there is a whole gaming industry built around it. I don't see that changinig because angry birds for the mac is on the way....
Also Windows app store was leaked long ago see http://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft...-for-windows-8. No one can say MS copying apple.......!
http://developer.apple.com/library/m...010380-CH4-SW1
First, no flash with the new Backbook Airs, then no Java, then app store and all the restrictions and then in a few more releases, no app installs outside of app store.
Good bye OS X, it was a nice ride while it lasted.
All those things "will" benefit the user. Thank you apple.
I'm glad you undermined your own post by putting "will" in quotes, meaning that you don't really think they will benefit the user. (quotes <> bold) Y'see, there are several clauses in there that really won't benefit end users at all.
OS X is a multi-user environment. It drives me nuts when I install an app as one user and the next user logs in and cannot run the app because the installer put all the config. files in ~/Library instead of /Library. This clause, strictly interpreted, means apps can no longer store their data in/Library. It remains to be seen if that's how Apple reviewers will interpret it.
"Apps that do not run on the currently shipping OS will be rejected."
So utilities that fix deficiencies in older OS'es or make older OS's more tolerable (Onyx comes to mind) are now verbotten? Nice, Apple.
"Apps that are set to auto-launch or to have other code automatically run at startup or login without user consent will be rejected."
That would preclude any font managers (Suitcase, UTC, etc.) that need to run at launch so they precede any apps that need fonts.
This is indeed a rather massive pile of fail, as another poster said.
Mac app store is great for apple, sucks for mac developers. Users will start to expect that all mac apps are on the store, and apple will start taking a 30% cut of every mac app sale. That's a crapload of money to apple, for doing essentially nothing but providing hosting space. On top of that you have to deal with apple's BS submission guidelines.
Most apps already have built-in autoupdating via sparkle, and for the most part can be uninstalled by dragging to trash, so I don't see how apple even offers any additional functionality to app downloads.
This just looks more and more like a big, wet, steaming pile of fail.
+1 Insightful
And Steve has NEVER backpedaled before or turned around 180 degrees on his past statements? Riiiight.
Two years from now, this will be our only choice for software.
Except in this case is just not practical to do that - Jobs knows damn well that every single app can run in the way that the App Store requires - abandoning such apps would be the equivalent business move of shooting yourself in the foot with a cannon - something that no CEO is that dumb to do. And lets not point out that Steve is not all powerful - he is still answerable to the board - if he tries and do anything that will compromise their sales he will be out in a minute.
The kind of change that you outline is not a 180 - it's abandoning 30 years of precedent. It just won't happen that way - Jobs is too pragmatic.
I'm just saying it will be nice to see companies offer a complete 'suite' of applications for the entire mac ecosystem, offering integration and yet also device specific differentiation for the same app. There are going to be some pretty sweet offerings imo. As an end user and a developer, i'm excited.
Why don't you name one that doesn't?
With all your real life developer/publisher experience it should be trivial
The astute reader will note that I'm not the one who made an unsupportable claim. Thank you for proving my point.
You wrote:
Most distribution mechanisms where the developer doens't have his own merchant account (most don't) take anywhere from 10-50%.
How many devs don't have their own merchant account?
And among that subset, how many aren't using Element-5, Digital River, PayPal, or any of the other solutions that take less than 10%?
Sure, the relatively tiny fraction of Mac devs who have boxes on store shelves will see a larger cut at 70% over what they're getting now. But not only is that a tiny number of products when compared to the Mac ecosystem as a whole, being in the App Store isn't anything like being on the shelf at a physical store: in the App Store your app is just one in a million that you hope the user will stumble across when searching.
In that regard, it's not much better than relying on Google right now, and arguably worse since you have less control over your SERPs.
"cannot install code or resources in shared locations."
OS X is a multi-user environment. It drives me nuts when I install an app as one user and the next user logs in and cannot run the app because the installer put all the config. files in ~/Library instead of /Library. This clause, strictly interpreted, means apps can no longer store their data in/Library. It remains to be seen if that's how Apple reviewers will interpret it.
"Apps that do not run on the currently shipping OS will be rejected."
So utilities that fix deficiencies in older OS'es or make older OS's more tolerable (Onyx comes to mind) are now verbotten? Nice, Apple.
"Apps that are set to auto-launch or to have other code automatically run at startup or login without user consent will be rejected."
That would preclude any font managers (Suitcase, UTC, etc.) that need to run at launch so they precede any apps that need fonts.
This is indeed a rather massive pile of fail, as another poster said.
Suitcase would probably be fine, the key is "without user consent". Which means all it has to do is ASK the user first. However, if I'm understanding everything the fact Suitcase installs a preference pane would preclude it from being accept since that goes in A) a shared location and
The other thing is what about applications that install "content" like sound effects etc. These cannot be "bundled" in the app and must be installed someplace else, preferably someplace shared so all users can get to it!
The "store" looks like it's a bad idea, a really, really bad idea, and clearly, in my opinion, even the quotes coming from Apple haven't been well thought out.....just like the list of requirements!
Did you dust off an iOS app store rant? Because it looks awfully familiar. Again, quoting and saving for posterity. Let's meet back here in a year and see how things work out...
And while I find the sudden concern for the poor developers charming (we must think of the children, er, developers after all!) I also find the timing a bit disingenuous if not downright fascinating.
[B][I]
I don't have Apple's sales figures, so let's just take some median numbers, shall we??? Let's let "hundreds of thousands" of Mac developers be equal to 500,000, and let's let "tens of millions" of Mac users be equal to 50,000,000.
Let's say, for the sake of argument, that each one of these 50,000,000 buyers goes out and buys 1 application from each of these 500,000 developers. That equates to:
50,000,000/500,000=100 copies sold. By God...your rich!!!
50,000,000 (buyers) x1(app) x500,00 (developers) = 25,000,000,000,000 .... a bit more than 100. Either you're using a "new kind of math" or I'm still half asleep ..... which is it?
i bet they will though.
No they won't. Complex applications that install files outside their own bundle are not eligible for inclusion in the store.
So MS Word, for example will never be in the app store because it installs fonts on your computer.
50,000,000 (buyers) x1(app) x500,00 (developers) = 25,000,000,000,000 .... a bit more than 100. Either you're using a "new kind of math" or I'm still half asleep ..... which is it?
Uuuuh, more developers doesn't make more sales. I thought his point was $ going into a developer's pocket (in which case he needs to multiply it by 0.7, then 0.7 again due to Apple's with-holding BS).
Neither of your maths is working.
Again, are any developers outside of iPhone development salivating at this proposal? Sure, iPhone devs have already been brow-beaten to think this is already fair, but Mac devs know better.
No they won't. Complex applications that install files outside their own bundle are not eligible for inclusion in the store.
So MS Word, for example will never be in the app store because it installs fonts on your computer.
Even if there was no policy against that, you won't see any non-Apple flagship products in the app store given the revenue split.
When MS sells you Office, your money goes directly into their account, not some Apple bank. Not only are their costs lower, but they handle their own taxes and pocket nearly all of it. Everyone else gets shafted by Apple and the IRS.
Expect to see a lot of freeware and silly gimmicks on the app store. A race to the bottom. For useful commercial apps it will be an abysmal failure.
I know Steve's wet dream is to sandbox the OS and only allow app store installs. It won't happen with Lion, but at some point there will be a sanitized iMac-OS like the iOS only for desktop Macs and it will be sandboxed and made to run on cheap hardware (possibly a netbook?). It won't be installed on Mac Pros initially (if they even exist at that point), but the beginning of the end will be clear.
Hopefully by then the patent system will die and some other megalomaniac billionaire will come out with something all together better (perhaps an OS without a filesystem) and we can run OS X in a VM and move on.
I'm glad you undermined your own post by putting "will" in quotes, meaning that you don't really think they will benefit the user. (quotes <> bold) Y'see, there are several clauses in there that really won't benefit end users at all.
Ok, dude.
No they won't. Complex applications that install files outside their own bundle are not eligible for inclusion in the store.
So MS Word, for example will never be in the app store because it installs fonts on your computer.
That alone should debunk the whole "the mac store is going to be the only option to install software someday" conspiracy theories. Apple knows darn well that there is no way all apps can install and operate in that way and no way they should. Any application that has any sort of work-flow design that involves separate programs (like Adobe products, Microsoft products and even Apples own Final Cut Software) would not work that way. There is no way that Apple would be so dumb or even so controlling as to basically give a competitor such an advantage by killing off programs that customers use. I cannot imagine that Apple would ever do such a thing - it would be nonsensical that they would even want to do this.