They need to somehow bring the family pack concept to the Mac App Store. Yes, you can "share" by authorizing computers via an iTunes account, but what about the situation where various family members have their own iTunes accounts and software needs, with some overlap in the latter. Of course, if the prices drop enough so that 5 purchases cost no more than a family pack would, then maybe that's a moot point.
This is my exact situation. I always buy the family packs for OS X,iLife, iWorks and MobileMe. 2 family members have their own iTunes accounts and use the family pack license.
It is unlikely that they intend to drop ALL boxed sales. It is more likely that they are only talking about their own titles. As more and more Macs are forced to upgrade to support iOS, more folks can buy Apple titles from MAS. They might kept online disk availability for a little while. And the big fat Studio titles might stay on disk for now. But things like iWork and iLife and the Express titles won't be cluttering shelves
And 3rd parties will likely still be able to buy shelf space if they wish. But it might be a smaller area and perhaps more costly
This only concern I've had with the Mac App store is how corporate (EPP) discounts would be handled. I asked someone at the Apple Store about this a few months ago and he didn't know, thought there would be some way to handle this whether it be a discount code used on the App Store or physical media still be sold through retail stores. Seeing the discount on Aperture alleviates some of this concern, although I doubt this sort of discount will be applied across the board. I currently get something like 26% off Apple software (I paid about $140 each for Final Cut Express and Aperture). I've been waiting to see if they discount Logic Express as much on the App Store as they have for Aperture (if so, I'll be buying immediately). If this is the case, then I've no worries at all about the elimination of EPP discounts for software...!
....
If they follow the same strategy for the Mac App Store that they use for the iOS App Store corporate purchasing will be through the roped off corporate/business area. Corporate customers would sign-in using their corporate account and see all the apps they can get, including multiple licenses I suppose.
Surprisingly they include two build to order MacBook Pro computers in stock. They have the highest end 15" with a matte screen and the high end 17" with the matte screen, both with hi-res which is std on the 17".
They do not have the 15" with hi-res and glossy glass display in the store.
I need reading glasses but I like the hi-res a LOT. Just can't decide between 15" and 17" yet.
Quote:
Originally Posted by djames4242
Bit off-topic here, but I'm eyeing the high-res 15" as a replacement for my (now-ancient) first-gen MBP and would love to see how the display compares to the standard resolution. From a bit of Googling it seems that the high-res display is a BTO option and, as such, not something Apple shows off in the stores. Were you able to find one on display?
I just don't see optical drives lasting much longer. Apple has already made the move away from them with the MBA.
Getting rid of the physical media is a good move, as far as I can tell. I'm behind this.
I also disagree with whomever it was that said "most of the country doesn't have broadband." Come on. Are you telling me that a majority of the people who are buying Pages off of the MacAppStore don't have broadband? Really?
It may be technically true that most of the country doesn't have broadband. But what % of the people in the country who own a Mac don't have broadband?
If they follow the same strategy for the Mac App Store that they use for the iOS App Store corporate purchasing will be through the roped off corporate/business area. Corporate customers would sign-in using their corporate account and see all the apps they can get, including multiple licenses I suppose.
Well said. One thing we should all have confidence in is Apple will make it easy to "spend" money!
Great idea but how with the App Store distribute OSX Lion? The only way that comes to mind is a physical DVD.
Not really. Although it is not as common for typical users, developers have always been able to download the complete OS which then you burn your onto own double-density DVD. So yeah, it is a little trickier but definitely doable.
A new rumor suggests that Apple plans to cease all sales of boxed software at its retail stores, instead relying solely on digital distribution through the Mac App Store.
My bet - eventually a new user goes into the Apple store and purchases their Mac, sits down at ANY random Mac and is taught a little about how to use it - configures some settings and sets up their Apple ID (iTunes account) and buys their first apps.
Then they get home, open their Mac (with Lion OSX), enter their iTunes ID - and their new computer configures them exactly as they'd done in the Apple Store.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jb510
You still need a showcase space where people who come into the store can see what is available, and even better if they can try out some of the software in store. I'd like to see the "wall-o-boxes" replaced with an interactive display that let's one fire up a demo of any software.
No reason not to try the software in store. The interactive display is an interesting idea too.
Physical media is a PITA frankly, and nearly everything is available for download these days. I do feel sorry for those who will lose their jobs because Apple stops making packaging materials.
I don't see this happening, at least not for some time. There are still people out there who won't want to setup an iTunes account & also eliminating boxed software will eliminate casual browsers who might pick up a software package just cause they were looking over them while waiting on the genius bar.
I think they will "handle" Adobe and Microsoft by simply not carrying them in the store. Having them in the Apple store doesn't do anything for computer sales.
Except reassure Windows switchers who are still contemplating buying a Mac.
The software I can live with but they need to keep the family pack or it's equivalent.
Did you know every app purchased from the Mac App Store is essentially a family pack? You can legally install and run it on any machine that you have an account on. And it isn't restricted to one user on each machine.
Physical media is a PITA frankly, and nearly everything is available for download these days. I do feel sorry for those who will lose their jobs because Apple stops making packaging materials.
There are a lot of great comments in this thread, including this one.
I used to be a collector. I loved collecting DVD's and CD's. I loved the physical media, the sense of ownership, the art and design.
However, since the economy has tanked I've been forced to live far lighter. I've had to move several times in the past few years due to changing jobs from one side of the country to the other, and moving boxes of dvd's and cd's is impractical due to their bulk, weight, and fragility.
I now find that NetFlix on the iPad is awesome, but I just need to get all of my movie collection digitized and safely stored. I have certain applications that I depend on, but don't want to keep the originals anymore. The App Store pretty much guarantees that I'll be able to get to my apps.
I guess I feel better about needing a permanent high-bandwidth connection to the Internet than having a lot of waste generated and space taken up. Will the carbon footprint of a huge 24/7 datacenter be more impactful than paper mills and manufacturing facilities cranking out boxes and CDs? Time will tell.
with online purcases they will only increase profit. but they must go globally with it (so even i in bosnia can buy apple software) or leave boxed software for countries where they don't have app/itunes store.
You are still failing to make any sense. What I think you are trying to say, and I'm making a leap of logic here because you certainly haven't explained it, is that Apple's price tier and equivalency system on the App Stores is not advantageous to the consumer in some countries, and it makes App Store software more expensive than retail software in the same country.
I disagree. Many people wouldn't buy a Mac without Microsoft or Adobe compatibility. The reality is most people don't buy Macs at the Apple Store. Those that do though, often times want to pick up the software as well.
Apple will likely keep some software in the Store. It isn't going to stop carrying titles like Office or Adobe Creative Suite. Apple wants to support those developers because it wants Adobe and Microsoft to keep making the software.
Further, Office and Adobe software doesn't satisfy Apple's criteria to be made available via the Apple Store. There'd need to be some rewriting.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Prof. Peabody
Great move.
I think they will "handle" Adobe and Microsoft by simply not carrying them in the store. Having them in the Apple store doesn't do anything for computer sales.
You are still failing to make any sense. What I think you are trying to say, and I'm making a leap of logic here because you certainly haven't explained it, is that Apple's price tier and equivalency system on the App Stores is not advantageous to the consumer in some countries, and it makes App Store software more expensive than retail software in the same country.
I think what the poster meant in his original post was that there is no Bosnia iTunes store or Mac App Store. The only way to purchase software is in boxes sold by third party retailers who have marked up the price to be prohibitively expensive. His desire is for Apple to globally offer the Mac App Store thus making software more reasonably priced in Bosnia.
Even adding a second hard drive, it is still cheaper per gigabyte then your disc's (unless my math is wrong-it can happen). Imho this is also far simpler and more convenient then messing around with individual dvd's. And while a hard drive can fail, disc's can get data rot.
Well you just sent me off on a 1/2 hour research adventure!
It's not very convenient, but much easier than swapping drives between enclosures. Still, not something I'd want to use very often, more for when you're in a pinch.
But this Voyager dock looks pretty neat. Here are some thoughts, in case others care:
1) It's SATA only, so won't work with ATA/IDE drives. I was suspicious of this because I have stacks of older ATA drives around, and while the connectors are all the same, their positions are slightly different, depending on manufacturer.
2) The drive you listed above looks like a really great price, in fact it seems out of line with the rest of what I saw for 2g drives (and the reviews were pretty bad, lots of DOA/early failures). This is only based on a short bit of research, but I think I'd opt for a better quality drive, which pushes the price up.
3) disc rot vs. hard disk failure. This is a good point, maybe someone else wants to research into it more. In any case, I save each set of data to 2 DVDs of different brands to reduce risk of one brand or batch being crappy. But the main point here is that if a disc rots you lose one chunk of data, if a drive fails, you potentially lose many many times that amount of data. Or you pay a $1500+ fee to recover what is recoverable. That's scary to me.
4) Cost. Let's say for ballpark $100 for 2g bare drive (I'm actually seeing most drives higher than that, but haven't looked deeply at reliability, etc). I can get a spindle of 100 DVD-Rs for about $20 (less for cheap no-name, a bit more for name-brand). That's like $4/gig compared with $50/gig using hard drives. So yeah, your math was off by a factor of 10, but that's okay. :-)
5) Redundancy. Double all the costs for redundancy. As mentioned, I make 2 copies (occasionally 3 for some data) on different brand media, one copy for off-site.
6) Convenience. One might think the drives are more convenient, but we already have much of this data on a couple large external drives for ready-access (although they're close to full now!), but this is all about archival. Storing stuff that we want to be sure it's around for decades to come, even if the house or office burns down.
All this said, it was a good exercise in checking out what looks like a pretty neat product, and I thank you for pointing it out. Even if it's not something we choose to use for this particular application, I'm happy to know about it.
Anyone else have thoughts on large-ish scale backup if and when optical drives start disappearing?
All? How are they going to sell and install Mac OS X software? Hopefully they can figure out how to make 8GB USB flash drives for Mac OS X Lion cheap enough, but that is still a partition.
MacBook Air's already come with a thumb drive for re-installing.
Comments
They need to somehow bring the family pack concept to the Mac App Store. Yes, you can "share" by authorizing computers via an iTunes account, but what about the situation where various family members have their own iTunes accounts and software needs, with some overlap in the latter. Of course, if the prices drop enough so that 5 purchases cost no more than a family pack would, then maybe that's a moot point.
This is my exact situation. I always buy the family packs for OS X,iLife, iWorks and MobileMe. 2 family members have their own iTunes accounts and use the family pack license.
And 3rd parties will likely still be able to buy shelf space if they wish. But it might be a smaller area and perhaps more costly
The software I can live with but they need to keep the family pack or it's equivalent.
But what ever they do
No problem with loosing the drive if they distribute OSX Lion and future systems on a pendrive.
To buy Lion 3 times.
This only concern I've had with the Mac App store is how corporate (EPP) discounts would be handled. I asked someone at the Apple Store about this a few months ago and he didn't know, thought there would be some way to handle this whether it be a discount code used on the App Store or physical media still be sold through retail stores. Seeing the discount on Aperture alleviates some of this concern, although I doubt this sort of discount will be applied across the board. I currently get something like 26% off Apple software (I paid about $140 each for Final Cut Express and Aperture). I've been waiting to see if they discount Logic Express as much on the App Store as they have for Aperture (if so, I'll be buying immediately). If this is the case, then I've no worries at all about the elimination of EPP discounts for software...!
....
If they follow the same strategy for the Mac App Store that they use for the iOS App Store corporate purchasing will be through the roped off corporate/business area. Corporate customers would sign-in using their corporate account and see all the apps they can get, including multiple licenses I suppose.
They do not have the 15" with hi-res and glossy glass display in the store.
I need reading glasses but I like the hi-res a LOT. Just can't decide between 15" and 17" yet.
Bit off-topic here, but I'm eyeing the high-res 15" as a replacement for my (now-ancient) first-gen MBP and would love to see how the display compares to the standard resolution. From a bit of Googling it seems that the high-res display is a BTO option and, as such, not something Apple shows off in the stores. Were you able to find one on display?
Getting rid of the physical media is a good move, as far as I can tell. I'm behind this.
I also disagree with whomever it was that said "most of the country doesn't have broadband." Come on. Are you telling me that a majority of the people who are buying Pages off of the MacAppStore don't have broadband? Really?
It may be technically true that most of the country doesn't have broadband. But what % of the people in the country who own a Mac don't have broadband?
If they follow the same strategy for the Mac App Store that they use for the iOS App Store corporate purchasing will be through the roped off corporate/business area. Corporate customers would sign-in using their corporate account and see all the apps they can get, including multiple licenses I suppose.
Well said. One thing we should all have confidence in is Apple will make it easy to "spend" money!
Best
Great idea but how with the App Store distribute OSX Lion? The only way that comes to mind is a physical DVD.
Not really. Although it is not as common for typical users, developers have always been able to download the complete OS which then you burn your onto own double-density DVD. So yeah, it is a little trickier but definitely doable.
A new rumor suggests that Apple plans to cease all sales of boxed software at its retail stores, instead relying solely on digital distribution through the Mac App Store.
My bet - eventually a new user goes into the Apple store and purchases their Mac, sits down at ANY random Mac and is taught a little about how to use it - configures some settings and sets up their Apple ID (iTunes account) and buys their first apps.
Then they get home, open their Mac (with Lion OSX), enter their iTunes ID - and their new computer configures them exactly as they'd done in the Apple Store.
You still need a showcase space where people who come into the store can see what is available, and even better if they can try out some of the software in store. I'd like to see the "wall-o-boxes" replaced with an interactive display that let's one fire up a demo of any software.
No reason not to try the software in store. The interactive display is an interesting idea too.
Physical media is a PITA frankly, and nearly everything is available for download these days. I do feel sorry for those who will lose their jobs because Apple stops making packaging materials.
I don't see this happening, at least not for some time. There are still people out there who won't want to setup an iTunes account & also eliminating boxed software will eliminate casual browsers who might pick up a software package just cause they were looking over them while waiting on the genius bar.
I think they will "handle" Adobe and Microsoft by simply not carrying them in the store. Having them in the Apple store doesn't do anything for computer sales.
Except reassure Windows switchers who are still contemplating buying a Mac.
The software I can live with but they need to keep the family pack or it's equivalent.
Did you know every app purchased from the Mac App Store is essentially a family pack? You can legally install and run it on any machine that you have an account on. And it isn't restricted to one user on each machine.
Physical media is a PITA frankly, and nearly everything is available for download these days. I do feel sorry for those who will lose their jobs because Apple stops making packaging materials.
There are a lot of great comments in this thread, including this one.
I used to be a collector. I loved collecting DVD's and CD's. I loved the physical media, the sense of ownership, the art and design.
However, since the economy has tanked I've been forced to live far lighter. I've had to move several times in the past few years due to changing jobs from one side of the country to the other, and moving boxes of dvd's and cd's is impractical due to their bulk, weight, and fragility.
I now find that NetFlix on the iPad is awesome, but I just need to get all of my movie collection digitized and safely stored. I have certain applications that I depend on, but don't want to keep the originals anymore. The App Store pretty much guarantees that I'll be able to get to my apps.
I guess I feel better about needing a permanent high-bandwidth connection to the Internet than having a lot of waste generated and space taken up. Will the carbon footprint of a huge 24/7 datacenter be more impactful than paper mills and manufacturing facilities cranking out boxes and CDs? Time will tell.
with online purcases they will only increase profit. but they must go globally with it (so even i in bosnia can buy apple software) or leave boxed software for countries where they don't have app/itunes store.
You are still failing to make any sense. What I think you are trying to say, and I'm making a leap of logic here because you certainly haven't explained it, is that Apple's price tier and equivalency system on the App Stores is not advantageous to the consumer in some countries, and it makes App Store software more expensive than retail software in the same country.
Great idea but how with the App Store distribute OSX Lion? The only way that comes to mind is a physical DVD.
OS, will have to remain physical, but I'm guessing they'll come on a USB key like Snow Leopard does for MacBook Air owners.
Apple will likely keep some software in the Store. It isn't going to stop carrying titles like Office or Adobe Creative Suite. Apple wants to support those developers because it wants Adobe and Microsoft to keep making the software.
Further, Office and Adobe software doesn't satisfy Apple's criteria to be made available via the Apple Store. There'd need to be some rewriting.
Great move.
I think they will "handle" Adobe and Microsoft by simply not carrying them in the store. Having them in the Apple store doesn't do anything for computer sales.
You are still failing to make any sense. What I think you are trying to say, and I'm making a leap of logic here because you certainly haven't explained it, is that Apple's price tier and equivalency system on the App Stores is not advantageous to the consumer in some countries, and it makes App Store software more expensive than retail software in the same country.
I think what the poster meant in his original post was that there is no Bosnia iTunes store or Mac App Store. The only way to purchase software is in boxes sold by third party retailers who have marked up the price to be prohibitively expensive. His desire is for Apple to globally offer the Mac App Store thus making software more reasonably priced in Bosnia.
Hard Drive Dock $40-70
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/Newer...ard_Drive_Dock
2 Tb hard drive $79
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822148413
Even adding a second hard drive, it is still cheaper per gigabyte then your disc's (unless my math is wrong-it can happen). Imho this is also far simpler and more convenient then messing around with individual dvd's. And while a hard drive can fail, disc's can get data rot.
Well you just sent me off on a 1/2 hour research adventure!
I currently own a USB-to-ATA cable-adapter vaguely similar to this: http://newertech.com/products/usb3_u...ldriveadap.php
It's not very convenient, but much easier than swapping drives between enclosures. Still, not something I'd want to use very often, more for when you're in a pinch.
But this Voyager dock looks pretty neat. Here are some thoughts, in case others care:
1) It's SATA only, so won't work with ATA/IDE drives. I was suspicious of this because I have stacks of older ATA drives around, and while the connectors are all the same, their positions are slightly different, depending on manufacturer.
2) The drive you listed above looks like a really great price, in fact it seems out of line with the rest of what I saw for 2g drives (and the reviews were pretty bad, lots of DOA/early failures). This is only based on a short bit of research, but I think I'd opt for a better quality drive, which pushes the price up.
3) disc rot vs. hard disk failure. This is a good point, maybe someone else wants to research into it more. In any case, I save each set of data to 2 DVDs of different brands to reduce risk of one brand or batch being crappy. But the main point here is that if a disc rots you lose one chunk of data, if a drive fails, you potentially lose many many times that amount of data. Or you pay a $1500+ fee to recover what is recoverable. That's scary to me.
4) Cost. Let's say for ballpark $100 for 2g bare drive (I'm actually seeing most drives higher than that, but haven't looked deeply at reliability, etc). I can get a spindle of 100 DVD-Rs for about $20 (less for cheap no-name, a bit more for name-brand). That's like $4/gig compared with $50/gig using hard drives. So yeah, your math was off by a factor of 10, but that's okay. :-)
5) Redundancy. Double all the costs for redundancy. As mentioned, I make 2 copies (occasionally 3 for some data) on different brand media, one copy for off-site.
6) Convenience. One might think the drives are more convenient, but we already have much of this data on a couple large external drives for ready-access (although they're close to full now!), but this is all about archival. Storing stuff that we want to be sure it's around for decades to come, even if the house or office burns down.
All this said, it was a good exercise in checking out what looks like a pretty neat product, and I thank you for pointing it out. Even if it's not something we choose to use for this particular application, I'm happy to know about it.
Anyone else have thoughts on large-ish scale backup if and when optical drives start disappearing?
All? How are they going to sell and install Mac OS X software? Hopefully they can figure out how to make 8GB USB flash drives for Mac OS X Lion cheap enough, but that is still a partition.
MacBook Air's already come with a thumb drive for re-installing.