Apple's Mac App Store opens doors to devs

Re: Competition

AC wrote: "..let's hope MS goes bankrupt so Apple can get the nice anti-trust rullings"

You are afraid that a company with a 5-10% market share (up from approx. 3%) can restrain competition, so you hope they reach 90% so the might be accused of abusing a monopoly position? Wouldn't it be simpler to say, "I hate everything about Apple and I wish it would just curl up and die!!"?

I'm happy to hear criticism of Apple if it comes from people who sound as if they care. For example, If Mac developers are concerned about the upcoming store, that's cause for concern. But most of the hoopla seems to be coming from people who do not own or use Macs and seem unlikely to ever do so. What's the point?

1. Apple doesn't have a track record of gratuitously yanking stuff from their customers phones. It's a good idea if they can to block criminal activity.

2. I don't see the connection between technical proficiency and fart apps. An app can be both technically robust and functionally pointless.

3. 30% is extremely good for what Apple is offering. I frequently have to part with 40-50%, and some have to pay even more to retailers. *And* Apple is reviewing your software - that's not a hindrance, it's a bug plus. Testing is expensive.

4. Competition? Covered above - Apple is a minority player, and they have to compete very hard to survive. If Apple handles the App Store badly, it will be the loser. As far as I can see, they are trying very hard to walk a middle line on all these issues.

Personally I'm keeping an open mind on this one

I can see the arguments about the Mac App Store possibly distorting the market, but then I can also see that it might bring a bunch of benefits.

One thing that no-one seems to mention in all the hoopla over this is that Apple are halfway to an App Store for the Mac already with the Apple downloads listings - http://www.apple.com/downloads/ - all it's missing is a centralised billing mechanism and one-click purchase/installation.

Just a few thoughts on some of your list:

1) They've had a kill switch on the iPhone since the App Store opened, and to my knowledge there has only been one example of it *possibly* being used - even that one hasn't been proven (NDrive - some people lost the app, lots of others didn't, though). I suspect it's basically a "nuclear" option in case something nasty slips through the net, the prospect of which doesn't bother me at all considering the kill switch track record on the iPhone up to now.

2) Enough with the fart apps thing. Yes, there are a lot in the iPhone store - doesn't mean they're successful, though, does it? As for porn, what sort of porn app would be worth it on a Mac? They only really worked on the iPhone because they were pseudo web-sites optimised for the phone screen. Not really an issue on a full-blown computer. And you'll have a web browser (or two, or three) available anyway. Looks like a non-issue to me, TBH.

3) Actually, lots of developers liked the iPhone store model as it was an *improvement* on the terms of the other mobile app stores like Handango. It gives you a nicely pre-rolled way to market and sell a small app, with the billing mechanism etc all handled by Apple as part of their cut, which seems quite reasonable considering the services they are supplying.

As for the motive behind the whole thing, Apple has always been about the user experience and much of what was recently announced was about folding things that have worked well in iOS back into OSX proper. From a user's viewpoint, having a central place to go for apps that have been checked out for malware and won't mess up the system, with a simple purchase and installation mechanism has been huge winner on iOS, so they're offering the same for Macs. Makes a whole lot of sense in the context, and (at least so far) they aren't aiming to make it the *only* way to install apps on the Mac.

NB I don't think Apple are saints - they are out to make money like any big corporation, but they tend to do it by making stuff people like and find easy to use. I think this is just more of the same.

It's not the same

Steam were one of the first companies to provide a service that was secure, yet did not inconvenience the customer. Frequent sales and new titles help drive its popularity too.

Since Steam started up, other competitors have started to offer services that don't persecute the user when they want to download an app.

Still, a OS vendor lead app store may be a game changer. Productivity application vendors are probably a bit more clued up than the awkward invasive DRM that characterised the early attempts to sell games, but not all of them are perfect. Despite any approval issues that might exist with the new app store it should at least offer an incentive for the less functional software stores to improve their offerings a little.