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This is very exciting. The problem of distribution and monetization for desktop software is significant and largely unsolved. Steam is already proof that a digi

This is very exciting. The problem of distribution and monetization for desktop software is significant and largely unsolved. Steam is already proof that a digital store can make desktop users really happy, but it addresses gamers, who are cheerful early adopters. Most other people who don't game only know this model through their mobile device, but now they're ready for more. As for developers? For more than half of 2009, the App Store paid for my rent and cell phone bill. It helped me move across the country to the west coast. This was huge for me. I barely had to do much more than write code, design UI, and ship things. A huge chunk of the business of actually selling bits to other people was abstracted behind a bunch of buttons on iTunes Connect. This was such a powerful thing – I couldn't have had anything close to the moderate success I did without Apple's App Store strategy. This is going to enable a new wave of great work for OS X. This platform already has some of the best shareware and freeware ever. Now that indie Mac devs will have an easy way to get paid, they'll be able to devote even more attention to their wares.

tlrobinson 16y ago
I'm not so excited about this. Am I the only one who thinks this is Apple's first step in exerting more control over developers and users on the OS X platform like they do on iOS? EDIT: to all the replies about how you still have a choice of distribution on OS X: yes, you do right now, but who knows how long that will last? As I said, this might be the first step in locking down the platform. I don't believe this will happen in 1 or 2 or 3 years, but maybe 5 years.
- daniel-cussen 16y ago
  I think they can still sell the normal way.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
- JofArnold 16y ago
  The difference is on OSX you have a choice; Mac App Store or adhoc/old way. Besides, Apple are being much more liberal re iOS approval of late - the old times are long gone except the odd mistake here and there. EDIT: I wonder if this will act as a proving ground for apple re dual App Store + adhoc distribution ala android market? EDIT2: I'm just going to come out and say it... At times I worry about installing random dmgs I find on the web. If Apple can approve the apps and ensure they are genuine and won't harm my system then I wouldn't be surprised if I'd end up switching to the Mac App Store for all my apps... With exceptions for companies I know well. This is a potentially an awesome social-engineering solution to malware/viruses in the long-run. EDIT3: Final edit as my startup won't launch itself! :P To anyone suggesting Apple will take away adhoc OSX installations and replace purely with Mac store: 1/ On what timescale? This would be very long-term - we'd adapt 2/ Is it really a problem? See Edit2 above for at least one benefit.
  - tlrobinson 16y ago
    Yes, you have a choice... for now. If Apple wanted to take away that choice a Mac App Store is the obvious first step. REPLY TO EDIT2: The iOS App Store's review process doesn't do much for security. As demonstrated by the flashlight WiFi proxy app it's trivial to get code (malicious or not) past the reviewers. The security on iPhone comes from sandboxing of apps.
    - slantyyz 16y ago
      That's a little too much FUD. With the phone, it was a new device, and in many ways, it makes sense to lock it down. The Mac has a 25 year legacy, and if they were to take away that choice, so many people would leave the platform. Apple might be jerks a lot of the time, but they're hardly stupid.
      - mkramlich 16y ago
        Disagree it's FUD. It's an intelligent observation or prediction of what this might be the first step towards. It's called the slippery slope phenomenon. It happens.
- ynniv 16y ago
  I think that Apple should make what their customers at large want. That might mean that I cease to personally be their customer, but as a developer the AppStore is the least risky way to release a commercial product. Ultimately I don't think that they will ever take away the ability to run arbitrary code on their desktop OS.
  - tlrobinson 16y ago
    How can you say it's the least risky way to release a commercial product when Apple has the ability to reject your product at will?
    - ynniv 16y ago
      Because you don't have to accept credit cards or enforce licenses? It is the least resistant path from someone's bank account to your bank account. The customer doesn't even take their credit card out of their wallet. Multiply that by the chance that they will accept your app (high), and you have good expected returns. As much as I want to sell offline web apps to any platform, that store doesn't yet exist.
      - c1sc0 16y ago
        I think Apple could absolutely make a killing if they'd allow people to pay for other things with their iTunes account.
    - chc 16y ago
      My girlfriend has the ability to slit my throat at night without me having any way to resist, but I still think being around her is less risky than, say, walking across the freeway. A hopeless situation that is extremely unlikely to occur is less of a risk than a slightly-less-bad situation that is very likely. In practice, it seems like the difficulty of getting eyeballs and converting them into sales is generally much more likely to kill your app than having Apple reject it. Optimizing for the latter case is not rational unless you have a strong reason to believe your app will be rejected.
- tvon 16y ago
  If they did that, Linux would get a massive influx of anal-retentive developers that know how to design nice apps...
  - access_denied 16y ago
    Linux will get that influx as soon as it is possible to design nice apps under X-Window. Keypoints: font rendering, color management, printing stuff out, managing fonts, and some other things.
- jonhendry 16y ago
  How do you both prevent people from installing non-appstore apps and allow developers to develop apps? When Xcode comes with every Mac and a registered developer account is free?
  - tlrobinson 16y ago
    That's true right now, but who's to say that won't change in the future. You can't run apps on iOS devices without paying $100 to get developer certificates to sign your app first.
    - slantyyz 16y ago
      Apple actually lowered the barriers to entry on Mac devs. They recently dropped the price to the premium developer access to $99, iirc.
      - jonhendry 16y ago
        But no hardware discounts.
        slantyyz 16y ago
        Not sure how that is a big deal. If any discounts amounted to more than the cost of the premium developer content (i.e., $99), non-developers would pay the fee just to get the discounts.
- ilmare 16y ago
  This unlikely to happen as long as Apple wants to have portion of enterprise market which has different requirements from end-user one. OTOH, if they manage to incorporate most of requirements by it departments into their app store and convince companies to use it this will bring them even more market share.
- danilocampos 16y ago
  > I'm not so excited about this... this might be the first step in locking down the platform. Of course you're not excited about this. You're a brilliant nerd who founded a startup that invented a new programming language. This isn't for you. Or for me. Getting to be Nerd Jesus every time a computer runs into trouble is gratifying. We get to be important. We get to trick out our gear to do all kinds of goofy, custom stuff. We get to build things that are neat. Serving our needs is certainly important. It's important, also, to understand that we are the minority. Everyone else just wants a tool that works. The majority of human beings on earth find computers to be mystifying, frustrating, even scary things. Absent Nerd Jesus, the computer just seems to have a mind of its own. It has its own agenda and interacting with it is an exercise in guesswork and black magic. What the iPad, and the iPhone before it, has taught us is simple: people want a computer they understand. They want technology, but optimizing for Nerd Jesus has given them shit technology that doesn't respect them, so they're used to being defensive around it. This is all a long way of saying that I agree with you – this could be a first step in "locking down the platform" for you and me. And streamlining it so it's actually useful for everyone else who doesn't fetishize the Terminal, kernel extensions or compilers. I think there will always be a place for Nerd Jesus to do his thing. But instead of being the focus of the market, we're finally going to focus on the vast majority of what most people actually care about doing. We'll see what it costs us from a nerd perspective. I suspect it's less than we think – aside from the high of our indispensability as troubleshooters, of course.
  - tlrobinson 16y ago
    Absolutely, I understand I'm in the minority. I just hope if it does happen there will be a suitable replacement to switch to by then (and no, Linux is not there yet). That means both hardware and software, since by then all Apple hardware will likely only run Apple software.
    - danilocampos 16y ago
      I'm not so gloomy, though – I suspect that Apple will continue to serve us and mainstream users through some middle ground. There's money in both. Apple dedicated a huge chunk of today's talk, and consequently a huge chunk of development resources, to their creative tools. The whole bicycle for the mind stuff – this is very important to Apple's overall mission, history and perception. And in the end, being technically creative is something I think they'll always want to support. I don't know what form it will take but I do not think Apple is going to turn its backs on the sort of people who can help them make the very best stuff for their platforms. It reminds me of At Ease, actually. When I was a kid, I was tired of the rest of the family breaking the computer in one way or another. So I set up At Ease for a couple of years and everything was great. When I needed the Mac, I'd log into the desktop proper. I doubt the final mainstream outcome will be as draconian in its limitations as was At Ease. But I think it will be just as simple. And hopefully, just as opt-out for everyone who needs more.
- loire280 16y ago
  On the other hand, streamlining the software-buying process and making buying software a regular activity is huge for the software market. I'd bet there's a huge number of computer owners who don't understand or don't care to buy and install software. They get their computer from Dell preloaded with Office 20XX and never (intentionally) install software again. Apple is creating a market of normal people who impulse-buy software.
- rbanffy 16y ago
  > I'm not so excited about this. Am I the only one who thinks this is Apple's first step in exerting more control over developers and users on the OS X platform like they do on iOS? Well... It's still exciting, specially if you root for Apple's competition ;-)
- phil 16y ago
  I wouldn't worry too much. In order for the Mac to continue to serve as a development platform, it can't be completely locked down. They're making it clear these days that they care a lot about the app ecosystem, so there will have to be a replacement before they take away the ability to install your own apps and get at the shell. More likely is that more of Apple's product line, and more of everyone's computing, will shift to iOs.
  - caf 16y ago
    Couldn't they just require you to install Xcode to get an "unlocked/developer" system?
    - loewenskind 16y ago
      They would have to be utterly insane to try something like that. I would expect the stock price to drop like a rock if something like that came out.
- lotusleaf1987 16y ago
  Conversely, maybe this will lead to Apple opening up the iPhone/iPad to sideloading apps like Android.
- darkandbrooding 16y ago
  You need a compiler to build iOS and OS X apps. Once you have a compiler on your machine, how can someone else prevent you from creating or running arbitrary executables? In order to lock down the desktop so as to make a Mac App Store the only way to obtain executable content, Apple would have to fundamentally re-invent the way people build iOS and OS X apps. I just don't see developers sticking with the platform once Xcode is a hosted web app. Chasing away their developer community would effectively cede the market for mobile apps to Android. Apple's strategic, long term focus is clearly and unambiguously "mobile computing for the common man." Providing a dirt-simple app distribution platform makes sense within the context of mobile computing. Making it substantially harder to create iOS apps, relative to other mobile platforms, is contrary to Apple's strategic goals.
- toddheasley 16y ago
  Even if Apple ultimately intends to close the Mac to non-App Store applications -- I'm guessing not, but a valid concern anyway -- it's unlikely to happen in the next five years for two key reasons: Microsoft Office and Adobe Creative Suite. Half the App Store fear is the Kafka-esque approval process (the other half being the 70/30 revenue split), and neither Adobe or Microsoft could do ground-up rewrites even if they wanted to.
JofArnold 16y ago
I wonder if this means something for Steam? The UX for the Mac App Store is almost certainly going to be better than Steam's clunky app... And then I wonder about Game Centre too? It's not that great at the moment, but with Jobs meeting Zuckerberg the other day.... But yes - definitely excited! /me stops speculating and gets back to work
- ezy 16y ago
  Actually, the app store for ipad is pretty damn clunky (steam isn't great, but I like it better). Honestly, I dont think they have anything to fear... They are, after all, cross platform. Game Center is a pile of schlock at the moment... I suspect, at least for AAA titles... steam will remain top dog.
- jonhendry 16y ago
  Probably means nothing for Steam. Steam has the big advantage of being cross-platform. Game devs planning to only target the Mac (or Mac and iPhone/iPad) would probably be better off going with the App Store. Developers planning to go cross-platform to Windows would be better off with Steam.
- protomyth 16y ago
  After all the trouble of getting Steam on the Mac, I doubt Apple will do anything to offend them or their app.
gaius 16y ago
This is how it was supposed be for Java, provisioning your desktop apps on the fly, on demand, over the network. Another Sun idea resurrected, like Google are with Chrome (nee NEWS, with Postscript instead of Javascript). Maybe they shoulda hung on just a little longer...
- YooLi 16y ago
  If your implementation isn't great right out of the gate, forget it. It's not really a matter of hanging on until people get used to the idea.
  - gaius 16y ago
    I don't think that's true, and I cite Newton -> iPad.
there 16y ago
it also provides iphone-style copy protection for these 3rd party apps (the last bulletpoint on the slide was "apps licensed for use on all your personal macs"). that could be a draw to some developers.
- JofArnold 16y ago
  They'd better streamline the DRM then - XCode/submitting drives me crazy!
mkramlich 16y ago
I disagree it's unsolved. Folks have been distributing and monetizing software for desktop-class machines since the 80's, just's fine, thanks. Been there, done that, have the T-shirt, and the T-shirt still fits fine.
- mkramlich 16y ago
  Negative -1? Really? Voting system is broken. I recommend for the Nth time that only trusted admins be allowed to take any piece of content down below 1 point. Right now, if any particular user simply disagrees with a given comment, they have the power to penalize and reduce another user's karma. Not because the user said something rude, trollish, juvenile or "evil", but merely because they might disagree. That to me is a broken mechanism. Please let's change this. Think HN will be the better for it.
  - danilocampos 16y ago
    I missed you being in negative land, but it may have been a simple result of your remark being both silly and flip at the same time. Silly in that you don't address the substance of the point and flip in that you felt the need to invoke the T-Shirt cliche. Obviously getting software onto desktop computers has happened before. You're ignoring the power of Apple's approach. I mean, what, should we stick with distributing everything on 3.5" floppy disks because that, once upon a time, worked? Cardboard boxes? Advocating to maintain a 30 year status quo on anything is... questionable, but doubly so on something as crucially important and evolving as digital distribution. Similarly, I think you'd be downvoted for saying something like "Already do styling in HTML, works fine, t-shirt, blurgh" in a thread about the power of CSS3. Sure one works. But the new method works better. The amount of work you simply do not have to do with Apple as your App Store distribution partner is incredible. Instead of giving away a piece of software because it wouldn't bring in enough money to offset the trouble and cost of a licensing mechanism and merchant account, you can throw it onto the App Store for $5 and make a bit of cash in a few clicks. That's new.
    - mkramlich 16y ago
slantyyz 16y ago
I see some potential negatives for developers (arguably positive for consumers). 1 - Price deflation. There is a bit of a connotation that App Store means lots of 99 cents apps. Yes, it's not the same platform as the iPhone, but people jumping from the iPhone App Store are going to have some preconceived expectations. 2 - Family licensing. You normally pay a premium for family licensing of a lot of Mac software. This is going to disappear as a pricing tier, so how are developers going to react, given item #1, above? 3 - Marginalization of devs who don't want to participate in the App Store. App Store will be a major way for users to find software. If you're not in there (whether by your choice or Apple's choice), your revenue opportunities could head south. Having said that, I think the App Store is going to be great for the more non-technical users who use the Mac.
- stevenbedrick 16y ago
  Re. point #2: IIRC, in the talk today, Jobs mentioned that apps installed via the mac app store will work on all your personal macs.
  - slantyyz 16y ago
    That was my point. As a developer, you lose that tier of licensing revenue. * edit : Example, 1password is normally 39.95, 5 user family pack is 69.95. How would it be priced on the App store?
    - cubicle67 16y ago
      Yes, and as a user of 1password, this is what has prevented me from upgrading. I'm one user, with a number of machines, but I'm expected to pay for each machine. The latest version of safari also doesn't work with the version of 1password I have (n-1), and to reobtain functionality I once had, I'm expected to fork over $50 (or whatever the upgrade price is for a family pack) to be able to keep using it. Much as I like 1password, and I do, this really irks me
fharper1961 16y ago
Danilo, If the App store was so good for you, why didn't you continue developing for the App store into 2010?

tlrobinson 16y ago

I'm not so excited about this. Am I the only one who thinks this is Apple's first step in exerting more control over developers and users on the OS X platform like they do on iOS? EDIT: to all the replies about how you still have a choice of distribution on OS X: yes, you do right now, but who knows how long that will last? As I said, this might be the first step in locking down the platform. I don't believe this will happen in 1 or 2 or 3 years, but maybe 5 years.

daniel-cussen 16y ago
I think they can still sell the normal way.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
JofArnold 16y ago
The difference is on OSX you have a choice; Mac App Store or adhoc/old way. Besides, Apple are being much more liberal re iOS approval of late - the old times are long gone except the odd mistake here and there. EDIT: I wonder if this will act as a proving ground for apple re dual App Store + adhoc distribution ala android market? EDIT2: I'm just going to come out and say it... At times I worry about installing random dmgs I find on the web. If Apple can approve the apps and ensure they are genuine and won't harm my system then I wouldn't be surprised if I'd end up switching to the Mac App Store for all my apps... With exceptions for companies I know well. This is a potentially an awesome social-engineering solution to malware/viruses in the long-run. EDIT3: Final edit as my startup won't launch itself! :P To anyone suggesting Apple will take away adhoc OSX installations and replace purely with Mac store: 1/ On what timescale? This would be very long-term - we'd adapt 2/ Is it really a problem? See Edit2 above for at least one benefit.
- tlrobinson 16y ago
  Yes, you have a choice... for now. If Apple wanted to take away that choice a Mac App Store is the obvious first step. REPLY TO EDIT2: The iOS App Store's review process doesn't do much for security. As demonstrated by the flashlight WiFi proxy app it's trivial to get code (malicious or not) past the reviewers. The security on iPhone comes from sandboxing of apps.
  - slantyyz 16y ago
    That's a little too much FUD. With the phone, it was a new device, and in many ways, it makes sense to lock it down. The Mac has a 25 year legacy, and if they were to take away that choice, so many people would leave the platform. Apple might be jerks a lot of the time, but they're hardly stupid.
    - mkramlich 16y ago
      Disagree it's FUD. It's an intelligent observation or prediction of what this might be the first step towards. It's called the slippery slope phenomenon. It happens.
ynniv 16y ago
I think that Apple should make what their customers at large want. That might mean that I cease to personally be their customer, but as a developer the AppStore is the least risky way to release a commercial product. Ultimately I don't think that they will ever take away the ability to run arbitrary code on their desktop OS.
- tlrobinson 16y ago
  How can you say it's the least risky way to release a commercial product when Apple has the ability to reject your product at will?
  - ynniv 16y ago
    Because you don't have to accept credit cards or enforce licenses? It is the least resistant path from someone's bank account to your bank account. The customer doesn't even take their credit card out of their wallet. Multiply that by the chance that they will accept your app (high), and you have good expected returns. As much as I want to sell offline web apps to any platform, that store doesn't yet exist.
    - c1sc0 16y ago
      I think Apple could absolutely make a killing if they'd allow people to pay for other things with their iTunes account.
  - chc 16y ago
    My girlfriend has the ability to slit my throat at night without me having any way to resist, but I still think being around her is less risky than, say, walking across the freeway. A hopeless situation that is extremely unlikely to occur is less of a risk than a slightly-less-bad situation that is very likely. In practice, it seems like the difficulty of getting eyeballs and converting them into sales is generally much more likely to kill your app than having Apple reject it. Optimizing for the latter case is not rational unless you have a strong reason to believe your app will be rejected.
tvon 16y ago
If they did that, Linux would get a massive influx of anal-retentive developers that know how to design nice apps...
- access_denied 16y ago
  Linux will get that influx as soon as it is possible to design nice apps under X-Window. Keypoints: font rendering, color management, printing stuff out, managing fonts, and some other things.
jonhendry 16y ago
How do you both prevent people from installing non-appstore apps and allow developers to develop apps? When Xcode comes with every Mac and a registered developer account is free?
- tlrobinson 16y ago
  That's true right now, but who's to say that won't change in the future. You can't run apps on iOS devices without paying $100 to get developer certificates to sign your app first.
  - slantyyz 16y ago
    Apple actually lowered the barriers to entry on Mac devs. They recently dropped the price to the premium developer access to $99, iirc.
    - jonhendry 16y ago
      But no hardware discounts.
      - slantyyz 16y ago
        Not sure how that is a big deal. If any discounts amounted to more than the cost of the premium developer content (i.e., $99), non-developers would pay the fee just to get the discounts.
ilmare 16y ago
This unlikely to happen as long as Apple wants to have portion of enterprise market which has different requirements from end-user one. OTOH, if they manage to incorporate most of requirements by it departments into their app store and convince companies to use it this will bring them even more market share.
danilocampos 16y ago
> I'm not so excited about this... this might be the first step in locking down the platform. Of course you're not excited about this. You're a brilliant nerd who founded a startup that invented a new programming language. This isn't for you. Or for me. Getting to be Nerd Jesus every time a computer runs into trouble is gratifying. We get to be important. We get to trick out our gear to do all kinds of goofy, custom stuff. We get to build things that are neat. Serving our needs is certainly important. It's important, also, to understand that we are the minority. Everyone else just wants a tool that works. The majority of human beings on earth find computers to be mystifying, frustrating, even scary things. Absent Nerd Jesus, the computer just seems to have a mind of its own. It has its own agenda and interacting with it is an exercise in guesswork and black magic. What the iPad, and the iPhone before it, has taught us is simple: people want a computer they understand. They want technology, but optimizing for Nerd Jesus has given them shit technology that doesn't respect them, so they're used to being defensive around it. This is all a long way of saying that I agree with you – this could be a first step in "locking down the platform" for you and me. And streamlining it so it's actually useful for everyone else who doesn't fetishize the Terminal, kernel extensions or compilers. I think there will always be a place for Nerd Jesus to do his thing. But instead of being the focus of the market, we're finally going to focus on the vast majority of what most people actually care about doing. We'll see what it costs us from a nerd perspective. I suspect it's less than we think – aside from the high of our indispensability as troubleshooters, of course.
- tlrobinson 16y ago
  Absolutely, I understand I'm in the minority. I just hope if it does happen there will be a suitable replacement to switch to by then (and no, Linux is not there yet). That means both hardware and software, since by then all Apple hardware will likely only run Apple software.
  - danilocampos 16y ago
    I'm not so gloomy, though – I suspect that Apple will continue to serve us and mainstream users through some middle ground. There's money in both. Apple dedicated a huge chunk of today's talk, and consequently a huge chunk of development resources, to their creative tools. The whole bicycle for the mind stuff – this is very important to Apple's overall mission, history and perception. And in the end, being technically creative is something I think they'll always want to support. I don't know what form it will take but I do not think Apple is going to turn its backs on the sort of people who can help them make the very best stuff for their platforms. It reminds me of At Ease, actually. When I was a kid, I was tired of the rest of the family breaking the computer in one way or another. So I set up At Ease for a couple of years and everything was great. When I needed the Mac, I'd log into the desktop proper. I doubt the final mainstream outcome will be as draconian in its limitations as was At Ease. But I think it will be just as simple. And hopefully, just as opt-out for everyone who needs more.
loire280 16y ago
On the other hand, streamlining the software-buying process and making buying software a regular activity is huge for the software market. I'd bet there's a huge number of computer owners who don't understand or don't care to buy and install software. They get their computer from Dell preloaded with Office 20XX and never (intentionally) install software again. Apple is creating a market of normal people who impulse-buy software.
rbanffy 16y ago
> I'm not so excited about this. Am I the only one who thinks this is Apple's first step in exerting more control over developers and users on the OS X platform like they do on iOS? Well... It's still exciting, specially if you root for Apple's competition ;-)
phil 16y ago
I wouldn't worry too much. In order for the Mac to continue to serve as a development platform, it can't be completely locked down. They're making it clear these days that they care a lot about the app ecosystem, so there will have to be a replacement before they take away the ability to install your own apps and get at the shell. More likely is that more of Apple's product line, and more of everyone's computing, will shift to iOs.
- caf 16y ago
  Couldn't they just require you to install Xcode to get an "unlocked/developer" system?
  - loewenskind 16y ago
    They would have to be utterly insane to try something like that. I would expect the stock price to drop like a rock if something like that came out.
lotusleaf1987 16y ago
Conversely, maybe this will lead to Apple opening up the iPhone/iPad to sideloading apps like Android.
darkandbrooding 16y ago
You need a compiler to build iOS and OS X apps. Once you have a compiler on your machine, how can someone else prevent you from creating or running arbitrary executables? In order to lock down the desktop so as to make a Mac App Store the only way to obtain executable content, Apple would have to fundamentally re-invent the way people build iOS and OS X apps. I just don't see developers sticking with the platform once Xcode is a hosted web app. Chasing away their developer community would effectively cede the market for mobile apps to Android. Apple's strategic, long term focus is clearly and unambiguously "mobile computing for the common man." Providing a dirt-simple app distribution platform makes sense within the context of mobile computing. Making it substantially harder to create iOS apps, relative to other mobile platforms, is contrary to Apple's strategic goals.
toddheasley 16y ago
Even if Apple ultimately intends to close the Mac to non-App Store applications -- I'm guessing not, but a valid concern anyway -- it's unlikely to happen in the next five years for two key reasons: Microsoft Office and Adobe Creative Suite. Half the App Store fear is the Kafka-esque approval process (the other half being the 70/30 revenue split), and neither Adobe or Microsoft could do ground-up rewrites even if they wanted to.

JofArnold 16y ago

I wonder if this means something for Steam? The UX for the Mac App Store is almost certainly going to be better than Steam's clunky app... And then I wonder about Game Centre too? It's not that great at the moment, but with Jobs meeting Zuckerberg the other day.... But yes - definitely excited! /me stops speculating and gets back to work

ezy 16y ago
Actually, the app store for ipad is pretty damn clunky (steam isn't great, but I like it better). Honestly, I dont think they have anything to fear... They are, after all, cross platform. Game Center is a pile of schlock at the moment... I suspect, at least for AAA titles... steam will remain top dog.
jonhendry 16y ago
Probably means nothing for Steam. Steam has the big advantage of being cross-platform. Game devs planning to only target the Mac (or Mac and iPhone/iPad) would probably be better off going with the App Store. Developers planning to go cross-platform to Windows would be better off with Steam.
protomyth 16y ago
After all the trouble of getting Steam on the Mac, I doubt Apple will do anything to offend them or their app.

gaius 16y ago

This is how it was supposed be for Java, provisioning your desktop apps on the fly, on demand, over the network. Another Sun idea resurrected, like Google are with Chrome (nee NEWS, with Postscript instead of Javascript). Maybe they shoulda hung on just a little longer...

YooLi 16y ago
If your implementation isn't great right out of the gate, forget it. It's not really a matter of hanging on until people get used to the idea.
- gaius 16y ago
  I don't think that's true, and I cite Newton -> iPad.

there 16y ago

it also provides iphone-style copy protection for these 3rd party apps (the last bulletpoint on the slide was "apps licensed for use on all your personal macs"). that could be a draw to some developers.

JofArnold 16y ago
They'd better streamline the DRM then - XCode/submitting drives me crazy!

mkramlich 16y ago

I disagree it's unsolved. Folks have been distributing and monetizing software for desktop-class machines since the 80's, just's fine, thanks. Been there, done that, have the T-shirt, and the T-shirt still fits fine.

mkramlich 16y ago
Negative -1? Really? Voting system is broken. I recommend for the Nth time that only trusted admins be allowed to take any piece of content down below 1 point. Right now, if any particular user simply disagrees with a given comment, they have the power to penalize and reduce another user's karma. Not because the user said something rude, trollish, juvenile or "evil", but merely because they might disagree. That to me is a broken mechanism. Please let's change this. Think HN will be the better for it.
- danilocampos 16y ago
  I missed you being in negative land, but it may have been a simple result of your remark being both silly and flip at the same time. Silly in that you don't address the substance of the point and flip in that you felt the need to invoke the T-Shirt cliche. Obviously getting software onto desktop computers has happened before. You're ignoring the power of Apple's approach. I mean, what, should we stick with distributing everything on 3.5" floppy disks because that, once upon a time, worked? Cardboard boxes? Advocating to maintain a 30 year status quo on anything is... questionable, but doubly so on something as crucially important and evolving as digital distribution. Similarly, I think you'd be downvoted for saying something like "Already do styling in HTML, works fine, t-shirt, blurgh" in a thread about the power of CSS3. Sure one works. But the new method works better. The amount of work you simply do not have to do with Apple as your App Store distribution partner is incredible. Instead of giving away a piece of software because it wouldn't bring in enough money to offset the trouble and cost of a licensing mechanism and merchant account, you can throw it onto the App Store for $5 and make a bit of cash in a few clicks. That's new.
  - mkramlich 16y ago

slantyyz 16y ago

I see some potential negatives for developers (arguably positive for consumers). 1 - Price deflation. There is a bit of a connotation that App Store means lots of 99 cents apps. Yes, it's not the same platform as the iPhone, but people jumping from the iPhone App Store are going to have some preconceived expectations. 2 - Family licensing. You normally pay a premium for family licensing of a lot of Mac software. This is going to disappear as a pricing tier, so how are developers going to react, given item #1, above? 3 - Marginalization of devs who don't want to participate in the App Store. App Store will be a major way for users to find software. If you're not in there (whether by your choice or Apple's choice), your revenue opportunities could head south. Having said that, I think the App Store is going to be great for the more non-technical users who use the Mac.

stevenbedrick 16y ago
Re. point #2: IIRC, in the talk today, Jobs mentioned that apps installed via the mac app store will work on all your personal macs.
- slantyyz 16y ago
  That was my point. As a developer, you lose that tier of licensing revenue. * edit : Example, 1password is normally 39.95, 5 user family pack is 69.95. How would it be priced on the App store?
  - cubicle67 16y ago
    Yes, and as a user of 1password, this is what has prevented me from upgrading. I'm one user, with a number of machines, but I'm expected to pay for each machine. The latest version of safari also doesn't work with the version of 1password I have (n-1), and to reobtain functionality I once had, I'm expected to fork over $50 (or whatever the upgrade price is for a family pack) to be able to keep using it. Much as I like 1password, and I do, this really irks me

fharper1961 16y ago

Danilo, If the App store was so good for you, why didn't you continue developing for the App store into 2010?