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My predictions on how this is going to go: - A few major developers will get on board with this, and publish their mainstream titles via the App Store. This wi

by logic 16y ago

My predictions on how this is going to go: - A few major developers will get on board with this, and publish their mainstream titles via the App Store. This will lend credibility. - Indie developers will jump on next, seeing another low-friction distribution medium that gives them more eyeballs (at least at first) than they were previously getting. - Enter the "fart apps", ie. low-value applications that do one thing (poorly), but only cost $0.99 or are free, providing downward pricing pressure for everyone else in the App Store. - Another OSX release comes and goes, this time with warnings to users whenever they install "unsigned" applications. Developers are encouraged to get Apple to sign their apps prior to shipping, even if they're a boxed app on the shelf, to prevent the user from seeing the big scary warning. Conveniently, this is a very similar process to submitting an app to the App Store; App Store distribution increases. - A few more OSX releases ensue, Apple stops signing applications that aren't also distributed via the App Store. Distribution of software outside of the App Store (boxed software, online direct-to-user, competing digital distribution like Steam) begins to wither on MacOS. I'd hope it goes without saying that I'd like to be proven wrong about the above.

reitzensteinm 16y ago
Honestly, I think Apple has enough credibility to make it work already. Apple's software directory was already a major place to make sales for indie developers, their conversion rates are historically very high, and the app store for iPhone was a major gold rush. I bet we'll see a ton of developers hitting it from day one, hoping to get in before everyone else does and the market gets saturated. The install base will start out at zero initially and quickly rise, but I'm sure 90%+ of the people who install Lion (by definition early adoptors) are going to check it out and many of them will buy something. I say this as someone who's planning to release an App for it, for what it's worth.
swombat 16y ago
Enter the "fart apps", ie. low-value applications that do one thing (poorly), but only cost $0.99 or are free, providing downward pricing pressure for everyone else in the App Store. Unlikely. A fart app has comic value on a phone because you can pull it out at the bar and use it to show off your iPhone while you're drunk. The comic value is seductive enough while drunk that your friends might buy it too, hence perpetuating the plague. I'm not sure how laptop or desktop based fart apps would propagate, however. Would you download, even for free, a application that produces fart noises on your laptop? Dubious. The rest of your scenario doesn't worry me so much. What does worry me is if they build hooks into the OS so that signed apps distributed through the app-store have greater privileges (e.g. with respect to playing DVDs) than other apps. This would finally be a way in for the so-called "Trusted Computing" initiative which would lock down your own machine against you (unless you jailbreak your mac, which seems just wrong). Even with that, people will still find ways around it, but given that Apple did at some point agree to implement DRM restrictions on music files distributed through iTunes I suspect they'd also implement Trusted Computing with a bit of arm twisting from the MPAA. That would suck a whole lot more than the tragic disappearance of boxed software (good riddance).
- bonzoesc 16y ago
  > The rest of your scenario doesn't worry me so much. What does worry me is if they build hooks into the OS so that signed apps distributed through the app-store have greater privileges (e.g. with respect to playing DVDs) than other apps. They're flat out saying the opposite; that Mac App Store applications will be pretty much limited to unprivileged user stuff (the overwhelming majority of what I do).
rtrunck 16y ago
My guess is that the indies will hit it first, just like they did for the iPhone.
- Someone 16y ago
  Definitely. For small developers, a 30% cut is cheap for the exposure you get in exchange (larger developers will typically expect to sell more items at higher prices. That changes the economics)
febeling 16y ago
I also see the danger of downward pricing pressure, since the mobile AppStore sets a precedence. And then AppStore Mac might increasingly be seen as the only display window for software, without leaving much room for separate framing and marketing. It transforms apps into something more like dumbed-down content. Just taking the same share ratio of 70 / 30 from the mobile to the desktop space also doesn't seem favorable, since the mobile space used to be a much more walled garden, where it was an accomplishment to make distribution work at all. That is not the case on the desktop.
- stcredzero 16y ago
  It transforms apps into something more like dumbed-down content. How about "appliances?" Really, the ordinary non-tech end user wants something more like an appliance, and less like a software project.

by logic 16y ago

reitzensteinm 16y ago

Honestly, I think Apple has enough credibility to make it work already. Apple's software directory was already a major place to make sales for indie developers, their conversion rates are historically very high, and the app store for iPhone was a major gold rush. I bet we'll see a ton of developers hitting it from day one, hoping to get in before everyone else does and the market gets saturated. The install base will start out at zero initially and quickly rise, but I'm sure 90%+ of the people who install Lion (by definition early adoptors) are going to check it out and many of them will buy something. I say this as someone who's planning to release an App for it, for what it's worth.

swombat 16y ago

Enter the "fart apps", ie. low-value applications that do one thing (poorly), but only cost $0.99 or are free, providing downward pricing pressure for everyone else in the App Store. Unlikely. A fart app has comic value on a phone because you can pull it out at the bar and use it to show off your iPhone while you're drunk. The comic value is seductive enough while drunk that your friends might buy it too, hence perpetuating the plague. I'm not sure how laptop or desktop based fart apps would propagate, however. Would you download, even for free, a application that produces fart noises on your laptop? Dubious. The rest of your scenario doesn't worry me so much. What does worry me is if they build hooks into the OS so that signed apps distributed through the app-store have greater privileges (e.g. with respect to playing DVDs) than other apps. This would finally be a way in for the so-called "Trusted Computing" initiative which would lock down your own machine against you (unless you jailbreak your mac, which seems just wrong). Even with that, people will still find ways around it, but given that Apple did at some point agree to implement DRM restrictions on music files distributed through iTunes I suspect they'd also implement Trusted Computing with a bit of arm twisting from the MPAA. That would suck a whole lot more than the tragic disappearance of boxed software (good riddance).

bonzoesc 16y ago
> The rest of your scenario doesn't worry me so much. What does worry me is if they build hooks into the OS so that signed apps distributed through the app-store have greater privileges (e.g. with respect to playing DVDs) than other apps. They're flat out saying the opposite; that Mac App Store applications will be pretty much limited to unprivileged user stuff (the overwhelming majority of what I do).

rtrunck 16y ago

My guess is that the indies will hit it first, just like they did for the iPhone.

Someone 16y ago
Definitely. For small developers, a 30% cut is cheap for the exposure you get in exchange (larger developers will typically expect to sell more items at higher prices. That changes the economics)

febeling 16y ago

I also see the danger of downward pricing pressure, since the mobile AppStore sets a precedence. And then AppStore Mac might increasingly be seen as the only display window for software, without leaving much room for separate framing and marketing. It transforms apps into something more like dumbed-down content. Just taking the same share ratio of 70 / 30 from the mobile to the desktop space also doesn't seem favorable, since the mobile space used to be a much more walled garden, where it was an accomplishment to make distribution work at all. That is not the case on the desktop.

stcredzero 16y ago
It transforms apps into something more like dumbed-down content. How about "appliances?" Really, the ordinary non-tech end user wants something more like an appliance, and less like a software project.