3 ms·
I think you're reading a little too much into it. Steam solved this "problem" long ago. Optical drives may eventually become less common. I admit mine rarely
by thought_alarm 16y ago
I think you're reading a little too much into it. Steam solved this "problem" long ago.
Optical drives may eventually become less common. I admit mine rarely gets much use, but I still fancy throwing a DVD in there once and a while.
But that does present an interesting problem if you're, say, Microsoft. How do you sell Word to someone who doesn't have an optical drive? Would Microsoft or Adobe or anyone else who sells big-ticket shrink-wrapped software turn to the App Store to solve that problem? Not in a million years.
- scott_s 16y agoFirst, Steam distributes games only. Second, Apple does not tend to depend on third-parties for critical infrastructure.
- ugh 16y agoYou can already buy Office or CS online and download it. My local electronics store even sells cheap Office licenses with nothing but the key. Microsoft or Adobe don’t need the App Store.
- thought_alarm 16y agoWell that's exactly my point. The Mac App Store isn't the game changer some people seem to think (or fear) it is. It could very well be a boon to small developers, or it could have no impact at all, but it doesn't change anything.
- scott_s 16y agoI don't think it's an enormous change, but it makes it easier for Apple to drop optical drives from all of their laptops. They could do it for the Air previously because it was marketed as a laptop with extra stuff removed - but they could not remove the optical drive in normal Macbooks partly because of this problem. The other common use case for the optical drive are DVDs and music CDs. Streaming content is making those less necessary.
- dbrannan 16y agoIf anyone else developed an app store for Apple that took 30% of developer profits it would fail miserably, regardless of how wonderful it worked. I'm sure Apple will do fine with this new model, but it kind of amazes me people will go for it.