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This article mostly seems to ignore the fact that you can still distribute apps outside of the App Store. In fact, considering the falling costs of hosting and

This article mostly seems to ignore the fact that you can still distribute apps outside of the App Store. In fact, considering the falling costs of hosting and easy access to marketing tools (look at the quality of the website for any Mac App), it's probably never been easier. For pro apps with dedicated audiences (see: Adobe, Ableton, Avid, Nuance) which is just about anything with a plugin architecture, the App Store's distribution is unnecessary. These are established companies with deep links into creative communities. As a consumer, when you're looking at spending hundreds of dollars on, say, music software, you don't care what's in the "Top 25" or on Apple's "Featured" list (if you're smart) - you care about what the people you're working with are using and the opinions of specialized professionals.

brudgers 15y ago
>"For pro apps with dedicated audiences (see: Adobe, Ableton, Avid, Nuance) which is just about anything with a plugin architecture, the App Store's distribution is unnecessary." It is true that inn terms of dedicated (aka existing) audiences or customers, access to is probably still unnecessary, however it is clearly a disadvantage when it comes to generating new users or providing upgrades to existing users.
- saturdaysaint 15y ago
  The economics for pro apps are completely different than anything an app store customer can reference. A lot of the market leaders (Pro Tools, Adobe Suite, Avid) have succeeded despite being orders of magnitude more expensive than competitors and erecting barriers for the average user accessing them (byzantine copyright protection, proprietary hardware requirements). There are always lots of cheap and even reputable alternatives, but the leaders usually capitalize by being early to market and basically owning the leaders in the field. Once you have a community of the best and brightest using/evangelizing your software, distribution is a pretty secondary concern.
nimrody 15y ago
Apple may eventually disable loading of executables which are not cryptographically signed. At this point, you'll have to resort to kernel patches to bypass that mechanism and load non-authorized applications. Hopefully, Apple will leave a way to disable code verification. At least for advanced users.
- spc476 15y ago
  I see the following in syslog from my Mac: no system signature for unsigned /Applications/Firefox.app. I've been seeing this for the past couple of years now (and it's not restricted to Firefox by the way).
rbanffy 15y ago
> you can still distribute I think "still" is the important word here.
- saturdaysaint 15y ago
  Nope. The gadget-oriented press misses it completely, but Apple's history of catering to creative professionals and media industries goes just as deep as any of their control freak tendencies. Coming straight from Jobs, the purpose of these computers was to serve the arts. They're deeply attuned to the technical requirements (eg plugins) for creative software as well as to what creative pros of all stripes are using. Another example: part of the reason that iOS has had a lot of cool audio apps from the beginning is that low-latency audio performance is practically a core feature of OSX. Mark my words: Apple will never make a change to OSX that will keep Illustrator, Pro Tools, or Avid off of the platform for a second.
  - jerf 15y ago
    Question. What percentage of their sales in this quarter or the last were to support Pro Tools or Illustrator installs? Are you sure they won't trade that away to Windows for a chance to improve their lockdown? You still seem to be working under the mental model that was created for Apple's actions when those apps were basically the only thing keeping Apple a going concern at all. That is not their current status anymore, and I think the model may need updating to reflect that. The counterpoint that these people are thought leaders is still valid, but even then... thought leaders for what percentage of their market now?
    - ja2ke 15y ago
      I think Apple likes that their computers are used to make the content that people use their computers to consume. I think it will take them a while to give that up. I also think that, eventually, they WILL give that up -- it just won't be for a while yet -- and that's probably about when I'll stop using Apple products.
      - 15y ago
recoiledsnake 15y ago
>This article mostly seems to ignore the fact that you can still distribute apps outside of the App Store. Sure, but when Apple starts claiming and advertising that all Mac Store apps are secure(indirectly implying that external apps are not or may not be), external apps will have a much harder time appealing to the casual crowd, and for some apps living on thin margins, might be a death knell as more and more Macs get into the hands of casual users. The mid level apps between the big pro apps and the iOS-like apps will get really squeezed with this if they need non-sandboxed functionality and will be forced to conform or stop development in order to eke out a profit.
- eddieplan9 15y ago
  I cannot see how this is bad for competition. Within the App Store, the apps are subject to the same restrictions and it is fair competition. Outside of the App Store, you are not subject to the restrictions, and hopefully you can - and you should - build something that is impossible to achieve under the App Store restrictions, and you get your competitive advantages. If you just hate the App Store idea, and you don't really have anything that cannot be done with the sandbox restrictions, well, if your customers like the App Store, I guess you should be out of business anyway. This is pure Darwinism.
  - recoiledsnake 15y ago
    The problem is visibility and the appearance of security. A significant number of users won't search beyond the app store and just assume that such apps do not exist if they can't find it on the App store. They are conditioned to do that from their iOS experience, so indeed this is a new bigger hurdle for the non-sandboxed apps and for some(not all) it could mean going out of business inspite of having a good product right now. Also, some people will be conditioned to thinking(rightly or wrongly) App Store = safe, Web programs = unsafe. > if your customers like the App Store, Of course they will like it, it's front and center and easy to operate. How is that the dev's fault? >This is pure Darwinism. This is nothing like Darwinism. Perhaps it would be, if you assume that the sunlight, forest cover, predators and water supply were able to be controlled by a company. If you include advanced features in your app and thus are pushed out to an external distribution but your competitor releases with only limited features, who is going to make more money? And forget about a Lite version linking to the Pro one, that's prohibited too. The only "evolution" that will happen is that this will lead many small and mid developers to cut out features and operate only within a sandbox so as to get traction.
seanalltogether 15y ago
For simple utility apps that cost less then $5 you really can't do your own distribution model, the amount of money you would make is paltry compared to the dollars the MAS brings in. Trust me, I know http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/space-gremlin/id414515628?mt=12&ls=1 http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/space-gremlin/id414515628?mt=... I'm sad to see that this move by apple will kill off a lot of utility apps that are bringing in decent income for people.
Duff 15y ago
Apple is loving the huge revenue share in the App Store on iOS. Do you really think that they will not try to use the app store as a tollgate for everything? 30% of Adobe sales == big number.
- fpgeek 15y ago
  Apple is loving the level of platform control they get from the iOS App Store even more.

brudgers 15y ago

>"For pro apps with dedicated audiences (see: Adobe, Ableton, Avid, Nuance) which is just about anything with a plugin architecture, the App Store's distribution is unnecessary." It is true that inn terms of dedicated (aka existing) audiences or customers, access to is probably still unnecessary, however it is clearly a disadvantage when it comes to generating new users or providing upgrades to existing users.

saturdaysaint 15y ago
The economics for pro apps are completely different than anything an app store customer can reference. A lot of the market leaders (Pro Tools, Adobe Suite, Avid) have succeeded despite being orders of magnitude more expensive than competitors and erecting barriers for the average user accessing them (byzantine copyright protection, proprietary hardware requirements). There are always lots of cheap and even reputable alternatives, but the leaders usually capitalize by being early to market and basically owning the leaders in the field. Once you have a community of the best and brightest using/evangelizing your software, distribution is a pretty secondary concern.

nimrody 15y ago

Apple may eventually disable loading of executables which are not cryptographically signed. At this point, you'll have to resort to kernel patches to bypass that mechanism and load non-authorized applications. Hopefully, Apple will leave a way to disable code verification. At least for advanced users.

spc476 15y ago
I see the following in syslog from my Mac: no system signature for unsigned /Applications/Firefox.app. I've been seeing this for the past couple of years now (and it's not restricted to Firefox by the way).

rbanffy 15y ago

> you can still distribute I think "still" is the important word here.

saturdaysaint 15y ago
Nope. The gadget-oriented press misses it completely, but Apple's history of catering to creative professionals and media industries goes just as deep as any of their control freak tendencies. Coming straight from Jobs, the purpose of these computers was to serve the arts. They're deeply attuned to the technical requirements (eg plugins) for creative software as well as to what creative pros of all stripes are using. Another example: part of the reason that iOS has had a lot of cool audio apps from the beginning is that low-latency audio performance is practically a core feature of OSX. Mark my words: Apple will never make a change to OSX that will keep Illustrator, Pro Tools, or Avid off of the platform for a second.
- jerf 15y ago
  Question. What percentage of their sales in this quarter or the last were to support Pro Tools or Illustrator installs? Are you sure they won't trade that away to Windows for a chance to improve their lockdown? You still seem to be working under the mental model that was created for Apple's actions when those apps were basically the only thing keeping Apple a going concern at all. That is not their current status anymore, and I think the model may need updating to reflect that. The counterpoint that these people are thought leaders is still valid, but even then... thought leaders for what percentage of their market now?
  - ja2ke 15y ago
    I think Apple likes that their computers are used to make the content that people use their computers to consume. I think it will take them a while to give that up. I also think that, eventually, they WILL give that up -- it just won't be for a while yet -- and that's probably about when I'll stop using Apple products.
    - 15y ago

recoiledsnake 15y ago

>This article mostly seems to ignore the fact that you can still distribute apps outside of the App Store. Sure, but when Apple starts claiming and advertising that all Mac Store apps are secure(indirectly implying that external apps are not or may not be), external apps will have a much harder time appealing to the casual crowd, and for some apps living on thin margins, might be a death knell as more and more Macs get into the hands of casual users. The mid level apps between the big pro apps and the iOS-like apps will get really squeezed with this if they need non-sandboxed functionality and will be forced to conform or stop development in order to eke out a profit.

eddieplan9 15y ago
I cannot see how this is bad for competition. Within the App Store, the apps are subject to the same restrictions and it is fair competition. Outside of the App Store, you are not subject to the restrictions, and hopefully you can - and you should - build something that is impossible to achieve under the App Store restrictions, and you get your competitive advantages. If you just hate the App Store idea, and you don't really have anything that cannot be done with the sandbox restrictions, well, if your customers like the App Store, I guess you should be out of business anyway. This is pure Darwinism.
- recoiledsnake 15y ago
  The problem is visibility and the appearance of security. A significant number of users won't search beyond the app store and just assume that such apps do not exist if they can't find it on the App store. They are conditioned to do that from their iOS experience, so indeed this is a new bigger hurdle for the non-sandboxed apps and for some(not all) it could mean going out of business inspite of having a good product right now. Also, some people will be conditioned to thinking(rightly or wrongly) App Store = safe, Web programs = unsafe. > if your customers like the App Store, Of course they will like it, it's front and center and easy to operate. How is that the dev's fault? >This is pure Darwinism. This is nothing like Darwinism. Perhaps it would be, if you assume that the sunlight, forest cover, predators and water supply were able to be controlled by a company. If you include advanced features in your app and thus are pushed out to an external distribution but your competitor releases with only limited features, who is going to make more money? And forget about a Lite version linking to the Pro one, that's prohibited too. The only "evolution" that will happen is that this will lead many small and mid developers to cut out features and operate only within a sandbox so as to get traction.

seanalltogether 15y ago

For simple utility apps that cost less then $5 you really can't do your own distribution model, the amount of money you would make is paltry compared to the dollars the MAS brings in. Trust me, I know http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/space-gremlin/id414515628?mt=12&ls=1 http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/space-gremlin/id414515628?mt=... I'm sad to see that this move by apple will kill off a lot of utility apps that are bringing in decent income for people.

Duff 15y ago

Apple is loving the huge revenue share in the App Store on iOS. Do you really think that they will not try to use the app store as a tollgate for everything? 30% of Adobe sales == big number.

fpgeek 15y ago
Apple is loving the level of platform control they get from the iOS App Store even more.