15 ms·

The Mac App Store’s future of irrelevance

349 points by rrreese 14y ago

grayprog 14y ago
As a Mac developer who's also affected by the mandatory sandboxing requirement, I fully agree. One of our applications, Trickster, doesn't work sandboxed (being a system utility) as is and we're in this situation where we have customers on the Mac App Store who can't receive updates anymore. Needless to say, neither us nor our customers (who'll mostly blame us) are happy about this.
- phil 14y ago
  Consider inspecting the MAS receipt and issuing them a license in your own scheme if you are leaving. At least then you get to keep your customers.
- seanalltogether 14y ago
  Same. I develop Space Gremlin and I've been sitting on an update now for 6 months because any new submission will severely cripple the usability of the current app. I really wish there was a good alternative like Steam that I could sell on instead.
smoody 14y ago
It seems to me that there's an opportunity for someone to create a knock-off of the Mac App Store without the restrictions. I'd be a customer.
- cytzol 14y ago
  With Mountain Lion and the iCloud feature only allowed on apps from the Mac App Store, this is a lot harder to do than it previously was.
  - briandear 14y ago
    iCloud should be limited the MAS apps-- I don't want some rogue app being able to access my iCloud data.
  - smoody 14y ago
    There are a lot of cases where iCloud isn't relevant (at the moment) -- many types of apps are not document-centric and I believe that, going forward, fewer will be.
- grayprog 14y ago
  There is already such an app, Bodega, which was launched before Mac App Store. There was (and probably is) another one from the developers of iusethis.com
- spiralpolitik 14y ago
  Already done a long time ago: http://appbodega.com http://appbodega.com (Although I believe Bodega launched a few years prior to the Mac app store)
  - smoody 14y ago
    Sometimes being early is the same as being wrong -- we've seen that time and time again. If a new player were to come along and capture the momentum of this meme, I personally believe that they'd stand a better chance than a player who has been in the space a long time. It's unfortunate, but that's just the way it is -- or always has been.
m_st 14y ago
As a customer I totally agree. I wouldn't care about simple 5$ tools being removed. But if more expensive tools like PDFPen Pro (which I bought) get removed then I will certainly be very upset. And just because this danger is present I'm very careful and not buying any expensive software anymore from the Mac App Store whenever given the choice (except Apple software of course). That's a pity for both developers and customers.
- omfg 14y ago
  One would assume you could email the developer and get setup with a non App Store version / license in that scenario.
Bobby_Tables 14y ago
The iOS App Store does the same thing with changing the rules in the middle of the game, but it is not subject to potential irrelevance because it is the only place to get software for iOS devices. So the obvious solution for Apple is to make the Mac App Store the only place to get software for MacOS. I'm actually a little surprised this didn't happen in 10.8.
- juliano_q 14y ago
  The day they do this is the day that I will partition my disk, install another OS and never look back. OSX is the only Apple product that is still attractive to me, but I fear that I will have to jump out sooner or later.
  - pnathan 14y ago
    With the shift towards iOSness and sandboxing for Windows & OSX, I don't see myself using anything but Linux - or recommending anything but Linux - for the future.
- archgrove 14y ago
  Which would instantly kill the Mac as a development platform, and render all previously purchased software irrelevant. This just won't happen, though I can see a version of OS X that does this by default (perhaps on all "non-pro" models).
  - Splines 14y ago
    I think the only viable way to do this would be for Apple to make Macs obsolete. Like boiling a frog, if they upscaled the ipad to a desktop-lite device over the next few years, and eventually replaced their fully featured cousins with these devices, they would be able to accomplish it with far much less resistance. (The iMac may have been a few years too early - they could have positioned the iMac as the trojan horse in this story).
    - St-Clock 14y ago
Aloisius 14y ago
What software besides Postbox has pulled out? The author makes it sound like there is a mass exodus. I've bought most of my software outside the App Store, so I'm not tuned in.
- grayprog 14y ago
  TextExpander 4 is one of major examples. TextExpander 3 is still in store but version 4 is only available direct from Smile. There are also ClipStart (I think that's the name, a video management app), SourceTree (version control) and probably some other. More will follow, I believe.
- draebek 14y ago
  I'm not positive about this, but it sounds like lots of the applications/utilities made by Many Tricks are going to be pulled, or will at least see slower/limited updates if any: http://manytricks.com/blog/?page_id=2208 http://manytricks.com/blog/?page_id=2208
- 89a 14y ago
  I believe Panic with Coda has said the non-MAS version will be getting features that are impossible on the MAS version
- smackfu 14y ago
  A lot of software can't be sandboxed, full stop. So they joined the App Store before sandboxing even existed, but Apple won't approve any more updates so they will have to be sold outside the store.
tomflack 14y ago
I've nightmares about endless apps having their own updaters. Adobe/Microsoft updaters really are the culprits here. Its this that makes me wish the app store would drop these product-killing restrictions. I don't trust every app developer to do updaters.
- sujal 14y ago
  Many (most?) indie mac apps use Sparkle (http://sparkle.andymatuschak.org http://sparkle.andymatuschak.org) to autoupdate. It's generally easy to use, so most people don't need to go the microsoft/adobe route.
  - pooriaazimi 14y ago
    Sparkle is amazing. For years and years, I thought it was actually part of the OS, as almost every app I had used it. That's how ubiquitous it is on the Mac! Edit: Very interesting! The guy behind Sparkle (Andy Matuschak) is actually an Apple employee, working on UIKit! http://andymatuschak.org/ http://andymatuschak.org/ > By day, I work on UIKit to help other people make things.
mej10 14y ago
I hope they will weaken this restriction, and will just not have non-sandboxed apps show up without searching for them, or without switching some "power user" option on. Some types of applications simply cannot exist with these types of restrictions. They are removing entire classes (e.g. window managers, system utilities) of applications from the App Store with this.
- briandear 14y ago
  But what's the real market size for window utilities? Not something your average user buys. I use size up and cinch, but I'm a developer. My dad doesn't care about fairly obscure system utilities. Besides, it isn't like those tools can't be used on ML-- just not through the MAS. MAS is a shopping mail, not a specialty shop. I don't by rock climbin gear from Target, but I'll gladly by an espresso machine from Target.
carson 14y ago
I think the idea that Apple can't require MAS is wrong. Maybe they can't for everyone but I would bet they can for a lot of people and probably plan to. At some point developers will be buying the developer version of the OS that gets them around the sandbox.
- briandear 14y ago
  There's no sandbox on the OS. RTFM.
pkamb 14y ago
Several of my apps won't receive any new updates because they use the Accessibility API, which isn't sandbox-compatible. It's a real shame, because developing for the Mac App Store for the past year has been awesome. Unfortunately the money/discovery isn't there for sole devs to go outside the Store.
djbender 14y ago
Really think he's missing the part where laypeople will see the Mac App Store as their main portal for software. Sure us geeks will always know what the best option is, but what about from a common majority consumer's perspective?
- wmeredith 14y ago
  Every time that layperson goes to look at their purchases and some are missing or they update and lose a feature, they may not know or care to find out what's going on, but Apple's "it just works" marketing message gets a black eye.
- eykanal 14y ago
  They'll find out about software the same way that the "majority consumer" used to; reading magazines like Macworld, seeing advertisements in various places, and talking to friends. If anything, the App Store is the one trying to break into the old model of buying software (find something, pay for it, buy it). In fact, the two conveniences offered by the App Store (visible to users) is ease of finding stuff and security. Security isn't much of an issue with the old model because, historically, there hasn't been many security concerns. If the "finding stuff" benefit goes away too, then the App Store will be completely irrelevant.
  - slantyyz 14y ago
    >> They'll find out about software the same way that the "majority consumer" used to; reading magazines like Macworld, seeing advertisements in various places, and talking to friends. I don't know many "consumerish" Mac users who read Mac magazines, Daring Fireball, etc. Hell, I know a lot of more sophisticated Mac users who don't read any Mac related content except when they have problems. Many of the consumer Mac users I know don't pay attention to ads for Mac software either. On your third point (word of mouth), that one has a lot of validity, assuming that a consumer mac user has a mac nerd or two in his/her circle of friends. If I look at what most of my consumer Mac friends and acquaintances use, most of their time is spent in Safari, iTunes, iLife, iWork and maybe something like Parallels or VMWare to run "work stuff". A few might install some apps here and there, but few would even know that there was anything outside the App Store that was worthwhile.
tadhgk 14y ago
Future of irrelevance to who exactly? The 1-in-10000 users who like to play with root level access and scripts and stuff perhaps, but do the other 9999 even notice the change? I'm thinking not. Granted it's a big change from earlier times, the strategy of sandboxing works really well for security and general OS integrity (as iOS has proved) in a world that has no patience for fragmented and exploitative software. Perhaps we lose a little something in the process, but it's in the service of a better overall integrated service and experience. Oh and by the way: Microsoft is going the same way too with Metro.
- brudgers 14y ago
  "Microsoft is going the same way too with Metro." Not exactly. Metro and its app store are only "half" of Windows 8. The other half isn't sandboxed in the walled garden style. To put it another way, Microsoft isn't building the Windows App Store on the back of existing software, but from the ground up using only sandboxed apps. Microsoft isn't likely to create the sort of moving target for developers that Apple has recently because doing so would not be consistent with the B2B model that underpins their corporate culture.
  - monkeyfacebag 14y ago
    FYI, this is not true for Windows RT (the ARM version). That version will only support applications purchased through MS's store. Given that MS is clearly pushing for Metro to be the future of Windows, I think this is somewhat concerning.
    - brudgers 14y ago
      On the other hand, Windows on ARM is an extension of the Windows franchise in the same way that WP7 with it's app store is. In a sense it is like talking about the iPad when discussion the Mac App store...or would be if iOS applications ran on the Mac. Metro is a future of Windows, just as Server Console mode is (though admittedly on a potentially different scale).
  - MatthewPhillips 14y ago
moron 14y ago
Marco is accusing Apple of having made a critical strategic error. Where are all the people who call him a member of the Apple cult and all that crap? Funny how they disappear when it comes time to talk about what Apple is doing wrong.
- Yhippa 14y ago
  To me the tone of the article is that he is worried that Apple is missing chances of further enhancing lock-in to the Apple brand, specifically on the Mac OS desktop platform. The guy re-purchased apps he already had so that he could help with that lock-in. I see the rationale for doing that but when you start throwing free cash on duplicate app purchases to enhance lock-in I don't know what could be more cult-like.
  - shadesandcolour 14y ago
    Picking which operating system to use enhances lock in by itself already. I've bought software both inside and outside of the mac app store and since I have that software I'm locked in to the program. If I could move all my applications to the app store I would do it in a heartbeat because it gives me one place to go for updates. Apple is certainly missing out on opportunities, but not only for "locking people in" but also for making their user experience better.
  - jiggy2011 14y ago
    In the article he says he did it for the purposes of convenience. I don't understand why anybody other than apple would be interesting in "helping" with lock-in.
crazygringo 14y ago
All these problems could be solved if there were a way for companies to transfer your existing non-App-store licenses to the App Store, allow for paid upgrades on the App Store, and allow App Store licenses to be associated with real serial numbers (or something else) that could be used to "take" your license with you, in the event the App Store suddenly becomes too restrictive. Basically make it seamless, monetarily and "upgradily", to go to/from the app store. Of course, Apple will never let this happen.
- masklinn 14y ago
  That would be a good start, although a significant expansion in the available sandbox entitlements would also very likely be needed for developers who have already fled to go back to the store.
- adambyrtek 14y ago
  Who would pay the Apple tax in case of license transfers? I can't imagine Apple simply letting go of their cut.
  - crazygringo 14y ago
    Well I imagine you'd only ever need to move to the App Store because of an upgrade which required it (because certain features are only available to App Store-distributed applications). So Apple would get their cut of the upgrade fee, and future upgrade fees as well. Obviously it's not as much as the full app immediately, but ideally over time it would add up for them with paid upgrades.
jawngee 14y ago
I'm pulling my video editor Shave (http://shavevideo.com http://shavevideo.com) out of the Mac App Store for these reasons, though most specifically the lack of paid upgrades. For a $10 video editor that, quite frankly, beats the pants off a lot of crap out there for day to day editing tasks, I can't afford to devote the time and resources it requires to maintain it without it having a baseline level of income. Not having an upgrade path to a major version number bump is ridiculous. Also, the lack of direct contact with customers is obnoxious at best, crippling at worst. But the sandboxing entitlements kill the best bits of functionality, so I have not much choice but to say "fuck it" and move on. I doubt Apple will miss me, though I'm the only other worthwhile editor on there other than iMovie and Final Cut in terms of actual editing functionality. The video category is a giant pile of shit save a few select pieces, mine included.
- Terretta 14y ago
  Have you tried purchasing the "latest" version of World of Warcraft? You can't. There is no standalone "latest version". You have to purchase the original, and each version since, and finally the current version. Correlate those game content / game mechanics updates with In-App Purchases, and it's clear how someone could offer "major upgrades" if they stop thinking in terms of version numbers and start thinking in terms of actual upgrade features. (See "Navigon" for an app that has done this.) And if the entire app architecture changes, make a new app.
  - 89a 14y ago
    Think the problem is policing it. Apple doesn't want it to become the standard that people are being charged for bug fixes every version.
    - cloverich 14y ago
      Can't people decide not to purchase the app then? They have a content review system - 10 recent 1 star "Bug fixes cost $$$" and the app is dead, no? Or am I overlooking something?
zemo 14y ago
this whole article goes over my head, because it assumes the reader is already familiar with the sandboxing issue. I'm not a desktop OS X developer; I'm not familiar with the topic. I searched around and the only articles I could find are blog posts about how the sky is falling, with no sources from Apple that plainly state the app sandboxing requirements. If you're going to write an article about how some upcoming thing is a doomsday event, please explain the event clearly and link to the proper sources, especially if your article is a criticism of a technical specification. That one or a few applications are backing out of the app store is not, in itself, evidence that they are justified in doing so. This article has taught me nothing, but it has made me more afraid.
- spaghetti 14y ago
  I'd like to understand the implications of sandboxing too. It must have some large negative impact on Instapaper for Marco to care this much. What is it?
  - veidr 14y ago
    It has no implications for Instapaper at all. His complaints are entirely from the Mac user perspective. (And are complaints that I share.) Tons of great apps can't be sold via the app store unless they degrade themselves to comply.
  - fredsted 14y ago
    Here's a document that goes in-depth about app sandboxing: http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Security/Conceptual/AppSandboxDesignGuide/AppSandboxInDepth/AppSandboxInDepth.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40011183-CH3-SW4 http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Securi...
  - pn 14y ago
    It does not have any imapct on Instapaper. In short, sandboxing is an idea where every app lives in an isolated environment. By default an application can only access its own files, every other system resource is unavailable until the user explicitly allows the app to use it. It has impact on many apps, for instance your favorite git client won't be allowed to open the repositories you've been lately working on, just because they're located in Documents.
mikejarema 14y ago
I'm wondering how soon until we see OSX being jailbroken. I suspect system level choices like this are bound to continue in order to push users in the direction of iCloud and AppStore usage (ie. vendor lock-in). Though such moves appear draconian from our perspective, I believe Apple times such moves around when some internal metrics indicate a tipping point has happened, namely the developer backlash won't be substantial enough to affect Apple's bottom line. It's only a matter of time before the iPhone dev team puts some effort towards serving the OSX crowd that wants to jump ship but not give up "OSX" completely.
- briandear 14y ago
  Jail broken? What for? You can run any app you want.. Just not accidentally.
- jopt 14y ago
  It's bad enough that apps are leaving the App Store because of sandboxing. You don't have to make shit up. The owner of a Mac can enable root access through the Directory Utility, completely legit, and can install and run code from any source without even doing so. Jailbreaking OS X makes no sense; there's no jail.
  - mikejarema 14y ago
    True enough, and I'm probably abusing terminology here, sorry for that. It's more me wondering out loud if there will be some alternative to OSX, largely built off of OSX in order to get around limitations like sandboxing.
    - jopt 14y ago
      That's quite another story. If I have to write Sci-Fi: Perhaps an underground scene that use and code for older versions of OS X, patching the system themselves to get only the good parts of system updates, while staying out of Apple's redefinitions of the computing experience.
jusben1369 14y ago
Can anyone give a 101 explanation specifically around what the "sandbox" issue is?
- pohl 14y ago
  Pages 14 and 15 of John Siracusa's review of Mountain Lion tell it pretty well: http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/07/os-x-10-8/14/#gatekeeper http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/07/os-x-10-8/14/#gatekeepe...
Garwor 14y ago
The neckbeards will buy from the developer. The ordinary customers Apple has been relentlessly targeting for a decade will buy from the Mac App Store. Which group is bigger?
- dchest 14y ago
  How will they buy software from the Mac App Store that is not available there?
  - Garwor 14y ago
    For ordinary customers, software that's not on the Mac App Store might as well not even exist. Developers who try to make a living selling serial numbers on the web via Paypal are going to be selling to a tinier and tinier slice of the market. We're headed toward appliance computing for almost everybody and a Linux box for the rest of us. Apple understands this; hell, even Microsoft is starting to understand this. Does anyone doubt that we're headed in the same general direction on the Windows Store?
- jopt 14y ago
  It's not about where we buy our apps, it's about where we sell them. If the App Store doesn't work for developers, it won't work for users. The users can't buy stuff that isn't there just because they outnumber the developers.
  - Garwor 14y ago
    Other developers will happily come along, work within Apple's guidelines, and sell to the giant slice of the pie chart. It's obviously a radically different model of software development, and one that's probably far less appealing to current developers, but that's what happens when industries change. The incumbents never like it. The same thing's coming to Windows, too, thanks to the Windows Store. The whole industry's headed toward appliance computing. Maybe you can sell software to Linux users.
    - 14y ago
jsz0 14y ago
How about a content rating system? People are familiar with this from movies, television and music. A developer could declare their un-sandboxed application the equivalent of NC17 while most users live happily in their equivalent of a PG13 universe.
MarkMc 14y ago
The accounting software I develop [1] is a year out of date on the Mac App Store because of the restrictions that Apple have introduced. And yet I disagree with Marco: This is a one-time problem as Apple tighten requirements for publishing on the Mac App Store. In a few years users will have forgotten this problem (if they ever noticed in the first place) and the benefits of the Mac App Store will make it the dominant distribution platform. Those benefits are: easy to make a purchase, easy to see reviews for a product, easy to find a product, easy to install on multiple machines. Eventually I'll have to change the software to meet Apple's stricter requirements so it can be published on the Mac App Store again. [1] http://www.solaraccounts.co.uk http://www.solaraccounts.co.uk
tnorthcutt 14y ago
I think I agree with everything Marco says in this article except for Apple can never require an App-Store-only future I think they can, and will, regardless of their sandboxing or other policies.
mzuvella 14y ago
Seriously? Do you remember what company this is? Apple does this every time and then corrects it down the road. Why? Because they receive more press that way. Come on guys, they are not stupid.
Vecrios 14y ago
I have an incorrect understanding of the word sandbox in this context. So to clarify, what does the author of this blog mean by "the sandbox is restricted"?
crag 14y ago
Again, Apple doesn't really care what developers feel. What matters are the masses. Which don't care about these issues. The App Store is easy to use, accessible and allows them to download their apps on multiple Macs. It's a win win from their point of view. Apple's thinking is simple: You (us developer) don't like it, PayPal is that way". Just that simple. And since The App Store is where most non-developer mac users get their apps from.. we have a simple choice. Do I like it, hell no. Will I play by Apple's rules, yes.
- dasil003 14y ago
  Sure developers will play ball as long as Apple is where the money is. There's no doubt that iOS's amazing run of exponential growth and the creation of a distribution platform as frictionless as the App Store have been irresistible to developers. However I think it's also fair to say that early adopters and developers were key to Apple's recent success. For instance, OS X lured me back to Macs from Windows in 2000 largely on the promise of unix under the hood. Many early iPhone users were jail breakers either to develop apps or to use them. Developers were on the forefront of Apple success, and I think it's impossible to quantify the impact that we had, and thus extremely easy to underestimate it. It's true that Apple is very mass market and could not achieve it's design excellence by listening to geek feature requests, but I think they'd better tread lightly on the larger issues. If they turn OS X into a toy OS that doesn't allow serious development and pushing the technological envelope, and all future innovation comes exclusively in the form of Apple new APIs, then I think that will be a harbinger of Apple decline as the geeks and early adopters look for the next frontier. Apple without the hacker community is not nearly as strong as it is today.
guelo 14y ago
I'm going to put this comment here even though it doesn't belong because I wanted to make people aware and there's nowhere else to put it. Some HN moderator is censoring stories about Twitter being down, probably the biggest tech story of the morning. First, this story was on the front page and it got killed https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4296416 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4296416 Then this other story, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4296811 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4296811, appeared briefly on the front page. But interestingly it wasn't killed it just doesn't show up on the front page. If you scroll through the new story submissions you'll find a bunch of dead Twitter stories.
- chandlerQ 14y ago
  Popular sites sometimes go down. Who cares.
- lsc 14y ago
  yeah. the outages.org mailing list is also whining about it. Google talk is also having problems. I suspect, though, that instead of getting 'censored' here, that hacker news readers are flagging it as not very interesting. Come back with a story once they have a 'lessons learned' type document; something telling us what happened.
  - guelo 14y ago
    This is one of the top 10 sites world wide being down for over an hour now. Why is Google Talk down, which affects a fraction of the users, on the front page but Twitter is being actively censored? Besides, HN comments are a lot of times more insightful and interesting than the link. We might have gotten a Twitter engineer commenting on what was going on or something else interesting.
    - chandlerQ 14y ago
      You are very alarmist and paranoid. No one is out to get you. Oh my God Twitter is down....CANT--LIVE--WITHOUT---TWITTER....
    - 14y ago
jusben1369 14y ago
I think PG highlighted that Apple doesn't get software back in 2009: http://www.paulgraham.com/apple.html http://www.paulgraham.com/apple.html In that particular case he was lamenting the App Store approval process and how much it alienated developers. Here we are 3 years later with no change to that policy and no slowing down the App Store juggernaut.
cletus 14y ago
There are two issues that are coming up here: sandboxing and paid upgrades. They are quite different. As a consumer I am completely for sandboxing for myself and for other consumers. In a world where malware is increasingly a problem sandboxed apps will become the norm. That's the reality we live in. Sandboxing being a requirement means that I can fairly safely install anything from the (future) Mac App Store. The OP correctly points out that certain system utilities cannot be sold this way. He is correct but consider the alternative: to not require sandboxing means no one will bother implementing it. Of course Apple could make effort to promote apps that do (or hide apps that don't) but this puts a considerable education burden on the consumer. I'm with Apple on this one: it's simpler and better this way. Now paid upgrades I have mixed feelings about. On the one hand paid upgrades can produce the wrong incentive on the developer: I've seen good apps go from 18 month major version upgrades, to 12 months to 6 months with no reduction in upgrade price. I've also seen old versions abandoned for pretty lame reasons. IMHO having all users on the same version is better for the developer and the consumer. It makes support easier. It creates a consistent experience. But on the other hand I do feel like there is a place for paid upgrades. Are in-app purchases a possibility here? I honestly don't know what's possible with the Mac App Store here. I think developers do get too concerned with turning a user into a perpetual revenue stream however. This is really an old business model that is somewhat outdated. Steam provided the first evidence of this that I can recall. Some years ago they started selling older games for $5 and under. In some cases IIRC the revenue for discounted sales exceeded release date sales at the premium price. More: [1] The iOS App Store produced and continues to produce further evidence that lower prices and a higher volume can often be a better result than selling the "old" way (higher price, fewer units, which typically also involves paid upgrades). Often content producers (and I include developers who sell software in this) don't always know what's best for them. This all sounds remarkably like Netflix in many ways. Netflix has provided a means of monetizing old and less popular content yet Hollywood seems to view them as the enemy. Perhaps another model worth considering is to start the price of your app low and as it improves and gains popularity, steadily (and predictably) raise the price. Has anyone tried this? Did it work? EDIT: sandboxing goes beyond "malware". I increasingly don't want apps making arbitrary changes to my system. Some may be what I want but most won't. This includes things like forgetting to untick the checkbox that installs some browser toolbar to (on Windows anyway) apps making arbitrary (and sometimes wrong) changes to local policies, registry entries, etc (so the Mac equivalent of that). EDIT2: as a consumer, I want to buy through the App Store. Apple has my payment details. I have a common place to get updates. When I buy from a third-party site I have to deal with: 1. Registration; 2. A payment gateway that may or may not work; 3. Despite an automatic payment a human may need to email me a license file and/or download link that in some cases has taken days; 4. Whether or not to trust your site with my information; and 5. A completely separate process for updating. So anecdotally as one consumer, if your app can be on the Mac App Store and isn't I'm simply not buying it with very few exceptions (eg I'd still buy Photoshop even if I don't want to). [1]: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/174587/Steam_sales_How_deep_discounts_really_affect_your_games.php http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/174587/Steam_sales_How_de...
kevindication 14y ago
Contrast this end-user experience with that of Steam's. These are essentially the exact same applications except that Steam has 1) carefully cultivated a huge, multi-platform ecosystem of apps and 2) has never willingly broken the application's environment. Steam is arguably the only game distribution platform of significance (yes, yes, battle.net and its limited selection of widely played titles) and will continue to dominate because of the careful thought they've put into distribution. Seems like Apple should take a lesson, no?
cageface 14y ago
This even may reduce the long-term success of iCloud and the platform lock-in it could bring for Apple. Apple is never going to have the kind of platform dominance that would make iCloud really compelling. At least the other vendors realize that they need to operate in a polyglot world. As much as I like my MBA and iPad I refuse to lock my essential data into a system I can only really access with hardware from a single vendor.
soapdog 14y ago
for those looking for an alternative app store for mac, look at http://appbodega.com/ http://appbodega.com/ I think it is great. It looks good. It is easy to interface with and they appear to be quite responsive.
js4all 14y ago
The lack of paid upgrades is irrelevant. I never understood what people are missing here. Apple has shown how to do it: Phase out the old version and offer the new version as a new product.
- alex_c 14y ago
  And lose any app store rankings in the process. A bit similar to launching a new site every time you release a new version of your product.
  - js4all 14y ago
    I see your point. I haven't thought about that. On a second thought: If your customers are satisfied, they will give good reviews on the the new version and it will regain its rankings. That's a great risk for the developer, I have to admit.
    - jarek 14y ago
      This approach also forces the developer to build in a notification system to tell people the new app is out and how to find it. I guess you could can make a small update to the 'old' app that will pop up a window notifying of the new one when the old app first starts, but that seems rather kludgy.
franzus 14y ago
I tend to buy small utility apps in the range of $10 on the app store. But I would never buy "serious" software on the Mac app store. The MAS already has this flea market feeling to me and so I'd rather have a real license from the original vendor than this app store receipt thingy.
fecklessyouth 14y ago
Somewhat related anecdote in light of 10.8: I never properly upgraded from OS 10.5. I pirated 10.6 and skipped 10.7, partially because I'm a cheap college student and partially because the changes between versions never seemed that dramatic to me. I had to re-install my OS and thus downgraded from 10.6 to 10.5. All of a sudden, none of my iLife apps are working, plus a host of others, and I can't download Apple ones designed for 10.5. I lose momentum scrolling, and realize that, hey, an upgrade once every three years is a good idea. I wait for 10.8 to come out, so I can buy it like a good, normal consumer, and soon discover I need 10.6 to install it. So I'm buying two upgrades? Alright...wait, I can't buy 10.6 anymore. 10.8 is the only OS available, and I don't have 10.6 on a disc. So it looks like I'm pirating again.
Caballera 14y ago
I don't know if it's been said or discussed before, but why don't Developers just make yearly revisions to sell on the Mac App Store, or even the iPhone iOS app store. You could have a Genericproductname'2012 or '12, and next year release a 2013 ('13) that has the new features, then remove the prior versions.
olleicua 14y ago
I think the first sign that App Store wasn't trustworthy was Apple leaving gcc out of the free version of XCode. I never trusted App Store. I think without Steve Jobs Apple has lost it's ability to pretend it's a decent company. Why doesn't someone do what RedHat did except for for consumers.
fpgeek 14y ago
I'd like to believe Marco is right, but let's not kid ourselves. There's been large, high-profile, five-year experiment on exactly this and the disappointing results are in: [almost] nobody gives a sh*t about Freedom 0.
caf 14y ago
It seems like there's a market opening here for a third party App Store equivalent, that offers the single-point-of-payment / ease of upgrades advantages for the consumer, but eliminates the developer pain points (sandboxing and paid upgrades). This is viable for as long as third party applications can still be downloaded and installed outside of the Apple App Store.
zurn 14y ago
The thing that kept me from installing even free apps from the mac app store is the same that keeps me away from Market/Play on Android: it requires Apple ID.
jharrier 14y ago
Marco's follow-up post to this one is only technically correct because he uses words like "most", "many", "probably", and "nearly". In fact, do a Google search for "most many probably nearly" and his post is #6! He should have just stood by his words. Instead of taking criticism, he reverts to treating readers as idiots who didn't understand his post. We understood. And many disagreed. It happens. From his follow-up post (quotes from original post): I’ve gotten a lot of feedback on my Mac App Store post this morning, and I’d like to clarify some points and respond. I did not say or intend to suggest any of these: 1. I will not buy anything from the Mac App Store again. "But now, I’ve lost all confidence that the apps I buy in the App Store today will still be there next month or next year. The advantages of buying from the App Store are mostly gone now. My confidence in the App Store, as a customer, has evaporated. Next time I buy an app that’s available both in and out of the Store, I’ll probably choose to buy it directly from the vendor." 2. Most Mac users will stop shopping in the Mac App Store. "And nearly everyone who’s been burned by sandboxing exclusions — not just the affected apps’ developers, but all of their customers — will make the same choice with their future purchases. To most of these customers, the App Store is no longer a reliable place to buy software." 3. Most developers will stop putting apps in the Mac App Store. "And with reduced buyer confidence, fewer developers can afford to make their software App Store-only. This even may reduce the long-term success of iCloud and the platform lock-in it could bring for Apple. Only App Store apps can use iCloud, but many Mac developers can’t or won’t use it because of the App Store’s political instability."

349 points by rrreese 14y ago

As a Mac developer who's also affected by the mandatory sandboxing requirement, I fully agree. One of our applications, Trickster, doesn't work sandboxed (being a system utility) as is and we're in this situation where we have customers on the Mac App Store who can't receive updates anymore. Needless to say, neither us nor our customers (who'll mostly blame us) are happy about this.

phil 14y ago
Consider inspecting the MAS receipt and issuing them a license in your own scheme if you are leaving. At least then you get to keep your customers.
seanalltogether 14y ago
Same. I develop Space Gremlin and I've been sitting on an update now for 6 months because any new submission will severely cripple the usability of the current app. I really wish there was a good alternative like Steam that I could sell on instead.

smoody 14y ago

It seems to me that there's an opportunity for someone to create a knock-off of the Mac App Store without the restrictions. I'd be a customer.

cytzol 14y ago
With Mountain Lion and the iCloud feature only allowed on apps from the Mac App Store, this is a lot harder to do than it previously was.
- briandear 14y ago
  iCloud should be limited the MAS apps-- I don't want some rogue app being able to access my iCloud data.
- smoody 14y ago
  There are a lot of cases where iCloud isn't relevant (at the moment) -- many types of apps are not document-centric and I believe that, going forward, fewer will be.
grayprog 14y ago
There is already such an app, Bodega, which was launched before Mac App Store. There was (and probably is) another one from the developers of iusethis.com
spiralpolitik 14y ago
Already done a long time ago: http://appbodega.com http://appbodega.com (Although I believe Bodega launched a few years prior to the Mac app store)
- smoody 14y ago
  Sometimes being early is the same as being wrong -- we've seen that time and time again. If a new player were to come along and capture the momentum of this meme, I personally believe that they'd stand a better chance than a player who has been in the space a long time. It's unfortunate, but that's just the way it is -- or always has been.

m_st 14y ago

As a customer I totally agree. I wouldn't care about simple 5$ tools being removed. But if more expensive tools like PDFPen Pro (which I bought) get removed then I will certainly be very upset. And just because this danger is present I'm very careful and not buying any expensive software anymore from the Mac App Store whenever given the choice (except Apple software of course). That's a pity for both developers and customers.

omfg 14y ago
One would assume you could email the developer and get setup with a non App Store version / license in that scenario.

Bobby_Tables 14y ago

The iOS App Store does the same thing with changing the rules in the middle of the game, but it is not subject to potential irrelevance because it is the only place to get software for iOS devices. So the obvious solution for Apple is to make the Mac App Store the only place to get software for MacOS. I'm actually a little surprised this didn't happen in 10.8.

juliano_q 14y ago
The day they do this is the day that I will partition my disk, install another OS and never look back. OSX is the only Apple product that is still attractive to me, but I fear that I will have to jump out sooner or later.
- pnathan 14y ago
  With the shift towards iOSness and sandboxing for Windows & OSX, I don't see myself using anything but Linux - or recommending anything but Linux - for the future.
archgrove 14y ago
Which would instantly kill the Mac as a development platform, and render all previously purchased software irrelevant. This just won't happen, though I can see a version of OS X that does this by default (perhaps on all "non-pro" models).
- Splines 14y ago
  I think the only viable way to do this would be for Apple to make Macs obsolete. Like boiling a frog, if they upscaled the ipad to a desktop-lite device over the next few years, and eventually replaced their fully featured cousins with these devices, they would be able to accomplish it with far much less resistance. (The iMac may have been a few years too early - they could have positioned the iMac as the trojan horse in this story).
  - St-Clock 14y ago

Aloisius 14y ago

What software besides Postbox has pulled out? The author makes it sound like there is a mass exodus. I've bought most of my software outside the App Store, so I'm not tuned in.

grayprog 14y ago
TextExpander 4 is one of major examples. TextExpander 3 is still in store but version 4 is only available direct from Smile. There are also ClipStart (I think that's the name, a video management app), SourceTree (version control) and probably some other. More will follow, I believe.
draebek 14y ago
I'm not positive about this, but it sounds like lots of the applications/utilities made by Many Tricks are going to be pulled, or will at least see slower/limited updates if any: http://manytricks.com/blog/?page_id=2208 http://manytricks.com/blog/?page_id=2208
89a 14y ago
I believe Panic with Coda has said the non-MAS version will be getting features that are impossible on the MAS version
smackfu 14y ago
A lot of software can't be sandboxed, full stop. So they joined the App Store before sandboxing even existed, but Apple won't approve any more updates so they will have to be sold outside the store.

tomflack 14y ago

I've nightmares about endless apps having their own updaters. Adobe/Microsoft updaters really are the culprits here. Its this that makes me wish the app store would drop these product-killing restrictions. I don't trust every app developer to do updaters.

sujal 14y ago
Many (most?) indie mac apps use Sparkle (http://sparkle.andymatuschak.org http://sparkle.andymatuschak.org) to autoupdate. It's generally easy to use, so most people don't need to go the microsoft/adobe route.
- pooriaazimi 14y ago
  Sparkle is amazing. For years and years, I thought it was actually part of the OS, as almost every app I had used it. That's how ubiquitous it is on the Mac! Edit: Very interesting! The guy behind Sparkle (Andy Matuschak) is actually an Apple employee, working on UIKit! http://andymatuschak.org/ http://andymatuschak.org/ > By day, I work on UIKit to help other people make things.

mej10 14y ago

I hope they will weaken this restriction, and will just not have non-sandboxed apps show up without searching for them, or without switching some "power user" option on. Some types of applications simply cannot exist with these types of restrictions. They are removing entire classes (e.g. window managers, system utilities) of applications from the App Store with this.

briandear 14y ago
But what's the real market size for window utilities? Not something your average user buys. I use size up and cinch, but I'm a developer. My dad doesn't care about fairly obscure system utilities. Besides, it isn't like those tools can't be used on ML-- just not through the MAS. MAS is a shopping mail, not a specialty shop. I don't by rock climbin gear from Target, but I'll gladly by an espresso machine from Target.

carson 14y ago

I think the idea that Apple can't require MAS is wrong. Maybe they can't for everyone but I would bet they can for a lot of people and probably plan to. At some point developers will be buying the developer version of the OS that gets them around the sandbox.

briandear 14y ago
There's no sandbox on the OS. RTFM.

pkamb 14y ago

Several of my apps won't receive any new updates because they use the Accessibility API, which isn't sandbox-compatible. It's a real shame, because developing for the Mac App Store for the past year has been awesome. Unfortunately the money/discovery isn't there for sole devs to go outside the Store.

djbender 14y ago

Really think he's missing the part where laypeople will see the Mac App Store as their main portal for software. Sure us geeks will always know what the best option is, but what about from a common majority consumer's perspective?

wmeredith 14y ago
Every time that layperson goes to look at their purchases and some are missing or they update and lose a feature, they may not know or care to find out what's going on, but Apple's "it just works" marketing message gets a black eye.
eykanal 14y ago
They'll find out about software the same way that the "majority consumer" used to; reading magazines like Macworld, seeing advertisements in various places, and talking to friends. If anything, the App Store is the one trying to break into the old model of buying software (find something, pay for it, buy it). In fact, the two conveniences offered by the App Store (visible to users) is ease of finding stuff and security. Security isn't much of an issue with the old model because, historically, there hasn't been many security concerns. If the "finding stuff" benefit goes away too, then the App Store will be completely irrelevant.
- slantyyz 14y ago
  >> They'll find out about software the same way that the "majority consumer" used to; reading magazines like Macworld, seeing advertisements in various places, and talking to friends. I don't know many "consumerish" Mac users who read Mac magazines, Daring Fireball, etc. Hell, I know a lot of more sophisticated Mac users who don't read any Mac related content except when they have problems. Many of the consumer Mac users I know don't pay attention to ads for Mac software either. On your third point (word of mouth), that one has a lot of validity, assuming that a consumer mac user has a mac nerd or two in his/her circle of friends. If I look at what most of my consumer Mac friends and acquaintances use, most of their time is spent in Safari, iTunes, iLife, iWork and maybe something like Parallels or VMWare to run "work stuff". A few might install some apps here and there, but few would even know that there was anything outside the App Store that was worthwhile.

tadhgk 14y ago

Future of irrelevance to who exactly? The 1-in-10000 users who like to play with root level access and scripts and stuff perhaps, but do the other 9999 even notice the change? I'm thinking not. Granted it's a big change from earlier times, the strategy of sandboxing works really well for security and general OS integrity (as iOS has proved) in a world that has no patience for fragmented and exploitative software. Perhaps we lose a little something in the process, but it's in the service of a better overall integrated service and experience. Oh and by the way: Microsoft is going the same way too with Metro.

brudgers 14y ago
"Microsoft is going the same way too with Metro." Not exactly. Metro and its app store are only "half" of Windows 8. The other half isn't sandboxed in the walled garden style. To put it another way, Microsoft isn't building the Windows App Store on the back of existing software, but from the ground up using only sandboxed apps. Microsoft isn't likely to create the sort of moving target for developers that Apple has recently because doing so would not be consistent with the B2B model that underpins their corporate culture.
- monkeyfacebag 14y ago
  FYI, this is not true for Windows RT (the ARM version). That version will only support applications purchased through MS's store. Given that MS is clearly pushing for Metro to be the future of Windows, I think this is somewhat concerning.
  - brudgers 14y ago
    On the other hand, Windows on ARM is an extension of the Windows franchise in the same way that WP7 with it's app store is. In a sense it is like talking about the iPad when discussion the Mac App store...or would be if iOS applications ran on the Mac. Metro is a future of Windows, just as Server Console mode is (though admittedly on a potentially different scale).
- MatthewPhillips 14y ago

moron 14y ago

Marco is accusing Apple of having made a critical strategic error. Where are all the people who call him a member of the Apple cult and all that crap? Funny how they disappear when it comes time to talk about what Apple is doing wrong.

Yhippa 14y ago
To me the tone of the article is that he is worried that Apple is missing chances of further enhancing lock-in to the Apple brand, specifically on the Mac OS desktop platform. The guy re-purchased apps he already had so that he could help with that lock-in. I see the rationale for doing that but when you start throwing free cash on duplicate app purchases to enhance lock-in I don't know what could be more cult-like.
- shadesandcolour 14y ago
  Picking which operating system to use enhances lock in by itself already. I've bought software both inside and outside of the mac app store and since I have that software I'm locked in to the program. If I could move all my applications to the app store I would do it in a heartbeat because it gives me one place to go for updates. Apple is certainly missing out on opportunities, but not only for "locking people in" but also for making their user experience better.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  In the article he says he did it for the purposes of convenience. I don't understand why anybody other than apple would be interesting in "helping" with lock-in.

crazygringo 14y ago

All these problems could be solved if there were a way for companies to transfer your existing non-App-store licenses to the App Store, allow for paid upgrades on the App Store, and allow App Store licenses to be associated with real serial numbers (or something else) that could be used to "take" your license with you, in the event the App Store suddenly becomes too restrictive. Basically make it seamless, monetarily and "upgradily", to go to/from the app store. Of course, Apple will never let this happen.

masklinn 14y ago
That would be a good start, although a significant expansion in the available sandbox entitlements would also very likely be needed for developers who have already fled to go back to the store.
adambyrtek 14y ago
Who would pay the Apple tax in case of license transfers? I can't imagine Apple simply letting go of their cut.
- crazygringo 14y ago
  Well I imagine you'd only ever need to move to the App Store because of an upgrade which required it (because certain features are only available to App Store-distributed applications). So Apple would get their cut of the upgrade fee, and future upgrade fees as well. Obviously it's not as much as the full app immediately, but ideally over time it would add up for them with paid upgrades.

jawngee 14y ago

I'm pulling my video editor Shave (http://shavevideo.com http://shavevideo.com) out of the Mac App Store for these reasons, though most specifically the lack of paid upgrades. For a $10 video editor that, quite frankly, beats the pants off a lot of crap out there for day to day editing tasks, I can't afford to devote the time and resources it requires to maintain it without it having a baseline level of income. Not having an upgrade path to a major version number bump is ridiculous. Also, the lack of direct contact with customers is obnoxious at best, crippling at worst. But the sandboxing entitlements kill the best bits of functionality, so I have not much choice but to say "fuck it" and move on. I doubt Apple will miss me, though I'm the only other worthwhile editor on there other than iMovie and Final Cut in terms of actual editing functionality. The video category is a giant pile of shit save a few select pieces, mine included.

Terretta 14y ago
Have you tried purchasing the "latest" version of World of Warcraft? You can't. There is no standalone "latest version". You have to purchase the original, and each version since, and finally the current version. Correlate those game content / game mechanics updates with In-App Purchases, and it's clear how someone could offer "major upgrades" if they stop thinking in terms of version numbers and start thinking in terms of actual upgrade features. (See "Navigon" for an app that has done this.) And if the entire app architecture changes, make a new app.
- 89a 14y ago
  Think the problem is policing it. Apple doesn't want it to become the standard that people are being charged for bug fixes every version.
  - cloverich 14y ago
    Can't people decide not to purchase the app then? They have a content review system - 10 recent 1 star "Bug fixes cost $$$" and the app is dead, no? Or am I overlooking something?

zemo 14y ago

this whole article goes over my head, because it assumes the reader is already familiar with the sandboxing issue. I'm not a desktop OS X developer; I'm not familiar with the topic. I searched around and the only articles I could find are blog posts about how the sky is falling, with no sources from Apple that plainly state the app sandboxing requirements. If you're going to write an article about how some upcoming thing is a doomsday event, please explain the event clearly and link to the proper sources, especially if your article is a criticism of a technical specification. That one or a few applications are backing out of the app store is not, in itself, evidence that they are justified in doing so. This article has taught me nothing, but it has made me more afraid.

spaghetti 14y ago
I'd like to understand the implications of sandboxing too. It must have some large negative impact on Instapaper for Marco to care this much. What is it?
- veidr 14y ago
  It has no implications for Instapaper at all. His complaints are entirely from the Mac user perspective. (And are complaints that I share.) Tons of great apps can't be sold via the app store unless they degrade themselves to comply.
- fredsted 14y ago
  Here's a document that goes in-depth about app sandboxing: http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Security/Conceptual/AppSandboxDesignGuide/AppSandboxInDepth/AppSandboxInDepth.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40011183-CH3-SW4 http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Securi...
- pn 14y ago
  It does not have any imapct on Instapaper. In short, sandboxing is an idea where every app lives in an isolated environment. By default an application can only access its own files, every other system resource is unavailable until the user explicitly allows the app to use it. It has impact on many apps, for instance your favorite git client won't be allowed to open the repositories you've been lately working on, just because they're located in Documents.

mikejarema 14y ago

I'm wondering how soon until we see OSX being jailbroken. I suspect system level choices like this are bound to continue in order to push users in the direction of iCloud and AppStore usage (ie. vendor lock-in). Though such moves appear draconian from our perspective, I believe Apple times such moves around when some internal metrics indicate a tipping point has happened, namely the developer backlash won't be substantial enough to affect Apple's bottom line. It's only a matter of time before the iPhone dev team puts some effort towards serving the OSX crowd that wants to jump ship but not give up "OSX" completely.

briandear 14y ago
Jail broken? What for? You can run any app you want.. Just not accidentally.
jopt 14y ago
It's bad enough that apps are leaving the App Store because of sandboxing. You don't have to make shit up. The owner of a Mac can enable root access through the Directory Utility, completely legit, and can install and run code from any source without even doing so. Jailbreaking OS X makes no sense; there's no jail.
- mikejarema 14y ago
  True enough, and I'm probably abusing terminology here, sorry for that. It's more me wondering out loud if there will be some alternative to OSX, largely built off of OSX in order to get around limitations like sandboxing.
  - jopt 14y ago
    That's quite another story. If I have to write Sci-Fi: Perhaps an underground scene that use and code for older versions of OS X, patching the system themselves to get only the good parts of system updates, while staying out of Apple's redefinitions of the computing experience.

jusben1369 14y ago

Can anyone give a 101 explanation specifically around what the "sandbox" issue is?

pohl 14y ago
Pages 14 and 15 of John Siracusa's review of Mountain Lion tell it pretty well: http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/07/os-x-10-8/14/#gatekeeper http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/07/os-x-10-8/14/#gatekeepe...

Garwor 14y ago

The neckbeards will buy from the developer. The ordinary customers Apple has been relentlessly targeting for a decade will buy from the Mac App Store. Which group is bigger?

dchest 14y ago
How will they buy software from the Mac App Store that is not available there?
- Garwor 14y ago
  For ordinary customers, software that's not on the Mac App Store might as well not even exist. Developers who try to make a living selling serial numbers on the web via Paypal are going to be selling to a tinier and tinier slice of the market. We're headed toward appliance computing for almost everybody and a Linux box for the rest of us. Apple understands this; hell, even Microsoft is starting to understand this. Does anyone doubt that we're headed in the same general direction on the Windows Store?
jopt 14y ago
It's not about where we buy our apps, it's about where we sell them. If the App Store doesn't work for developers, it won't work for users. The users can't buy stuff that isn't there just because they outnumber the developers.
- Garwor 14y ago
  Other developers will happily come along, work within Apple's guidelines, and sell to the giant slice of the pie chart. It's obviously a radically different model of software development, and one that's probably far less appealing to current developers, but that's what happens when industries change. The incumbents never like it. The same thing's coming to Windows, too, thanks to the Windows Store. The whole industry's headed toward appliance computing. Maybe you can sell software to Linux users.
  - 14y ago

jsz0 14y ago

How about a content rating system? People are familiar with this from movies, television and music. A developer could declare their un-sandboxed application the equivalent of NC17 while most users live happily in their equivalent of a PG13 universe.

MarkMc 14y ago

The accounting software I develop [1] is a year out of date on the Mac App Store because of the restrictions that Apple have introduced. And yet I disagree with Marco: This is a one-time problem as Apple tighten requirements for publishing on the Mac App Store. In a few years users will have forgotten this problem (if they ever noticed in the first place) and the benefits of the Mac App Store will make it the dominant distribution platform. Those benefits are: easy to make a purchase, easy to see reviews for a product, easy to find a product, easy to install on multiple machines. Eventually I'll have to change the software to meet Apple's stricter requirements so it can be published on the Mac App Store again. [1] http://www.solaraccounts.co.uk http://www.solaraccounts.co.uk

tnorthcutt 14y ago

I think I agree with everything Marco says in this article except for Apple can never require an App-Store-only future I think they can, and will, regardless of their sandboxing or other policies.

mzuvella 14y ago

Seriously? Do you remember what company this is? Apple does this every time and then corrects it down the road. Why? Because they receive more press that way. Come on guys, they are not stupid.

Vecrios 14y ago

I have an incorrect understanding of the word sandbox in this context. So to clarify, what does the author of this blog mean by "the sandbox is restricted"?

crag 14y ago

Again, Apple doesn't really care what developers feel. What matters are the masses. Which don't care about these issues. The App Store is easy to use, accessible and allows them to download their apps on multiple Macs. It's a win win from their point of view. Apple's thinking is simple: You (us developer) don't like it, PayPal is that way". Just that simple. And since The App Store is where most non-developer mac users get their apps from.. we have a simple choice. Do I like it, hell no. Will I play by Apple's rules, yes.

dasil003 14y ago
Sure developers will play ball as long as Apple is where the money is. There's no doubt that iOS's amazing run of exponential growth and the creation of a distribution platform as frictionless as the App Store have been irresistible to developers. However I think it's also fair to say that early adopters and developers were key to Apple's recent success. For instance, OS X lured me back to Macs from Windows in 2000 largely on the promise of unix under the hood. Many early iPhone users were jail breakers either to develop apps or to use them. Developers were on the forefront of Apple success, and I think it's impossible to quantify the impact that we had, and thus extremely easy to underestimate it. It's true that Apple is very mass market and could not achieve it's design excellence by listening to geek feature requests, but I think they'd better tread lightly on the larger issues. If they turn OS X into a toy OS that doesn't allow serious development and pushing the technological envelope, and all future innovation comes exclusively in the form of Apple new APIs, then I think that will be a harbinger of Apple decline as the geeks and early adopters look for the next frontier. Apple without the hacker community is not nearly as strong as it is today.

guelo 14y ago

I'm going to put this comment here even though it doesn't belong because I wanted to make people aware and there's nowhere else to put it. Some HN moderator is censoring stories about Twitter being down, probably the biggest tech story of the morning. First, this story was on the front page and it got killed https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4296416 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4296416 Then this other story, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4296811 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4296811, appeared briefly on the front page. But interestingly it wasn't killed it just doesn't show up on the front page. If you scroll through the new story submissions you'll find a bunch of dead Twitter stories.

chandlerQ 14y ago
Popular sites sometimes go down. Who cares.
lsc 14y ago
yeah. the outages.org mailing list is also whining about it. Google talk is also having problems. I suspect, though, that instead of getting 'censored' here, that hacker news readers are flagging it as not very interesting. Come back with a story once they have a 'lessons learned' type document; something telling us what happened.
- guelo 14y ago
  This is one of the top 10 sites world wide being down for over an hour now. Why is Google Talk down, which affects a fraction of the users, on the front page but Twitter is being actively censored? Besides, HN comments are a lot of times more insightful and interesting than the link. We might have gotten a Twitter engineer commenting on what was going on or something else interesting.
  - chandlerQ 14y ago
    You are very alarmist and paranoid. No one is out to get you. Oh my God Twitter is down....CANT--LIVE--WITHOUT---TWITTER....
  - 14y ago

jusben1369 14y ago

I think PG highlighted that Apple doesn't get software back in 2009: http://www.paulgraham.com/apple.html http://www.paulgraham.com/apple.html In that particular case he was lamenting the App Store approval process and how much it alienated developers. Here we are 3 years later with no change to that policy and no slowing down the App Store juggernaut.

cletus 14y ago

There are two issues that are coming up here: sandboxing and paid upgrades. They are quite different. As a consumer I am completely for sandboxing for myself and for other consumers. In a world where malware is increasingly a problem sandboxed apps will become the norm. That's the reality we live in. Sandboxing being a requirement means that I can fairly safely install anything from the (future) Mac App Store. The OP correctly points out that certain system utilities cannot be sold this way. He is correct but consider the alternative: to not require sandboxing means no one will bother implementing it. Of course Apple could make effort to promote apps that do (or hide apps that don't) but this puts a considerable education burden on the consumer. I'm with Apple on this one: it's simpler and better this way. Now paid upgrades I have mixed feelings about. On the one hand paid upgrades can produce the wrong incentive on the developer: I've seen good apps go from 18 month major version upgrades, to 12 months to 6 months with no reduction in upgrade price. I've also seen old versions abandoned for pretty lame reasons. IMHO having all users on the same version is better for the developer and the consumer. It makes support easier. It creates a consistent experience. But on the other hand I do feel like there is a place for paid upgrades. Are in-app purchases a possibility here? I honestly don't know what's possible with the Mac App Store here. I think developers do get too concerned with turning a user into a perpetual revenue stream however. This is really an old business model that is somewhat outdated. Steam provided the first evidence of this that I can recall. Some years ago they started selling older games for $5 and under. In some cases IIRC the revenue for discounted sales exceeded release date sales at the premium price. More: [1] The iOS App Store produced and continues to produce further evidence that lower prices and a higher volume can often be a better result than selling the "old" way (higher price, fewer units, which typically also involves paid upgrades). Often content producers (and I include developers who sell software in this) don't always know what's best for them. This all sounds remarkably like Netflix in many ways. Netflix has provided a means of monetizing old and less popular content yet Hollywood seems to view them as the enemy. Perhaps another model worth considering is to start the price of your app low and as it improves and gains popularity, steadily (and predictably) raise the price. Has anyone tried this? Did it work? EDIT: sandboxing goes beyond "malware". I increasingly don't want apps making arbitrary changes to my system. Some may be what I want but most won't. This includes things like forgetting to untick the checkbox that installs some browser toolbar to (on Windows anyway) apps making arbitrary (and sometimes wrong) changes to local policies, registry entries, etc (so the Mac equivalent of that). EDIT2: as a consumer, I want to buy through the App Store. Apple has my payment details. I have a common place to get updates. When I buy from a third-party site I have to deal with: 1. Registration; 2. A payment gateway that may or may not work; 3. Despite an automatic payment a human may need to email me a license file and/or download link that in some cases has taken days; 4. Whether or not to trust your site with my information; and 5. A completely separate process for updating. So anecdotally as one consumer, if your app can be on the Mac App Store and isn't I'm simply not buying it with very few exceptions (eg I'd still buy Photoshop even if I don't want to). [1]: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/174587/Steam_sales_How_deep_discounts_really_affect_your_games.php http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/174587/Steam_sales_How_de...

kevindication 14y ago

Contrast this end-user experience with that of Steam's. These are essentially the exact same applications except that Steam has 1) carefully cultivated a huge, multi-platform ecosystem of apps and 2) has never willingly broken the application's environment. Steam is arguably the only game distribution platform of significance (yes, yes, battle.net and its limited selection of widely played titles) and will continue to dominate because of the careful thought they've put into distribution. Seems like Apple should take a lesson, no?

cageface 14y ago

This even may reduce the long-term success of iCloud and the platform lock-in it could bring for Apple. Apple is never going to have the kind of platform dominance that would make iCloud really compelling. At least the other vendors realize that they need to operate in a polyglot world. As much as I like my MBA and iPad I refuse to lock my essential data into a system I can only really access with hardware from a single vendor.

soapdog 14y ago

for those looking for an alternative app store for mac, look at http://appbodega.com/ http://appbodega.com/ I think it is great. It looks good. It is easy to interface with and they appear to be quite responsive.

js4all 14y ago

The lack of paid upgrades is irrelevant. I never understood what people are missing here. Apple has shown how to do it: Phase out the old version and offer the new version as a new product.

alex_c 14y ago
And lose any app store rankings in the process. A bit similar to launching a new site every time you release a new version of your product.
- js4all 14y ago
  I see your point. I haven't thought about that. On a second thought: If your customers are satisfied, they will give good reviews on the the new version and it will regain its rankings. That's a great risk for the developer, I have to admit.
  - jarek 14y ago
    This approach also forces the developer to build in a notification system to tell people the new app is out and how to find it. I guess you could can make a small update to the 'old' app that will pop up a window notifying of the new one when the old app first starts, but that seems rather kludgy.

franzus 14y ago

I tend to buy small utility apps in the range of $10 on the app store. But I would never buy "serious" software on the Mac app store. The MAS already has this flea market feeling to me and so I'd rather have a real license from the original vendor than this app store receipt thingy.

fecklessyouth 14y ago

Somewhat related anecdote in light of 10.8: I never properly upgraded from OS 10.5. I pirated 10.6 and skipped 10.7, partially because I'm a cheap college student and partially because the changes between versions never seemed that dramatic to me. I had to re-install my OS and thus downgraded from 10.6 to 10.5. All of a sudden, none of my iLife apps are working, plus a host of others, and I can't download Apple ones designed for 10.5. I lose momentum scrolling, and realize that, hey, an upgrade once every three years is a good idea. I wait for 10.8 to come out, so I can buy it like a good, normal consumer, and soon discover I need 10.6 to install it. So I'm buying two upgrades? Alright...wait, I can't buy 10.6 anymore. 10.8 is the only OS available, and I don't have 10.6 on a disc. So it looks like I'm pirating again.

Caballera 14y ago

I don't know if it's been said or discussed before, but why don't Developers just make yearly revisions to sell on the Mac App Store, or even the iPhone iOS app store. You could have a Genericproductname'2012 or '12, and next year release a 2013 ('13) that has the new features, then remove the prior versions.

olleicua 14y ago

I think the first sign that App Store wasn't trustworthy was Apple leaving gcc out of the free version of XCode. I never trusted App Store. I think without Steve Jobs Apple has lost it's ability to pretend it's a decent company. Why doesn't someone do what RedHat did except for for consumers.

fpgeek 14y ago

I'd like to believe Marco is right, but let's not kid ourselves. There's been large, high-profile, five-year experiment on exactly this and the disappointing results are in: [almost] nobody gives a sh*t about Freedom 0.

caf 14y ago

It seems like there's a market opening here for a third party App Store equivalent, that offers the single-point-of-payment / ease of upgrades advantages for the consumer, but eliminates the developer pain points (sandboxing and paid upgrades). This is viable for as long as third party applications can still be downloaded and installed outside of the Apple App Store.

zurn 14y ago

The thing that kept me from installing even free apps from the mac app store is the same that keeps me away from Market/Play on Android: it requires Apple ID.

jharrier 14y ago

Marco's follow-up post to this one is only technically correct because he uses words like "most", "many", "probably", and "nearly". In fact, do a Google search for "most many probably nearly" and his post is #6! He should have just stood by his words. Instead of taking criticism, he reverts to treating readers as idiots who didn't understand his post. We understood. And many disagreed. It happens. From his follow-up post (quotes from original post): I’ve gotten a lot of feedback on my Mac App Store post this morning, and I’d like to clarify some points and respond. I did not say or intend to suggest any of these: 1. I will not buy anything from the Mac App Store again. "But now, I’ve lost all confidence that the apps I buy in the App Store today will still be there next month or next year. The advantages of buying from the App Store are mostly gone now. My confidence in the App Store, as a customer, has evaporated. Next time I buy an app that’s available both in and out of the Store, I’ll probably choose to buy it directly from the vendor." 2. Most Mac users will stop shopping in the Mac App Store. "And nearly everyone who’s been burned by sandboxing exclusions — not just the affected apps’ developers, but all of their customers — will make the same choice with their future purchases. To most of these customers, the App Store is no longer a reliable place to buy software." 3. Most developers will stop putting apps in the Mac App Store. "And with reduced buyer confidence, fewer developers can afford to make their software App Store-only. This even may reduce the long-term success of iCloud and the platform lock-in it could bring for Apple. Only App Store apps can use iCloud, but many Mac developers can’t or won’t use it because of the App Store’s political instability."