10 ms·

The Mac app flea market

401 points by ingve 1y ago

sneak 1y ago
Meanwhile, they are taking 10x the going rate for credit card processing for the privilege of being in this shovelware list. I wish someone would bring the hammer down on them.
nixpulvis 1y ago
Remind me why we're forced to give Apple a commission to host this flee market, when we'd be better off hosting our own domains and serving our own products?
erefsg 1y ago
[dead]
datadrivenangel 1y ago
The amount of keyword / typo squatting that goes on is impressive. There's a whole industry of people making derivative clones of anything popular.
nticompass 1y ago
It's not just the Mac App store, it's pretty much ALL app stores that have this issue. Not just for "AI Chat" apps, but ANY (popular) app. At work, one of my coworkers was running out of disk space on their computer and someone on my team went to help. I suggested a program called "WizTree" (not an endorsement, just what I use) but they wanted to use "WinDirStat". Anyway, searching the Microsoft app store for "WinDirStat" popped up TONS of fake/bootleg pieces of software, none of which I would ever trust or install. I tried to explain this, but one of those apps was selected and while it did show what the large files were, I assume we'll have to now run a virus scan on that PC.
- genpfault 1y ago
  > WinDirStat https://github.com/windirstat/windirstat https://github.com/windirstat/windirstat
  - nticompass 1y ago
    Yep, that's the "official" link, but my team member insisted on using the Microsoft Store. WinDirStat is not in the store, but tons of forks/knockoffs are.
  - afavour 1y ago
    A perfect example. > Install it by downloading the appropriate version for your system from the release page > Install with winget install -e --id WinDirStat.WinDirStat (or use winget upgrade subsequently) > Alternatively install with scoop install extras/windirstat (requires scoop bucket add extras) The what what now? The average user is going to be able to do none of these things.
    - DHPersonal 1y ago
      Before I used GitHub and got used to its interface I felt that the majority of repositories used as public-facing websites were the most confusing way to get releases. Why is the source code that seems to need some sort of tool or program to use sitting next to the installation program? Do I need all that extra stuff or can I just use the exe/app? Why is there not a page with a “download here” button that’s as plain and simple as other closed-source programs?
      - skydhash 1y ago
        Most people from the unix world use repos (the correct model for software curation basically). When you go for the sources, it's mostly for fringe stuff or library.
    - em-bee 1y ago
      the average user should be here: https://windirstat.net/download.html https://windirstat.net/download.html but for both, the first instruction is just plain download. i think the average user can handle that. the others are alternatives for users that are familiar with them. i don't see the problem. what could be changed is to add a message like: "if you don't know which one is right for you, you probably want this one:" followed by a link to the win-x64 version
- gyomu 1y ago
  I have a somewhat popular (yet still niche) app in the store, when I first launched it it was the only result. There are now a number of copycats. Report filed with Apple, nothing was done. I’m considering spending the $1k or so to file a trademark on the name, maybe it’ll actually make them do something? The app isn’t making crazy amounts by far, but enough that $1k could be justifiable. If anyone has been through this I’d love to hear their thoughts. For what it’s worth I know my product is clearly better - my users tell me - but it’s infuriating to see a knockoff show up before my app in the search results when I tell someone to look up the app in the store.
  - Barbing 1y ago
    >it’s infuriating to see a knockoff show up before my app in the search results Infuriating enough to pay for paid placement at top? :( Sorry, that stinks, and hope someone can confirm the trademark approach. Disappointing support is not resourced/empowered to resolve this for you.
  - reaperducer 1y ago
    I’m considering spending the $1k or so to file a trademark on the name Before you do that, try filing a state-level trademark. I've done it in some states for as little as $75. That might be enough to get Apple's attention, and save you $925. Check with your state's Secretary of State web site.
ajsnigrutin 1y ago
When i saw the "flea market" i genuinely though someone actually made a way to resell "used" apps (that you don't use anymore) for a cheaper price, like you could do in CD/DVD times. Yeah... i need another coffee.
fundatus 1y ago
Obviously the 30% commission is not yet enough to fully protect users from knock off apps in the Apple AppStore!
- bapak 1y ago
  Obviously you gotta also advertise and pay the remaining 70% in fees. You will then bask in the glory.
Apreche 1y ago
First people complain the app store has a ridiculous approvals process and people keep getting rejected unfairly. Now people complain that they are too loose and letting in shovelware. What’s it going to be? I wonder if I made an app that was simply a front-end for the actual app store if it would be approved. We wouldn’t be an alternate app store. We would always link to the actual app store for purchase/installation of apps. We just provide an alternate index of apps for searching where all the shovelware is removed.
- JackC 1y ago
  > First people complain the app store has a ridiculous approvals process and people keep getting rejected unfairly. Now people complain that they are too loose and letting in shovelware. What’s it going to be? At best a walled garden is collective bargaining -- a group of users (buyers) lock into requiring vendors to negotiate with their representative, and because their business is collectively valuable vendors have to meet higher privacy standards or whatever the users care about, which they couldn't extract if negotiating individually with huge companies like Facebook. So, Apple will get yelled at whenever it fails to be a good agent in collective bargaining -- either by excluding quality vendors and driving up their costs, or by including low-quality vendors. Either one gives up the benefits to users of the walled garden. An index of reliable apps is, you know, fine. An index with a business structure that ensures better collective bargaining gets interesting.
  - Barbing 1y ago
    Sounds obvious now that you said it. Anyone dispute the agent/collective bargaining framing before I internalize it forever? :)
    - burnerthrow008 1y ago
      I think the principal-agent / collective bargaining framework is correct, but I would dispute that the principals (the users, not app developers) are upset by how it works. Most of the noise seems to be coming from developers, so, to me, it looks like Apple is doing a good job as my agent.
andrewmcwatters 1y ago
From: Philip Schiller Subject: Urgent: Temple Jump !!!! Date: Fri, 03 Feb 2012 10:23:15 - 0800 What the hell is this???? Remember our talking about finding bad apps with low ratings? Remember our talk about becoming the "Nordstroms" of stores in quality of service? How does an obvious rip off of the super popular Temple Run, with no screen shots, garbage marketing text, and almost all 1-star ratings become the #1 free app on the store? Can anyone see a rip off of a top selling game? Any anyone see an app that is cheating the system? Is no one reviewing these apps? Is no one minding the store? This is insane!!!!!! - - - Don’t publish on app stores. They’re software ghettos that take your money and shove you right next to shovelware rip-offs. Would you willingly set up your business in a strip mall next to scammers and broken windows? https://github.com/andrewmcwattersandco/app-store-rejections https://github.com/andrewmcwattersandco/app-store-rejections
- sneak 1y ago
  There is no other way to publish on iOS, by design. If you want to access the most lucrative smartphone market segment in the richest country, you have to play ball with Apple. There is no other choice.
  - jezek2 1y ago
    Many apps can be PWAs, these can be installed without any approvals. It is used even for some quite demanding apps like low-latency game streaming by Nvidia GeForce Now, Xbox Cloud Gaming, Amazon Luna, etc. They don't use native apps because Apple rules are ridiculous.
reactordev 1y ago
When you let anyone submit an app with little to no criteria other than “no using private framework abi’s” this is what you get. No curation. No quality control. No remorse. This the race to the bottom, first it was the apps. Now it’s the shopping experience. Be glad someone sold you something you ungrateful clod.
- Barbing 1y ago
  >No curation. Tiny bit of curation? I’ve seen complaints about this Apple App Store policy: 4.3 Spam (b) Also avoid piling on to a category that is already saturated; the App Store has enough fart, burp, flashlight, fortune telling, dating, drinking games, and Kama Sutra apps, etc. already. We will reject these apps unless they provide a unique, high-quality experience. Spamming the store may lead to your removal from the Apple Developer Program.
  - sneak 1y ago
    They enforce it when it suits them, and turn their head the other way when it increases revenue. I remember when Apple used to be insanely customer-focused. Now they’re just another big tech company with an industrial design ethos.
    - reactordev 1y ago
      Exactly, it’s selective and has no order or reason.
dzonga 1y ago
the benefit of the web unlike these 'curated' app stores is that there's a voting mechanism. though those votes can be skewed by 'sponsorships'.
- sceptic123 1y ago
  Yes, there's zero scammy shit on the web
PaulHoule 1y ago
An App Store is the last place I would go to install a desktop app on either Windows or MacOS. It’s astonishing how marginal the Microsoft Store is on Windows. For years I had a machine on which the metadata database for the store would get corrupted within a month or so between a major update. I’d argue with Microsoft support to provide a recipe to reset this database (obviously possible because the update would fix it temporarily) but I was always told to make a new account —- but why am I going to mess up my installations of a lot of software that I use every day for the sake of some software I don’t use? At work we have managed Windows desktops, since I’m a dev they did something so I can be an administrator, I can do everything but (1) edit group policies, and (2) use the Microsoft store. The only thing on the store I want is WSL2 but hey I can always ask Copilot how to do anything I know how to do in bash using Powershell.
- veunes 1y ago
  That whole “just create a new user account” response is peak support theater
  - thewebguyd 1y ago
    Its unfortunately common when it comes to Windows troubleshooting. "Just create a new user," "Just reinstall the OS," etc. There's an entire suite of tools made by a third party for migrating user profiles between accounts and machines because it is so common. I spent the first half of my career as a windows admin and I'm glad to be out, working entirely on macOS and Linux now. macOS has its own warts, but I'll take it any day over Windows.
- spwa4 1y ago
  Phone app stores have the same problem. Here is the link: https://www.apple.com/us/search/ChatGPT?src=globalnav https://www.apple.com/us/search/ChatGPT?src=globalnav It has the exact same problem complained about here. It's full of shovelware copies. Google play, orinically gives a better answer on the web, but on phones it has the same problem as the Apple App store.
  - 1y ago
jiehong 1y ago
Perhaps app stores should have a minimum hamming distance requirement [0] on the names of apps, so that names could not be too similar by default. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamming_distance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamming_distance
- kccqzy 1y ago
  The names of the app on the App Store doesn't even match the name of the downloaded app. They need to change that first. Otherwise the name is just another SEO opportunity.
827a 1y ago
The odd thing about the Mac App Store is how needlessly embarrassing this is for Apple. The Mac App Store doesn't need to exist, but because it does Apple is lending its authority to these apps, and every day its customers, who come to Apple expecting a level of safety and authenticity, are fooled by them. How must OpenAI feel about this? Or the dozens of other developers caught in a similar position? This is a stellar example of why extremely few businesses would choose to do business with Apple (and Google) when given the market of free choice. Its one thing if all these copycat apps all have their own websites and handle advertisement and SEO; its another entirely when Apple is saying "this is the safe place to get apps". Apple and the World itself would be so much better if Apple were significantly stricter on curation in the Mac App store. Require a personal, high-level relationship with Apple. Personally, I'd also like to see the same thing on iOS, combined with a native application installation process, but that is of course far more tenuous. Or, just get rid of both the app stores; what have they ever done for us anyway.
- rchaud 1y ago
  Apple doesn't care. The iOS app store is just as full of crummy shovelware and ads. They are a "software and services" company after all. The embarassment should be felt by the commentariat that rushes to defend Apple's store sharecropping tax by repeating ancient canards about how a fee is necessary for Apple to maintain its rigorous app review process that differentiates it from the street markets of Android, F-Droid, and whoever else.
- schnable 1y ago
  It also exists because it's a low friction way for app developers to generate revenue for their app.
  - 827a 1y ago
    No one is making any money on the Mac App Store. Its likely that even Apple's internal accounting positions the Mac App Store as an unprofitable product offering, given the engineering and support it requires to run, let alone as a product to turn revenue for third party developers.
veunes 1y ago
Honestly, this feels like a UI/UX dark pattern at the app ecosystem level
TehShrike 1y ago
One of the reasons I value SetApp so much for Mac apps is that it's curated and I don't have to worry about filtering a bunch of shady or low-quality apps.
- r0fl 1y ago
  First time hearing about setapp What is worth $33 a month there? Seems like a bunch of basic utilities
  - aegypti 1y ago
    Looks like the subscription price went from $10 to $30+ yesterday! https://www.reddit.com/r/macapps/comments/1ngy8mz/setapp_pricing_changes_3x_increase_and_different/ https://www.reddit.com/r/macapps/comments/1ngy8mz/setapp_pri...
a3w 1y ago
TIL I can distinguish the OpenAI logo from the other logos. But cannot distinguish Al Pacino and Robert De Niro by face alone. Why do friends claim I have autism? That started two years ago, and 35 years long, nobody mentioned it.
- sneak 1y ago
  They might not be related.
  - sceptic123 1y ago
    Correct, Al Pacino and Robert De Niro are not related
- ecoled_ame 1y ago
  With some practice I bet you could. You could find certain unique features to look for in each of their faces. Faces are more complex than a black and white icon. So maybe you’re just underestimating yourself.
whywhywhywhy 1y ago
Even if I do find the exact tool for the job on Mac App Store and even if it is 99c I won’t buy it. Essentially everything I’ve bought or installed for free from there eventually got abandoned or was a pain to upgrade (numbered versions to paywall updates etc). Just last week all googling was leading me to one 99c MAS app as the solution but I spent 15 more mins googling and adding “GitHub” to the query and found an open source solution and I’m glad I did. The experience and ecosystem around it just sucks.
ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago
This is pretty awful. The App Stores are a shovelware wasteland, these days. Some companies have over 400 apps on their stores; each one just a tiny bit different from another one. It's basically the same problem Amazon has, with the fly-by-night "companies" that sell junk, on their site. All sorts of scammy behavior comes out. I'd like to blame the scammers; but they are just taking advantage of fertile soil. The fault lies with Amazon, Apple, and Google. I once had someone register a complaint with Apple, about one of my [iOS] apps, because its name began with the first few characters of their name. This meant that my app appeared in a list with theirs, as people typed, and they wanted to eliminate competition. The problem was that Apple has a "guilty until proven innocent" copyright reporting system, kind of like DMCA complaints. I wound up changing the name of my app, anyway, but not because of that. It was a bad name, and I really didn't feel like dealing with their shit. I was already going to change it.
- georgeecollins 1y ago
  Undermining the power of software vendors is an institutional imperative at Apple. There is a memory of the days when they were dependent on Adobe and Microsoft for their hardware to be viable. When they design App stores they make the rules and game the system with this in mind. It's not just that the stores are open to everyone-- shovelware and all. Steam does that but because they care about the ecosystem they protect pricing for premium products. They make reviews and recommendations relevant. Try to get your terrible knock off of a hit game come up in a search-- they are on to that.
  - PaulHoule 1y ago
    It's notable that other attempts to develop game app stores for non-console platforms have fallen flat. If Microsoft has gotten any traction at all for game distribution on Windows it's because of the really different GAME PASS model. Blizzard, EA and such have apps to download their own games but don't challenge Steam for third parties, Good Old Games with it's anti-DRM stance is the only real competitor. Steam is a model of integrity and it's a good thing that it's not for sale because it would be an obvious acquisition for irrelevant players like Gamestop who want be relevant today, it would have been a better acquisition for Microsoft than Activision but any acquirer would kill it one way or the other by violating its integrity.
chanux 1y ago
Who else had to lookup OpenAI logo to cleanse your memory of the barrage of lookalikes?
- BallsInIt 1y ago
  I'd rather look at real buttholes.
  - timeon 1y ago
    Claude was closest.
amelius 1y ago
Can a Mac App Flea market even exist? I mean, can you sell your apps after you bought them? I thought they were somehow linked to your AppleID directly after purchase.
josefritzishere 1y ago
It's a sad state of affairs.
outlore 1y ago
there used to be a time when i would delight in looking through the app store and exploring what was possible. these days, the search is broken, editor curation is non existent and there is no way to filter away the copycat, micro transaction-ridden cruft
IMTDb 1y ago
This is what a failed App Store looks like. Everybody complains about the 30% cut that seems to be the norm on the steam, iOS App Store and the likes. But getting an App Store to take off is incredibly hard, and the Mac app store is the proof of that. It should be successful; everything points to it. Despite that; absolutely no one uses it, so big apps aren't on it; and fake / low quality apps are thus more visible, which lowers the trust even more. And then you have a chicken and egg problem.
- bigyabai 1y ago
  > Everybody complains about the 30% cut Everybody complains about the lack of alternative. Apple could charge a 99% cut for all I care, but they have to compete with other iOS app providers to prove their cut is worthwhile. > the Mac app store is the proof of that. It should be successful The Mac App Store shouldn't be successful. It's the exact same situation as the iOS App Store, but with professional software and competitive third-party storefronts. The Mac is the closest thing Apple has to a healthy software ecosystem.
- AlexandrB 1y ago
  I don't know if the iOS App Store is much better. The killer for me is paid-for placements for competing apps when I search for something - a clear cut case of putting revenue over user experience.
- int_19h 1y ago
  If this is your metric for a "failed app store", then the iOS app store also qualifies, since it has just as many such listings. As far as Mac app store, even ignoring Apple's first-party apps, just to name a few, it has MS Office, WhatsApp, Telegram, Kindle, Facebook, Slack, Parallels, LibreOffice, VLC. I use Mac as my primary desktop, and I'd say that about half of the apps I use daily are from the store. As far as I can tell, the ones that are missing, are mostly missing because they can't do what they need to do within the sandbox.
sameermanek 1y ago
Its like sharingan patterns
munificent 1y ago
Before the Internet and print-on-demand, it was hard for any rando to write a piece of text and get it in front of the eyeballs of strangers. You had to at least commit to spending a chunk of cash on a press run. That meant that the average quality of a randomly selected piece of text was relatively high. Then the web and print-on-demand democratized that. If you read a random web page, or a randomly selected post or comment on some social media site/app, odds are it will be near nonsense. Likewise a randomly selected self-published work. (Though the quality tends to be a bit higher there because the pressure to write a work of a significant enough length tends to filter somewhat.) You don't notice this as much because you almost never encounter a truly randomly selected text work. You're reading only comments that get upvotes, and blog posts that get reshared, and self-published works with a lot of reviews and sales. Crowdsourced sorting has helped make the giant mass of garbage less visible. Likewise, before digital cameras and cheap web hosting, it was hard for any rando to take a photo and get it in front of the eyeballs of strangers. You have to pay for film, pay to develop it, pay to make enlargements. That meant most photos you saw where either snapshots with personal relevance that gave them quality, or actually decent photography. Then digital cameras and cheap hosting democratized that. If you look at a randomly selected image posted (and not re-posted) to Instagram, Facebook, Flickr, etc., odds are it will be blurry poorly-lit trash. Again, you don't notice this because Instagram and company use crowdsourcing, AI, and algorithms to ruthlessly filter out the garbage. The same story is true for a lot of music coming out these days, though that one still have a few structural gatekeepers in many places. If AI really does radically lower the bar to shipping, an app, we should expect to see the same thing play out there too. An enormous sea of worthless shovelware with a handful of decent apps mixed in. It will become even more important for app stores to filter and curate these collections so that users can find what they want.
KaiMagnus 1y ago
It's infuriating how slowly we're moving towards more open platforms on mobile, when you can just look at the desktop to see how much freedom has been lost. I always think of Steam as a well done digital store. Apple meanwhile is absolutely disinterested in providing anything beyond the most basic features. Whishlists, shopping carts, curators (which could in theory provide actual quality suggestions, like real stores), more granular review data and so on would improve the experience immensely. The App Store can vote soon, but developers can't even offer paid upgrades to their apps, or do sales. Apple always says they are necessary to ensure the safety of their users. But the App Store right now keeps app quality down and makes it as intransparent as possible.
rarkins 1y ago
I posted something similar to X yesterday: https://x.com/rarkins/status/1966785560556511489 https://x.com/rarkins/status/1966785560556511489 What was even worse than there being dupe ChatGPT apps in the Mac app store was that Perplexity and Gemini both recommended installing chatgpt dot macupdate dot com as if it was the official app.
ecoled_ame 1y ago
Well, that’s what you get when all the advice you read online is “get into the AI industry at any cost”
yellowapple 1y ago
It's this sort of thing that demonstrates rather plainly how the vendors of these “walled garden” app stores are lying through their teeth when they advertise said stores as being “more secure” than allowing sideloading or third-party app stores. There's no curation happening here. There's barely any actual security checks going on here. They're really gonna claim with a straight face that this is somehow better than the likes of F-Droid or Cydia or Flathub or what have you?
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
bigglywiggler 1y ago
This is a consequence of the fact that nobody actualy searches through a desktop appstore for an option to solve their software needs. If you do find new software it's not by searching the appstore. You go there to find a specific app which you discovered elsewhere at best. Sadly, Apple's barriers to entry have failed in the case of ChatBPP.
- bigyabai 1y ago
  > Sadly, Apple's barriers to entry have failed in the case of ChatBPP. That's putting it lightly, innit? More accurately, Apple's barriers to entry have failed in spectacular ways prior to this: https://blog.lastpass.com/posts/warning-fraudulent-app-impersonating-lastpass-currently-available-in-apple-app-store https://blog.lastpass.com/posts/warning-fraudulent-app-imper...
  - bigglywiggler 1y ago
    I get what you're saying but anyone who falls for that one is beyond help. There are many red flags. I know that some people out there are not 'savvy' but this one is really obvious. The developer name is a strong red flag. If I was going to get LastPass I'd go on their website direct and click their appstore link from there.
    - bigyabai 1y ago
      > If I was going to get LastPass I'd go on their website direct and click their appstore link from there. This is an insane mindset. You have to accept that >95% of iOS users do not follow this installation path because it's not how iOS works.
      - bigglywiggler 1y ago
        I'm not sure that you have any sources for that percentage. Appstore links are definitely how iOS works.
Xss3 1y ago
I despised apples app model as soon as i tried to develop an app (game) and discovered they literally priced my broke college ass out of the market by forcing me to use their hardware, software, and most egregiously pay a 100usd fee to even get started. Not to submit the app to them, but just to start developing it. That DX is so awful i vowed never to release a single thing on their platform. The game was already built and doing well on androids store.
sholladay 1y ago
To be fair, I think this is partly because ChatGPT went viral long before they had an official app. I remember thinking, "Why the heck haven't they made an app yet?" And it was notable when it was finally released. So many people had already been using unofficial apps by that point. GPT-3 came out in June 2020, that's when a lot of developers started talking about it and early implementations using its API started to appear. The ChatGPT web UI came out in November, 2022, at which point it quickly went mainstream. By January, 2023, they had one hundred million users. They still had no app at this point. GPT-4 came out in March, 2023. Still no app. It wasn't until May, 2023 that they released an iOS app, followed by Android in July, 2023. It was a whole extra year until they released a Mac app in June, 2024. So many developers beat them to the punch on making a UI for their own product in the meantime.

401 points by ingve 1y ago

Meanwhile, they are taking 10x the going rate for credit card processing for the privilege of being in this shovelware list. I wish someone would bring the hammer down on them.

nixpulvis 1y ago

Remind me why we're forced to give Apple a commission to host this flee market, when we'd be better off hosting our own domains and serving our own products?

erefsg 1y ago

[dead]

datadrivenangel 1y ago

The amount of keyword / typo squatting that goes on is impressive. There's a whole industry of people making derivative clones of anything popular.

nticompass 1y ago

It's not just the Mac App store, it's pretty much ALL app stores that have this issue. Not just for "AI Chat" apps, but ANY (popular) app. At work, one of my coworkers was running out of disk space on their computer and someone on my team went to help. I suggested a program called "WizTree" (not an endorsement, just what I use) but they wanted to use "WinDirStat". Anyway, searching the Microsoft app store for "WinDirStat" popped up TONS of fake/bootleg pieces of software, none of which I would ever trust or install. I tried to explain this, but one of those apps was selected and while it did show what the large files were, I assume we'll have to now run a virus scan on that PC.

genpfault 1y ago
> WinDirStat https://github.com/windirstat/windirstat https://github.com/windirstat/windirstat
- nticompass 1y ago
  Yep, that's the "official" link, but my team member insisted on using the Microsoft Store. WinDirStat is not in the store, but tons of forks/knockoffs are.
- afavour 1y ago
  A perfect example. > Install it by downloading the appropriate version for your system from the release page > Install with winget install -e --id WinDirStat.WinDirStat (or use winget upgrade subsequently) > Alternatively install with scoop install extras/windirstat (requires scoop bucket add extras) The what what now? The average user is going to be able to do none of these things.
  - DHPersonal 1y ago
    Before I used GitHub and got used to its interface I felt that the majority of repositories used as public-facing websites were the most confusing way to get releases. Why is the source code that seems to need some sort of tool or program to use sitting next to the installation program? Do I need all that extra stuff or can I just use the exe/app? Why is there not a page with a “download here” button that’s as plain and simple as other closed-source programs?
    - skydhash 1y ago
      Most people from the unix world use repos (the correct model for software curation basically). When you go for the sources, it's mostly for fringe stuff or library.
  - em-bee 1y ago
    the average user should be here: https://windirstat.net/download.html https://windirstat.net/download.html but for both, the first instruction is just plain download. i think the average user can handle that. the others are alternatives for users that are familiar with them. i don't see the problem. what could be changed is to add a message like: "if you don't know which one is right for you, you probably want this one:" followed by a link to the win-x64 version
gyomu 1y ago
I have a somewhat popular (yet still niche) app in the store, when I first launched it it was the only result. There are now a number of copycats. Report filed with Apple, nothing was done. I’m considering spending the $1k or so to file a trademark on the name, maybe it’ll actually make them do something? The app isn’t making crazy amounts by far, but enough that $1k could be justifiable. If anyone has been through this I’d love to hear their thoughts. For what it’s worth I know my product is clearly better - my users tell me - but it’s infuriating to see a knockoff show up before my app in the search results when I tell someone to look up the app in the store.
- Barbing 1y ago
  >it’s infuriating to see a knockoff show up before my app in the search results Infuriating enough to pay for paid placement at top? :( Sorry, that stinks, and hope someone can confirm the trademark approach. Disappointing support is not resourced/empowered to resolve this for you.
- reaperducer 1y ago
  I’m considering spending the $1k or so to file a trademark on the name Before you do that, try filing a state-level trademark. I've done it in some states for as little as $75. That might be enough to get Apple's attention, and save you $925. Check with your state's Secretary of State web site.

ajsnigrutin 1y ago

When i saw the "flea market" i genuinely though someone actually made a way to resell "used" apps (that you don't use anymore) for a cheaper price, like you could do in CD/DVD times. Yeah... i need another coffee.

fundatus 1y ago

Obviously the 30% commission is not yet enough to fully protect users from knock off apps in the Apple AppStore!

bapak 1y ago
Obviously you gotta also advertise and pay the remaining 70% in fees. You will then bask in the glory.

Apreche 1y ago

First people complain the app store has a ridiculous approvals process and people keep getting rejected unfairly. Now people complain that they are too loose and letting in shovelware. What’s it going to be? I wonder if I made an app that was simply a front-end for the actual app store if it would be approved. We wouldn’t be an alternate app store. We would always link to the actual app store for purchase/installation of apps. We just provide an alternate index of apps for searching where all the shovelware is removed.

JackC 1y ago
> First people complain the app store has a ridiculous approvals process and people keep getting rejected unfairly. Now people complain that they are too loose and letting in shovelware. What’s it going to be? At best a walled garden is collective bargaining -- a group of users (buyers) lock into requiring vendors to negotiate with their representative, and because their business is collectively valuable vendors have to meet higher privacy standards or whatever the users care about, which they couldn't extract if negotiating individually with huge companies like Facebook. So, Apple will get yelled at whenever it fails to be a good agent in collective bargaining -- either by excluding quality vendors and driving up their costs, or by including low-quality vendors. Either one gives up the benefits to users of the walled garden. An index of reliable apps is, you know, fine. An index with a business structure that ensures better collective bargaining gets interesting.
- Barbing 1y ago
  Sounds obvious now that you said it. Anyone dispute the agent/collective bargaining framing before I internalize it forever? :)
  - burnerthrow008 1y ago
    I think the principal-agent / collective bargaining framework is correct, but I would dispute that the principals (the users, not app developers) are upset by how it works. Most of the noise seems to be coming from developers, so, to me, it looks like Apple is doing a good job as my agent.

andrewmcwatters 1y ago

From: Philip Schiller Subject: Urgent: Temple Jump !!!! Date: Fri, 03 Feb 2012 10:23:15 - 0800 What the hell is this???? Remember our talking about finding bad apps with low ratings? Remember our talk about becoming the "Nordstroms" of stores in quality of service? How does an obvious rip off of the super popular Temple Run, with no screen shots, garbage marketing text, and almost all 1-star ratings become the #1 free app on the store? Can anyone see a rip off of a top selling game? Any anyone see an app that is cheating the system? Is no one reviewing these apps? Is no one minding the store? This is insane!!!!!! - - - Don’t publish on app stores. They’re software ghettos that take your money and shove you right next to shovelware rip-offs. Would you willingly set up your business in a strip mall next to scammers and broken windows? https://github.com/andrewmcwattersandco/app-store-rejections https://github.com/andrewmcwattersandco/app-store-rejections

sneak 1y ago
There is no other way to publish on iOS, by design. If you want to access the most lucrative smartphone market segment in the richest country, you have to play ball with Apple. There is no other choice.
- jezek2 1y ago
  Many apps can be PWAs, these can be installed without any approvals. It is used even for some quite demanding apps like low-latency game streaming by Nvidia GeForce Now, Xbox Cloud Gaming, Amazon Luna, etc. They don't use native apps because Apple rules are ridiculous.

reactordev 1y ago

When you let anyone submit an app with little to no criteria other than “no using private framework abi’s” this is what you get. No curation. No quality control. No remorse. This the race to the bottom, first it was the apps. Now it’s the shopping experience. Be glad someone sold you something you ungrateful clod.

Barbing 1y ago
>No curation. Tiny bit of curation? I’ve seen complaints about this Apple App Store policy: 4.3 Spam (b) Also avoid piling on to a category that is already saturated; the App Store has enough fart, burp, flashlight, fortune telling, dating, drinking games, and Kama Sutra apps, etc. already. We will reject these apps unless they provide a unique, high-quality experience. Spamming the store may lead to your removal from the Apple Developer Program.
- sneak 1y ago
  They enforce it when it suits them, and turn their head the other way when it increases revenue. I remember when Apple used to be insanely customer-focused. Now they’re just another big tech company with an industrial design ethos.
  - reactordev 1y ago
    Exactly, it’s selective and has no order or reason.

dzonga 1y ago

the benefit of the web unlike these 'curated' app stores is that there's a voting mechanism. though those votes can be skewed by 'sponsorships'.

sceptic123 1y ago
Yes, there's zero scammy shit on the web

PaulHoule 1y ago

An App Store is the last place I would go to install a desktop app on either Windows or MacOS. It’s astonishing how marginal the Microsoft Store is on Windows. For years I had a machine on which the metadata database for the store would get corrupted within a month or so between a major update. I’d argue with Microsoft support to provide a recipe to reset this database (obviously possible because the update would fix it temporarily) but I was always told to make a new account —- but why am I going to mess up my installations of a lot of software that I use every day for the sake of some software I don’t use? At work we have managed Windows desktops, since I’m a dev they did something so I can be an administrator, I can do everything but (1) edit group policies, and (2) use the Microsoft store. The only thing on the store I want is WSL2 but hey I can always ask Copilot how to do anything I know how to do in bash using Powershell.

veunes 1y ago
That whole “just create a new user account” response is peak support theater
- thewebguyd 1y ago
  Its unfortunately common when it comes to Windows troubleshooting. "Just create a new user," "Just reinstall the OS," etc. There's an entire suite of tools made by a third party for migrating user profiles between accounts and machines because it is so common. I spent the first half of my career as a windows admin and I'm glad to be out, working entirely on macOS and Linux now. macOS has its own warts, but I'll take it any day over Windows.
spwa4 1y ago
Phone app stores have the same problem. Here is the link: https://www.apple.com/us/search/ChatGPT?src=globalnav https://www.apple.com/us/search/ChatGPT?src=globalnav It has the exact same problem complained about here. It's full of shovelware copies. Google play, orinically gives a better answer on the web, but on phones it has the same problem as the Apple App store.
- 1y ago

jiehong 1y ago

Perhaps app stores should have a minimum hamming distance requirement [0] on the names of apps, so that names could not be too similar by default. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamming_distance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamming_distance

kccqzy 1y ago
The names of the app on the App Store doesn't even match the name of the downloaded app. They need to change that first. Otherwise the name is just another SEO opportunity.

827a 1y ago

The odd thing about the Mac App Store is how needlessly embarrassing this is for Apple. The Mac App Store doesn't need to exist, but because it does Apple is lending its authority to these apps, and every day its customers, who come to Apple expecting a level of safety and authenticity, are fooled by them. How must OpenAI feel about this? Or the dozens of other developers caught in a similar position? This is a stellar example of why extremely few businesses would choose to do business with Apple (and Google) when given the market of free choice. Its one thing if all these copycat apps all have their own websites and handle advertisement and SEO; its another entirely when Apple is saying "this is the safe place to get apps". Apple and the World itself would be so much better if Apple were significantly stricter on curation in the Mac App store. Require a personal, high-level relationship with Apple. Personally, I'd also like to see the same thing on iOS, combined with a native application installation process, but that is of course far more tenuous. Or, just get rid of both the app stores; what have they ever done for us anyway.

rchaud 1y ago
Apple doesn't care. The iOS app store is just as full of crummy shovelware and ads. They are a "software and services" company after all. The embarassment should be felt by the commentariat that rushes to defend Apple's store sharecropping tax by repeating ancient canards about how a fee is necessary for Apple to maintain its rigorous app review process that differentiates it from the street markets of Android, F-Droid, and whoever else.
schnable 1y ago
It also exists because it's a low friction way for app developers to generate revenue for their app.
- 827a 1y ago
  No one is making any money on the Mac App Store. Its likely that even Apple's internal accounting positions the Mac App Store as an unprofitable product offering, given the engineering and support it requires to run, let alone as a product to turn revenue for third party developers.

veunes 1y ago

Honestly, this feels like a UI/UX dark pattern at the app ecosystem level

TehShrike 1y ago

One of the reasons I value SetApp so much for Mac apps is that it's curated and I don't have to worry about filtering a bunch of shady or low-quality apps.

r0fl 1y ago
First time hearing about setapp What is worth $33 a month there? Seems like a bunch of basic utilities
- aegypti 1y ago
  Looks like the subscription price went from $10 to $30+ yesterday! https://www.reddit.com/r/macapps/comments/1ngy8mz/setapp_pricing_changes_3x_increase_and_different/ https://www.reddit.com/r/macapps/comments/1ngy8mz/setapp_pri...

a3w 1y ago

TIL I can distinguish the OpenAI logo from the other logos. But cannot distinguish Al Pacino and Robert De Niro by face alone. Why do friends claim I have autism? That started two years ago, and 35 years long, nobody mentioned it.

sneak 1y ago
They might not be related.
- sceptic123 1y ago
  Correct, Al Pacino and Robert De Niro are not related
ecoled_ame 1y ago
With some practice I bet you could. You could find certain unique features to look for in each of their faces. Faces are more complex than a black and white icon. So maybe you’re just underestimating yourself.

whywhywhywhy 1y ago

Even if I do find the exact tool for the job on Mac App Store and even if it is 99c I won’t buy it. Essentially everything I’ve bought or installed for free from there eventually got abandoned or was a pain to upgrade (numbered versions to paywall updates etc). Just last week all googling was leading me to one 99c MAS app as the solution but I spent 15 more mins googling and adding “GitHub” to the query and found an open source solution and I’m glad I did. The experience and ecosystem around it just sucks.

ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago

This is pretty awful. The App Stores are a shovelware wasteland, these days. Some companies have over 400 apps on their stores; each one just a tiny bit different from another one. It's basically the same problem Amazon has, with the fly-by-night "companies" that sell junk, on their site. All sorts of scammy behavior comes out. I'd like to blame the scammers; but they are just taking advantage of fertile soil. The fault lies with Amazon, Apple, and Google. I once had someone register a complaint with Apple, about one of my [iOS] apps, because its name began with the first few characters of their name. This meant that my app appeared in a list with theirs, as people typed, and they wanted to eliminate competition. The problem was that Apple has a "guilty until proven innocent" copyright reporting system, kind of like DMCA complaints. I wound up changing the name of my app, anyway, but not because of that. It was a bad name, and I really didn't feel like dealing with their shit. I was already going to change it.

georgeecollins 1y ago
Undermining the power of software vendors is an institutional imperative at Apple. There is a memory of the days when they were dependent on Adobe and Microsoft for their hardware to be viable. When they design App stores they make the rules and game the system with this in mind. It's not just that the stores are open to everyone-- shovelware and all. Steam does that but because they care about the ecosystem they protect pricing for premium products. They make reviews and recommendations relevant. Try to get your terrible knock off of a hit game come up in a search-- they are on to that.
- PaulHoule 1y ago
  It's notable that other attempts to develop game app stores for non-console platforms have fallen flat. If Microsoft has gotten any traction at all for game distribution on Windows it's because of the really different GAME PASS model. Blizzard, EA and such have apps to download their own games but don't challenge Steam for third parties, Good Old Games with it's anti-DRM stance is the only real competitor. Steam is a model of integrity and it's a good thing that it's not for sale because it would be an obvious acquisition for irrelevant players like Gamestop who want be relevant today, it would have been a better acquisition for Microsoft than Activision but any acquirer would kill it one way or the other by violating its integrity.

chanux 1y ago

Who else had to lookup OpenAI logo to cleanse your memory of the barrage of lookalikes?

BallsInIt 1y ago
I'd rather look at real buttholes.
- timeon 1y ago
  Claude was closest.

amelius 1y ago

Can a Mac App Flea market even exist? I mean, can you sell your apps after you bought them? I thought they were somehow linked to your AppleID directly after purchase.

josefritzishere 1y ago

It's a sad state of affairs.

outlore 1y ago

there used to be a time when i would delight in looking through the app store and exploring what was possible. these days, the search is broken, editor curation is non existent and there is no way to filter away the copycat, micro transaction-ridden cruft

IMTDb 1y ago

This is what a failed App Store looks like. Everybody complains about the 30% cut that seems to be the norm on the steam, iOS App Store and the likes. But getting an App Store to take off is incredibly hard, and the Mac app store is the proof of that. It should be successful; everything points to it. Despite that; absolutely no one uses it, so big apps aren't on it; and fake / low quality apps are thus more visible, which lowers the trust even more. And then you have a chicken and egg problem.

bigyabai 1y ago
> Everybody complains about the 30% cut Everybody complains about the lack of alternative. Apple could charge a 99% cut for all I care, but they have to compete with other iOS app providers to prove their cut is worthwhile. > the Mac app store is the proof of that. It should be successful The Mac App Store shouldn't be successful. It's the exact same situation as the iOS App Store, but with professional software and competitive third-party storefronts. The Mac is the closest thing Apple has to a healthy software ecosystem.
AlexandrB 1y ago
I don't know if the iOS App Store is much better. The killer for me is paid-for placements for competing apps when I search for something - a clear cut case of putting revenue over user experience.
int_19h 1y ago
If this is your metric for a "failed app store", then the iOS app store also qualifies, since it has just as many such listings. As far as Mac app store, even ignoring Apple's first-party apps, just to name a few, it has MS Office, WhatsApp, Telegram, Kindle, Facebook, Slack, Parallels, LibreOffice, VLC. I use Mac as my primary desktop, and I'd say that about half of the apps I use daily are from the store. As far as I can tell, the ones that are missing, are mostly missing because they can't do what they need to do within the sandbox.

sameermanek 1y ago

Its like sharingan patterns

munificent 1y ago

Before the Internet and print-on-demand, it was hard for any rando to write a piece of text and get it in front of the eyeballs of strangers. You had to at least commit to spending a chunk of cash on a press run. That meant that the average quality of a randomly selected piece of text was relatively high. Then the web and print-on-demand democratized that. If you read a random web page, or a randomly selected post or comment on some social media site/app, odds are it will be near nonsense. Likewise a randomly selected self-published work. (Though the quality tends to be a bit higher there because the pressure to write a work of a significant enough length tends to filter somewhat.) You don't notice this as much because you almost never encounter a truly randomly selected text work. You're reading only comments that get upvotes, and blog posts that get reshared, and self-published works with a lot of reviews and sales. Crowdsourced sorting has helped make the giant mass of garbage less visible. Likewise, before digital cameras and cheap web hosting, it was hard for any rando to take a photo and get it in front of the eyeballs of strangers. You have to pay for film, pay to develop it, pay to make enlargements. That meant most photos you saw where either snapshots with personal relevance that gave them quality, or actually decent photography. Then digital cameras and cheap hosting democratized that. If you look at a randomly selected image posted (and not re-posted) to Instagram, Facebook, Flickr, etc., odds are it will be blurry poorly-lit trash. Again, you don't notice this because Instagram and company use crowdsourcing, AI, and algorithms to ruthlessly filter out the garbage. The same story is true for a lot of music coming out these days, though that one still have a few structural gatekeepers in many places. If AI really does radically lower the bar to shipping, an app, we should expect to see the same thing play out there too. An enormous sea of worthless shovelware with a handful of decent apps mixed in. It will become even more important for app stores to filter and curate these collections so that users can find what they want.

KaiMagnus 1y ago

It's infuriating how slowly we're moving towards more open platforms on mobile, when you can just look at the desktop to see how much freedom has been lost. I always think of Steam as a well done digital store. Apple meanwhile is absolutely disinterested in providing anything beyond the most basic features. Whishlists, shopping carts, curators (which could in theory provide actual quality suggestions, like real stores), more granular review data and so on would improve the experience immensely. The App Store can vote soon, but developers can't even offer paid upgrades to their apps, or do sales. Apple always says they are necessary to ensure the safety of their users. But the App Store right now keeps app quality down and makes it as intransparent as possible.

rarkins 1y ago

I posted something similar to X yesterday: https://x.com/rarkins/status/1966785560556511489 https://x.com/rarkins/status/1966785560556511489 What was even worse than there being dupe ChatGPT apps in the Mac app store was that Perplexity and Gemini both recommended installing chatgpt dot macupdate dot com as if it was the official app.

ecoled_ame 1y ago

Well, that’s what you get when all the advice you read online is “get into the AI industry at any cost”

yellowapple 1y ago

It's this sort of thing that demonstrates rather plainly how the vendors of these “walled garden” app stores are lying through their teeth when they advertise said stores as being “more secure” than allowing sideloading or third-party app stores. There's no curation happening here. There's barely any actual security checks going on here. They're really gonna claim with a straight face that this is somehow better than the likes of F-Droid or Cydia or Flathub or what have you?

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

bigglywiggler 1y ago

This is a consequence of the fact that nobody actualy searches through a desktop appstore for an option to solve their software needs. If you do find new software it's not by searching the appstore. You go there to find a specific app which you discovered elsewhere at best. Sadly, Apple's barriers to entry have failed in the case of ChatBPP.

bigyabai 1y ago
> Sadly, Apple's barriers to entry have failed in the case of ChatBPP. That's putting it lightly, innit? More accurately, Apple's barriers to entry have failed in spectacular ways prior to this: https://blog.lastpass.com/posts/warning-fraudulent-app-impersonating-lastpass-currently-available-in-apple-app-store https://blog.lastpass.com/posts/warning-fraudulent-app-imper...
- bigglywiggler 1y ago
  I get what you're saying but anyone who falls for that one is beyond help. There are many red flags. I know that some people out there are not 'savvy' but this one is really obvious. The developer name is a strong red flag. If I was going to get LastPass I'd go on their website direct and click their appstore link from there.
  - bigyabai 1y ago
    > If I was going to get LastPass I'd go on their website direct and click their appstore link from there. This is an insane mindset. You have to accept that >95% of iOS users do not follow this installation path because it's not how iOS works.
    - bigglywiggler 1y ago
      I'm not sure that you have any sources for that percentage. Appstore links are definitely how iOS works.

Xss3 1y ago

I despised apples app model as soon as i tried to develop an app (game) and discovered they literally priced my broke college ass out of the market by forcing me to use their hardware, software, and most egregiously pay a 100usd fee to even get started. Not to submit the app to them, but just to start developing it. That DX is so awful i vowed never to release a single thing on their platform. The game was already built and doing well on androids store.

sholladay 1y ago

To be fair, I think this is partly because ChatGPT went viral long before they had an official app. I remember thinking, "Why the heck haven't they made an app yet?" And it was notable when it was finally released. So many people had already been using unofficial apps by that point. GPT-3 came out in June 2020, that's when a lot of developers started talking about it and early implementations using its API started to appear. The ChatGPT web UI came out in November, 2022, at which point it quickly went mainstream. By January, 2023, they had one hundred million users. They still had no app at this point. GPT-4 came out in March, 2023. Still no app. It wasn't until May, 2023 that they released an iOS app, followed by Android in July, 2023. It was a whole extra year until they released a Mac app in June, 2024. So many developers beat them to the punch on making a UI for their own product in the meantime.