by Conrad MacIntyre
By Conrad MacIntyre
The Mac App Store is in significant danger of becoming an irrelevant, low-traffic flea market where buyers rarely venture for serious purchases. And I bet that’s not what Apple had in mind at all.
A well thought-out piece about Apple's shifting goal posts in the Mac App Store. I how Cupertino is listening.
Despite reports earlier Thursday suggesting that Apple would disallow Mac App Store apps from employing systemwide keyboard “hotkey” shortcuts, sources close to the matter confirm to Macworldthat such apps remain welcome in the cozy confines of Apple’s software store.
TUAW has been told that Apple will be rejecting all apps with hotkey functionality starting June 1, regardless of whether the new features are hotkey related or not. Basically, if you're developing one of those apps, an app that assumes you can still add hotkeys, don't bother submitting it to the Mac App Store.
I'm going to file this under Bogus and Misinformation. I'm officially in the Not True camp.
Ryan Faas, Doom-Sayer:
As Apple continues to encourage the Mac App Store as a primary source for Mac software, this may create problems for businesses and schools that have large Mac populations both because there isn’t currently a volume or site licensing option and because purchases are tied to a user’s Apple ID. Apple does offer volume licensing of its own apps, which are now only available through the Mac App Store but so far hasn’t made a move to do so with apps from other developers.
Well, until the Mac App Store is the ONLY way to purchase software schools and business don't need to worry about it, do they Ryan?
Yesterday we showed you how in OS X Mountain Lion, Software Update has shifted from its own app to the Mac App Store. But how will that work with updating apps that weren’t purchased through the App Store, but were instead bundled with your Mac at point-of-sale or installed from a DVD?
As you can see in the screenshot above, Apple’s got it covered: the Mountain Lion App Store will automatically detect any app that has historically been updated through Software Update and ask to register it to your Apple ID, along with a unique hardware identifier.
This is very exciting.
With OS X Mountain Lion, Apple has ditched Software Update as a standalone application, and instead baked its functionality into the Mac App Store’s “Updates” panel. Now if you hit Software Update, the Mac App Store loads and all of the integral software updates are found under a drop-down box under OS X Update.
Finally!
As you’ll see in Apple’s carefully worded explanation of Gatekeeper, each user is given the choice of deciding if they wish to allow non-App Store apps or not. But what’s the default setting going to be? In the screenshot provided by Apple, it looks like “Mac App Store and identified developers” is the default, and will likely go unchanged by the average, non-tinkering user.
The thrust of this piece by Weber is that Apple will eventually iOS-ify the Mac and force users (and developers) into the Mac App Store. This isn't going to happen. That will stop upgrades and it will slow growth. I, for one, welcome the change. I think the default setting is the right one and I can feel even more secure using my Mac than I do now. I use OnyX to scan new downloads from some third party site for potential threats — especially for programs that want my admin password. This will remove that fear. I'm very pleased. I'll be an early adopter for sure. Looks like a really solid release.
Kirk McElhearn, making the arguement that Mac App Store price drops will eventually hurt consumers makes the same argument people make about the "race to the bottom" in iOS apps:
But these days, as prices drop, users are no longer willing to pay more than $5 or $10; yet they’ll happily dump more than that on a movie, or even a cup of coffee.
Good apps are worth paying for. And users know that. $50 is a bit steep for 1Password but next time it goes on sale I'd happily pay $35 for it. Pixelmator is worth $50-$100, but at $30 I could easily pick it up without even needing to consult my wife. Fantastical was $20. Aperture was $80. Motion was $50. I have two dozen great apps on my Mac for less than the cost of a single-user license of Adoe Photoshop. If I still lived in a Windows world where everything costs $100 for apps of any reasonable quality I would probably still be pirating them.
Like Steve Jobs alluded to when selling songs piecemeal at $0.99 a pop - make it easy for folks to be honest and most of them will. These lower prices made it easier for me to be honest and buying legal versions of apps I loved was awesome to be able to do. I want to support the developers but everyone has a budget and binary theft is so easy and tempting that lower prices make honesty easy.
Having said that, Kirk makes a great point later that I could not agree with more.
Apple should offer a way for developers to provide demo versions of software from the Mac App Store.