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For Mac Developers, Armageddon Comes Tomorrow
kdawson writes "David Gewirtz's blog post over at ZDNet warns of an imminent price collapse for traditional Mac applications, starting tomorrow when the Mac App Store opens. The larger questions: what will Mac price plunges of 90%-95% mean for the PC software market? For the Mac's market share? Quoting: 'The Mac software market is about as old-school as you get. Developers have been creating, shipping, and selling products through traditional channels and at traditional price points for decades. ... Mac software has historically been priced on a parity with other desktop software. That means small products are about $20. Utilities run in the $50-60 range. Games in the $50 range. Productivity packages and creative tools in the hundreds, and specialty software — well, the sky's the limit. Tomorrow, the sky will fall. Tomorrow, the iOS developers move in and the traditional Mac developers better stick their heads between their legs and kiss those price points goodbye.'"
The news for the traditional developers is not good:
These are all games and one did have a price difference between iOS and Mac, but it was a buck.
Compare that with Mac games listed on Amazon today. $38.99 $19.99 $27.54 $29.35 $54.99 $24.38. These are traditional PC prices.
As of tomorrow, games priced at $20-60 will be competing against games priced at 99 cents to $4.99. The most expensive iOS games are around ten bucks. In effect, game pricing will drop by 90-95% -- on average -- overnight.
Question: Why didn't you list out those titles that you found at $20-$55 like you did with the iPhone titles? Oh, I know, it's because they're so far from similar it would be embarrassing to reveal that the heart of your argument is on shaky ground at best.
I don't own a Mac. I don't own an iPhone. But I've seen people play games on both. From your suggestion of Amazon's bestselling Mac game titles let's look at the top page without duplicates: The Sims 3, Bejeweled 3, World of Warcraft, Civilization V, Nancy Drew, and Spore. With the exception of Bejeweled (and the other Pop Cap titles), I think you are comparing apples to oranges when you say that World of Warcraft is now going to have to compete with Air Hockey and that Blizzard should tuck its tail between its legs and run because the $40 price point versus $1 price point means they're going to die. And in the only applicable case (Pop Cap Games), they will be the ones moving their apps to the Mac Store. So they should be afraid of themselves?
Here's how I see it: gaming on Mac has always been sort of unsupported. It's gotten a lot better recently but not all publishers see a value to it. Now, with this Mac Store, you're going to see the same publishers sell at their price point but gaming could explode on the Mac given this opportunity to transcend iOS and target OSX as well. I don't think that the applications and games that exist in the iPhone sphere are going to do much to the revenues of desktop counterparts because they're simply beefier applications. Furthermore, if they do modify those price points to compete, I'm of the opinion that the Steam Effect will take place and instead of selling 10k copies at $20 they're going to sell 100k copies at $4. The bottom line is that this software store will do little to traditional Mac sales and instead expand the subscriptions of the mobile games a bit.
Your friends are also going to have to figure out how the input on a mac with a single mouse is going to handle those times when they were sensing two or more touch points on the device screen. So even if you're right, Armageddon is not tomorrow.
Apple wins. Many of their very loyal developers will lose.
The Rapture is upon us, repent now before it is too late. Steve Jobs is a ruthless and uncaring god! Seriously man, you're blowing this up into something it's not.
My work here is dung.
Comparing some $2 iPhone/iPad game and a full-blown Mac game like The Sims 3 or World or Warcraft, as if there is parity just because they're both "games," is fucking retarded. These are "apps" not "applications."
Some young hotshit programmer designing a great little mini-game isn't going to drive down the price of Call of Duty 4, for Christ's sake.
Some start-up's simple photo editor isn't going to drive down the price of Photoshop (anymore than GIMP or any of a hundred other free photo editors did on the PC).
Serious development still costs money. And the more complex your application, the more you generally have to charge for it. What sells on the iPhone/iPad for a few bucks will probably sell for a few bucks on the Mac too. But no one is going to look at these little apps as replacements for more serious software (the kind that costs $20+). Apple isn't going to look at some iVideoEdit app and say "Well, we'd better lower the price of Final Cut Pro down to $5."
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
You don't have to use the App Store to sell software.
I don't imagine for one minute that large professional applications will ever be sold this way for the time being.
You don't have to use the App Store to sell software.
But if you don't, your would-have-been customers will likely buy your competitor's close substitute from the App Store instead of your software from your web site.
What a terrible article. Does he interview any actual developers? Does he talk to software resellers? Does he talk to iPhone developers considering the move to the app store? Does he have any statistics at all? No, he did his research by looking at Amazon and MacConnection. He came up with a whole bunch of scary sounding analogies, though - I guess that should drive traffic to his site.
I think that, in the short term, the App store is going to compete with the traditional shareware market, which has always been pretty active in the Macintosh community. The solution for those developers is simple: make their products available on the app store. It will probably help them in the long run.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Other people have already begun pointing out the problems of comparing iOS games like Air Hockey with full blown, more "traditional" games like WoW. Here's my question though: How the hell does this translate over to other apps, ie: the ones people normally use. The articles only real mention of productive apps is photoshop, which he says "Sure, Photoshop might still be expensive. But how many under-$5 photo editing programs are their for the iPad? Answer: too many to count." But hey, there's GIMP for Mac OS too, and as far as I can tell Photoshop for Mac has been pretty successful despite the fact that GIMP is free. Office for Mac and other office suites? Neooffice is free, and so is Google Docs, MS Office Online, Zotero, etc. In the end, I highly doubt I bunch of apps meant for smartphones and iPads are going to compete with the traditional stalwarts.
Some start-up's simple photo editor isn't going to drive down the price of Photoshop (anymore than GIMP or any of a hundred other free photo editors did on the PC).
Without NeoPaint, Paint Shop Pro, GIMP, and other second-string image editors, Adobe likely wouldn't have made Photoshop Elements. Likewise, startups trying to compete with Final Cut Pro (to take your example) may encourage Apple to add features to iMovie.
I've noticed something wonderful about the whole "app" phenomenon, something I haven't seen in a decade of working in IT.
Lightweight apps. Apps that get right to the point, and don't require lots of time to install and configure. After spending an hour installing Adobe's Master Collection and another half hour patching it, I say the desktop app revolution can't come soon enough.
Yes, I realize that "fat apps" will not be replaced anytime soon by "thin apps", but it could force people to really decide if the fat app is worth the headache and expense.
Finally, I understand the financial needs of developers - but the app store should allow devs to get more eyeballs on their product, and make distribution of their product easier. Sure the margins may be smaller, but the volume will probably make up for it.
-ted
The author must have worked very hard to avoid examining the history of steam and impulse on the PC, where a wide range of prices happily coexist.
Either that or hes one of those "I've never used a PC" people.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Free Call of Duty 4 when you buy Angry Birds!
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
But wait, I can play dumb flash games over the web for free.
Not on your MacBook on the bus/train/carpool unless you pay $60/mo for mobile broadband. Locally installed applications are more often designed to work offline. Does Adobe Flash Player even support anything like HTML5's CACHE MANIFEST?
Price point refers to MSRP, manufacturer's suggested retail price. It's a suggestion and retailers do not need to adhere to that guideline. For example there are those tall cans of Arizona tea which have 99 printed right on the can but some places will sell it for higher prices. Price is what is determined by the retailer which will return an acceptable profit for a product.
I wonder if this might not balance out somewhat -- before you had to make physical boxed copies, and put it into as many stores as possible. People had to go out looking for it (or order it) and all that.
The App Store seems to provide you with a larger possible base, lower distribution costs as you don't need to make the physical boxes, and a ready distribution model.
Not saying this will help all software, but the App Store seems to give you a better chance at Economies of Scale than before. Hell, I see software on the App Store for iPads that runs $49.99 or $99.99, possibly even more. Specialty software will always run you a fair bit, but for some software shops, they could have a far larger market using this.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
...massively overpriced, which is why there exists such a huge community of pirates. How many of you have spent some time on Pirate Bay seeking torrents for CS5 because whilst you're honest, there is no way you can afford $$$$.$$ for your tools? Hmmm? This will force greedy publishers to produce better more reliable software - just as the iOS and Android developers have done. This is not Armageddon, it is the way forward. @oflife
a sky is falling story, really?
I do not play in the middle of the road
Although I have no experience with Mac development, how can you possibly compare a desktop game to a game written for an iPhone? It's like comparing a game written in flash to World of Warcraft. I'm not saying the flash game isn't good, but it's not going to replace desktop gaming anytime soon. The article assumes that one game is interchangeable with another. Devs just need to keep putting out quality products at reasonable prices and they should be fine.
As a vendor, will you always be allowed (yes, allowed!) by Apple to sell software through other channels?
That'd alienate a lot of smaller developers. It might even promote more contributions by businesses to GNUstep, a free clone of Cocoa on GNU/Linux, *BSD, and Windows.
As a user, will you always be allowed (yes, allowed!) by Apple to install software from some other channel?
If future Mac OS X were to refuse to run applications that were designed for 10.6 (Snow Leopard) before the App Store came to be, this would hurt businesses that depend on such applications.
I can see the small utility app market having a market correction, since a lot of those are fairly overpriced on the Mac platform compared to their counterparts on other platforms, but aside from those and possibly games of the same class as a smartphone game I wouldn't expect much change. Steam's been out for years and has millions of satisfied users, yet all the titles on it have regular prices within $10 of, if not matching, retail. They tend to go on sale more often and with deeper discounts, but that's in my opinion more related to the significantly reduced overhead of online versus retail allowing for much greater dips while maintaining the same profit margin.
Basically anything that is significantly impacted price-wise by the App Store was likely overpriced to begin with.
I used to get high on life, but I developed a tolerance. Now I need something stronger.
Goddamn! Every time I hear someone utter "price point" I want to stab them in the face. Just say "price."
The Wikipedia article about price points states that "price point" refers to the sharp change in quantity demanded at specific prices. These changes appear as "points" on the demand curve.
Most applications designed for smartphones(iOS, Android, WebOS, etc...) are fairly small applications that do not have a lot of complexity compared to applications designed for a computer. This means that except for the casual games you find from Popcap or Shockwave, there isn't a direct apples to apples comparison. The Sims 3 for a mobile device or even a console will tend to be a lower end or cut rate version of what is available for a normal computer.
So, there will be price cuts for the casual games, which currently sell for $20 or so, but for anything else, you still have the issue where you won't see the price of ANYTHING drop unless it is very low end.
My wife will be thrilled...
Armageddon tired of these apocalyptic prophesies. Price is the intersection of supply and demand, nothing more, nothing less. If you think you can't sell your app unless it's at a $1 price point, then you're admitting that it offers only a trivial benefit to your users or that it's a piece of crap. Either improve it to where it's worth what you'd like to make, or drop out of the competition.
All the apps I've built for the Mac platform have been free:
http://quadesl.com/macApps.html
They are not amazing, but losing 95% of my revenue of zero dollars won't keep me up at night...
Sheldon
For decades the Mac has had a viable shareware scene where you download apps and, if desired, pay a modest fee to upgrade to a full or non-crippled version. I don't see how anyone could possibly argue that a Mac App Store will be the end of the world unless they're a clueless analyst who thinks the only programs people run on Macs are Photoshop and Office.
the coolest club on
Apple's iWork suite (Pages, KeyNote and Numbers) is rumored to be coming out at $20 per application, c.f. the current version at $80 for the bundle. That's a significant price drop but hardly a collapse (and could be self-compensating if it leads to more sales) - and Apple are probably in a position to price that as a loss leader to promote the store.
Something like Plants vs. Zombies (excellent casual game) is $3 on the iPhone, $7 on the iPad vs. (currently) $20 for the mac, which is a bit more of a price drop (I think the Mac version has a few extras, but there's an awful lot in the iPad version). Note that there's already a precident for charging more for iPad versions, so there's no expectation that Mac versions will match the iOS price. PvZ for Mac has already been on offer on Steam for less, at times.
Then there's things like CoPilot and TomTom at (UK) price points like £19.99, £39.99, £59.99 for iPhone - Probably not good candidates for a Mac version, but they give the lie to the idea that everything on the iOS app store costs $0.99. (Apologies for the currency mixing - but this is Apple so $1 and £1 aren't a lot different...)
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
i have to say, this will be the most interesting thing to watch and i'm dying to know the outcome. i don't think many people realize the gravity of this situation.
usually, the idea of an app store on Mac/PC's is the worst idea ever. as with digital distribution, u don't see prices automatically decline over time. example, take bf:bc 2. it's now selling for like $10. u won't see that. it'll stay at 60, maybe now it would be $40-50 (8 mo. later), and they would do a special for a week (that most likely u'll miss) for like $20.
BUT...
in this case, there are so many apps that have competition, and the trend of the app store that if it's over $4, no one wants it (or for big apps, over $10 and no one wants it), it will keep prices beneficial for the consumer. also, i think the idea of a software repo that actually works (sorry Linux, apt and yum will always have dependency problems and there will always be a few pieces that won't be in the repo and you can't get because it won't work compiling from scratch), is brilliant.
That's one big thing. Now here is the other big thing. I'm curious to see what actully happens. Unless it's for promotional sake, or promo'ing the brand (like say netflix, just getting it on as many platforms as u can), or someone huge (like adobe), every developer that has made a complex and useful program will just pack up and leave. There will be a mass exodus to windows. MS was considering an app store. They might see developers flood to windows for that reason. And since MS's strategy is to support devs, it will actually can the idea of an app store. Yes, they may not make money on them, but it strengthens window's hold because no one wants to develop for Mac.
Yes, there will be tons of developers. But for once, I feel bad for the prices they charge. How do you make a living selling a DTP app that you spent years making for $2? You can't run a business like that. The only ones left will be small one-man shops. Because certainly no business can run on those kind of revenues. And the problem will be just that. You won't see a full featured complex app because the only ones able to make it are businesses and they all left because they couldn't make money.
I really am dying to see what happens.
Seriously, the lower price points will allow many more people to purchase many more titles. It could be a definite shift in the market, but the impact will be similar to the impact of $0.99 song downloads, which obviously killed the music industry.
Software is simply overpriced, vendors have been getting away with charging ridiculous amounts for years because they're greedy. Software sales are 99% profit, which is why developers on iOS can sell their apps for $5 (with a big cut going to apple) and still make a profit.
With lower prices comes higher volume and reduced piracy.
Software really is a penny bazaar product, sold dirt cheap or given away despite proprietary vendors trying to artificially inflate prices so they can get away with 99% profit margins.
It's the natural end result, for years hardware has been getting cheaper and cheaper and its now down to a point where the profit margins are extremely small but there is a limit with hardware and other physical products, software on the other hand has a much lower price limit as proven by the huge amounts of free software available.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
People must be thrilled that Adobe will drop the price of Photoshop to $0.99 tomorrow!
The prices will only spiral down if the developers do it. Notice that they have not made the same mistake on the iPad. There we haven't seen the same race to the bottom like on the iPhone/iPod apps.
Considering Apple has explicitly stated that they have zero plans to force people to use the app store, perhaps the better question would be why you consider it even remotely likely that they will?
You're right, Apple doesn't have a good track record of providing "open" products, but Apple also doesn't have a track record of *ratcheting down restrictions on what you can do with your device after you've purchased it.*
Please cite examples of where Apple has "taken away" the ability to do something with a product after it was released that would lead you to conclude that this is not only possible, but likely?
No way adobe photoshop will be in this with out some big changes.
No way adobe will yet buy photoshop 1 time and run it on 5 systems.
No way adobe will give 30% of the price of photoshop + $99 year to apple just to be in the store.
Also the app store may not like phototshop plug in system.
Say good buy to user maps , mods , and more on app store games.
As of tomorrow, games priced at $20-60 will be competing against games priced at 99 cents to $4.99. The most expensive iOS games are around ten bucks. In effect, game pricing will drop by 90-95% — on average — overnight.
HOORAY! Now when do I have time to actually play any of these games?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Has the plethora of free software available already for the mac ruined the market for paid for utilities and professional apps? Has Steam, which is probably the closest thing to the app store you can get for PC games and where you can get plenty of indie games for a couple of dollars each, ruined the game market for big professional developers?
No.
If anything they'd be cheaper if sold in a less restricted market place.
So, where is that marketplace? The flea market? If you go to a Bricks-and-Mortar establishment, or to Amazon they will promote some goods over others and refuse to carry some goods. The app store permits competition and that's why it's been a race to the bottom of the profit margin barrel. The only thing between you and the app you want is the rafts of crap.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I could see Adobe selling a light edition through the store, though...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
What precisely do you mean by open systems in this context? If you mean ability to install/run any executable you want, they have a track record of more than 25 years of that on Mac systems. That's certainly a good track record.
They don't allow it on phones because malware is a far bigger threat on phones than on PCs.
Now think! If Apple created a version of OSX where you could no longer install software that wasn't available from the App Store, then most of their customers would not upgrade to it, because their existing off the shelf apps would no longer be installable. It'd have an adoption rate even lower than Vista. So why the fuck would Apple do it?
Apple think things through better than you do.
Wow there are a lot of explosive emotional comments on this - WAY more than typical Apple posts on Slashdot. Lets review the posting, shall we?
"David Gewirtz's blog post over at ZDNet warns of ..."
I think that's all we need. You can see where the problem is.
It's an opinion article, not journalism. Simmer down folks. And quit clicking on links to blogs. You're embarrassing yourselves.
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
Price points are not the same as prices. Prices are every numerical price from 0.01c to the most expensive thing you can imagine. Price points are attractive numbers that products tend to retail at. 95c, 99c, $1.95, $1.99, $2.95, $2.99 etc.
User maps are often times free, and thus a very "Good buy" as you say. Perhaps you mean to say "Goodbye"?
In fact I won't be surprised to see WOW and/or MS Office themselves available on the Mac App Store. Why not?
As I understand it, Apple requires that applications in the Mac App Store MUST NOT "require license keys or implement their own copy protection" or "present a license screen at launch". Furthermore, Apple rejects applications "containing 'rental' content or services that expire after a limited time". This appears to rule out any application designed solely to connect to a proprietary network, such as a Netflix player or any MMORPG client.
In addition, applications in the Mac App Store MUST adhere to the Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines, MUST "use system provided items, such as buttons and icons", and MUST NOT "change the native user interface elements or behaviors of Mac OS X". A lot of full-screen video games violate this on purpose; instead, they have a set of customized buttons and icons that match the game's setting and tone.
Furthermore, applications in the Mac App Store MUST NOT use "deprecated or optionally installed technologies" such as Flash, Java, Carbon, X11, or Wine. A lot of ports of applications from other platforms use these. This means that at least the front-end (the "view" in model-view-controller or the "presentation" in three-tier) has to be written from the ground up in Cocoa. And if the back-end isn't written in Objective-C++, that involves a line-by-line rewrite by hand, introducing the complication of manually maintaining two parallel copies of the same program with the same behavior.
Apple appears not to like common in video games, rejecting applications that contain "realistic images of people or animals being killed or maimed, shot, stabbed, tortured or injured".
Even an FTP server or web server could be considered to "enable illegal file sharing"; I saw no provision for substantial noninfringing use along the lines of Sony v. Universal.
You are aware that Microsoft already has the infrastructure in place to do this?
Besides which, if MS had such a store on the PC that was bundled with the OS, they would still have control over what goes into said store, just like they do on the Games for Windows Live and Xbox Live marketplaces.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
In my economics class I learned that the lack of consumer information keeps prices higher then they would in a perfectly competitive marketplace. These apps stores greatly improve consumer information allowing them to easily compare all available products and are nearly a perfectly competitive marketplace.
Another thing I learn is that in a perfectly competitive marketplace profit approaches 0.
In the GCC 2.8 days, the "developers' attitude and resistance" led to an experimental fork called EGCS, which eventually became GCC 3. Should Mac OS X and Mac hardware become locked down as tightly as iOS and iPod touch hardware, I imagine that a coalition of ex-Mac developers might fork GNUstep in a similar manner to allow migration from Cocoa.
The thing with both the Mac and the iPhone app store is, you are paid what you charge.
That is to say, a lot of developers have chosen to charge very little. But some software developers built impressive applications that really were worth more, and charged for it.
This was reflected in top GROSSING apps usually being on the expensive side.
Also, another aspect of Mac store pricing is this - most "good" iPad apps are $10. So I'd expect serious mac apps to be at least $15-$20.
Also the whole story is way to games focused, Games have a whole different ecosystem than just about any other kind of application.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The summary is overlooking Adobe completely. I see no reason to expect that they are going to drop their sotware prices by 90% tomorrow. Being as they are the most important software company for the Mac today, that is a huge player who won't be in the game. They go out of their way to prevent piracy, they certainly aren't about to start distributing their top titles as downloadable applications for $5 a pop.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Photoshop's "lite edition" still has an MSRP of $99.99... Amazon sells it for $70 (not counting the $20 MIR ending today).
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
Well, I don't know if Mac application prices are going to fall radically, but the business model for applications will change radically, which may 'allow' prices to come down. The app store model ensures that users of software closely correlates with purchasers of software. In the current environment a developer has to assume that some (high) percentage of users did not actually purchase the software. Therefore the purchase price for legitimate copies is necessarily higher.
Why?
Keep in mind that Apple is a company that dictated what programming languages developers could use to develop software for one of its platforms. Do you realize how absurd that is? Do you realize how absolutely wrong it is?
No, in fact I don't realize that, maybe you can elaborate? How is this different from about *every freaking other* integrated consumer electronics product on the market? Can I program Java on WP7? Can I program C# on Android? Can I program Java on the Nintendo DS? Can I program Visual Basic on Blackberry?
Here's the thing: Apple created an operating system, a buttload of frameworks, devices that run them, and a set of development tools, the latter of which you can even get for free. All of this was designed and implemented with a number of technologies in mind that fit the hardware and the platform. In terms of programming languages that's Objective-C, C, C++, Fortran. In terms of application and UI frameworks that's Cocoa, UIKit, etc. In terms of development tools (including packaging, provisioning, code signing, and submission to the application store) that's XCode. It's actually all pretty complex, and probably took a lot of time and millions of investment to get everything together. Because Apple provides both the hardware and the retail channel for applications running on the hardware, it is very important for them that applications use the features the platform offers as much as possible, because a crap user experience will hurt the perception of their own products. Which is why they spent a lot of time on the SDK and the development toolchain. Ask any iOS developer and they will tell you that they did in fact do a pretty good job.
Now how absurd and wrong is it that they don't allow every idiot who knows some random programming language to distribute their stuff via the iOS app store? If you want to program Haskell on your iPhone, go ahead, nobody is stopping you, but don't expect Apple to put your work in the app store, just like Microsoft will not allow you to publish a GW-BASIC program on the Xbox 360, or Sony will allow you to distribute a Java application through PSN. Other companies also provide SDKs that you have to use to publish on their platforms, there's nothing absurd or wrong about that. Stop seeing a phone platform as some kind of hobbyist playground that should allow you to do everything with it you desire.
When was the last time you complained you can't reprogram the scaler in your HDTV, or write a Java program for your car ECU?
Not sure about app distribution, but for games if Apple doesn't allow selling through other channels, they will likely lose ground to Steam, which does. On Steam, the publisher sets the price, so they can keep the price artificially high so that it doesn't affect retail sales (and reap mad profits due to much lower overhead, a win-win for the publisher). Apple doesn't set the price on the app store (though they may refuse it or try to leverage the price down), so I don't see that as a problem.
The other option would be to yield to Steam for major games distribution and stick to applications, tools and maybe indie and smaller games. To give up this cash cow would be a foolish thing for Apple to do IMO, but I've seen them do stupid things in the past.
MS make most of their consumer profits from their OS and Office offerings. Office has already had competition from free packages like OOo and Google docs for a while, it's not changed their market dominance. For everything else (games for Windows licensing and whatnot) there is already a mountain of free competition out there, it's clearly still viable or they'd have stopped doing it. I don't see how penny pincher apps will change that - if anything it'd be another revenue stream for MS if they had their own version of the App Store and took a slice off each sale. Much as I'd love to see Windows and Office selling for pocket money prices, I really don't see this happening as a result of a new distribution channel for (largely cheap independently produced) applications.
Exactly...
One thing I always wonder is why the *** people come up with this 'prediction' every time, except because they are regurgitating some paranoid internet meme about Apple restricting everything, everywhere, using only closed and Apple-approved stuff for everything, trying to put brain control on you, and trying to lock out applications just for fun, out of pure evilness. It's fascinating, especially if you consider that of all the commercial operating systems from a single vendor, OS X is probably the most 'open' one you can get, except for the UI layer and the Objective-C frameworks in the SDK, about everything in OS X is based on open-source software, and the list of source packages on developer.apple.com/opensource has about 2500 entries.
My question is always this: "What does Apple have to win by locking down OS X the way they locked down iOS?". Even a single good argument would surprise me. The only thing people can come up with is 'make more money by selling applications through the Apps store'. Meanwhile Apple barely breaks even on the iOS app store, while they make billions selling hardware and selling music (DRM free, by the way). Somehow it doesn't really make sense introducing reasons for people not to buy Apple hardware, such as restricting what they can install on it. For a phone, there are good reasons to do so, something Microsoft figured out after WM tanked, and Google will soon find out after Android becomes such a big mess no developer will know what they're developing for. For a desktop OS, everybody would lose by deliberately gimping it.
yes goodbuy apple lock down is big on IOS and what stopping from mac os store being the same!
I actually predict pretty much the opposite. iOS developers are able to charge what they can for their tiny apps because of the locked down device that doesn't allow you to install whatever you want.... their competition is each other. When you start talking desktop, you can go out and grab open source software for many of the same games and tasks or play flash versions. iOS developers will probably not be able to get away with charging such a high premium for their apps when people can go get free ones that do the same job. Traditional developers will probably be unaffected.
I don't frequent /. as much as I used to. It's good to see, though, that kdawson's inflammatory "sky is falling" articles (which usually--like in this case--link to an idiotic opinion disguised as reporting) are still um...
Actually, it's not good at all. kdawson is one of the two main reasons I don't bother with /. most of the time. (the other is the idiotic new posting window with dog-slow preview.)
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
"Tomorrow, the iOS developers move in and the traditional Mac developers better stick their heads between their legs and kiss those price points goodbye."
One of the primary market forces is the sheer number of developers. Even if many developers jump over there will still be far fewer developers for the mac than the iPod. In my opinion there still are not enough Mac developers.
Another big market force is number of possible sales. There simply is not the number of Macs in use as there are iPod/pad/phones. To make the same profit you will have to charge more.
It might have a small effect on prices with competition in certain categories, but there are still far fewer choices for the Mac compared to Windows for example. I really don't see a problem here.
Seriously, just the easy of access to it by developers.
There has been an Apple ran 'Mac App Store' on Apples website for at least a year (didn't own a mac before that so I don't know how long its been there).
The only change is now they've documented and made public access the requirements for getting an app on there.
Guess what? You've been able to buy all sorts of Mac apps on it ... including iWorks ... The price didn't even change.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
You are most likely making money off of it.
You're the lumberjack who doesn't think he should have to buy an axe.
I see. So you can't cite the ability of Apple "taking away" the ability to do something, just the fact that Apple didn't support all of the programming methods that you wanted to be able to use, starting the day the product was announced?
In fact, Apple *opened up* the iOS platform after it was announced, and allowed people to write native apps. Remember "web apps is all you get"? I do.
In fact, Apple *opened up* the iTunes store by pushing for no DRM on the music. Remember "can't play the songs I bought on iTunes on any device that's not an iPod?" I do.
In fact, Apple consistently pushes for *open standards* (which may not necessarily be the same as "free / FOSS" standards) in technology. Remember "HTML5 is a better standard than the proprietary Flash?" I do, and I'm damn sure you do too.
In fact, you're simply trolling, and have no answer to my request for a single citation where Apple has "locked down" a device further after its release. Remember where I asked you to provide a single one, and you couldn't? I do.
Considering Apple has explicitly stated that they have zero plans to force people to use the app store, perhaps the better question would be why you consider it even remotely likely that they will?
Apple also said:
and so on.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
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My question is always this: "What does Apple have to win by locking down OS X the way they locked down iOS?". Even a single good argument would surprise me. The only thing people can come up with is 'make more money by selling applications through the Apps store'. Meanwhile Apple barely breaks even on the iOS app store, while they make billions selling hardware and selling music (DRM free, by the way). Somehow it doesn't really make sense introducing reasons for people not to buy Apple hardware, such as restricting what they can install on it.
People made the same argument you're making about dumping Classic (i.e., dumping Classic effectively restricts what can be installed on a Mac OS X machine), but Apple did it anyway. They did it to force user base migration to the new technology (i.e., Mac OS X).
Apple wants to move most or all of its user base to a unified OS that is more like iOS than Mac OS X. We know this because of what Apple themselves have called "Back to the Mac," i.e., bringing features of iOS, such as full screen apps, a home screen like the iOS home screen with app buttons, and an App Store to the next version of Mac OS X (a.k.a. Lion).
Why do they want to do this?
Because over the past decade, Mac OS X product revenue has gone from 90+% of Apple's revenue to less than 30%, and Apple sees this trend continuing. Like it or not, iOS is now the dominant Apple platform, not Mac OS X, and Apple would like to move as many customers as possible to iOS. They'll transition them by making Mac OS X more like iOS, then they'll unify iOS and Mac OS X. Most customers will buy iPads or variations thereof; others will buy iBooks running iOS not Mac OS X; only a few dinosaurs and developers will continue to run Mac OS X.
The Mac App Store is not a plot to take over the Mac software market, though it will be a small profit center for Apple. The Mac App Store is part of a long term plan to accustom Mac OS X users to using iOS, because in the future, they will mostly be iOS users, not Mac OS X users.
1) The release of the iOS SDK is an example of Apple *opening up* their platforms & devices with new features after the point of sale. This simply underscores my point.
2) And there *was* full Cocoa support with the Cocoa-Java bindings. They were extraordinarily underused, and so Apple made the decision to deprecate them.
3) You never had the option for 64-bit Carbon to begin with, they didn't "take that away" from you, they decided not to deliver that to you because they felt the time and money spent on that would be better spent elsewhere. There is a difference, and it's very important.
Unless you want to sit here and claim that you've been betrayed by every piece of software and library call that has ever been deprecated due to no use or obsolescence, none of these points have anything to do with Apple "exerting more control over a device you've already purchased just for the hell of it."
Seriously, did anyone actually read the article before this got posted? Huns, Romans, Star Trek and not one actual fact, just gross speculation that somehow $1 iPhone games is going to make Adobe Creative Suite and World of Warcraft cost $2...um...no.
Ave Molech Setting
Noone thinks that this App Store is going to replace traditional distribution for things like Photoshop or AAA games.
But the Apple market for small utilities and indie games is still very similar to the old PC shareware market of the early 90s and this is what will be changed by an influx of cheap app developers.
Pretty much any utility which has a freeware equivalent on Windows or an open-source counterpart on linux has some guy (sucessfully!) charging money for it on the Mac.
Just as the default expectation of a linux app is that it is open-source, the default expectation on the Apple side is that it will cost you upwards of $20. This has been possible because the developer pool lacks competition and Mac buyers are used to paying a premium. This is what the App Store will hopefully provide some price pressure on.
Other than the Mac since 1984? Basically, the "track record" you're referring to is a single example, iOS, and that's on mobile devices where it makes sense to control what's installed.
I guess I don't see the big deal. The API is in that language, and you can't trivially translate to that API from any other language. What do you want them to do? Provide a bunch of C wrappers all of which do nothing but translate C idioms to Objective-C idioms? That'd be wasteful of memory and CPU time, both of which are expensive for the iPhone/iPod target.
I seem to recall Android's done in Java, and I'm not aware of any support for using Objective-C for Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows Phone 7, Android, or...
Yeah, whatever. If I want to target an API that is built closely around the design and capabilities of a language, the code that talks to that API has to be in that language.
If you want to write tiny little C wrapper stuff in Objective-C, then talk to everything else from C, you're welcome to.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Wrong! This is a real distinction with semantic content.
People don't experience prices linearly. They experience prices in a somewhat disjoint manner, where crossing a particular arbitrary line makes a large difference in peoples' perception of prices.
Wikipedia on price points.
Now, the "factual accuracy of this article is disputed". So it may be false. But even if the theory is wrong, the term "price point" is not just a synonym for "price".
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
This author was barely even tricky or clever.
They are taking the opposite stance for the purpose of subverting an opinion.
They aren't trumpeting in the arrival of cheaper, higher-quality software. Did anybody else pick up on this? He was a Mac developer himself.
He's trying to build justification for iOS devs to start charging like off-the-shelf software does, id est 8~15* more. He doesn't *want* to see the prices drop as he charges, that's why he makes it sound so horrible.
The only reason why he would promote his theory with such confidence is to use that confidence as leverage to change the market opinion. So he's not making a prediction, he's making a bull racket.
That kind of behaviour is what I'd expect from shifty, overweight people who snort oxycontin. Maybe even for sedentary, has-been developers who don't want to change-up or find a second leg to stand on.
But I don't consider it news and I don't think it was a very professionally composed attempt to subvert the market opinion. If you're going to social hack, get some composure, first. Guard your integrity.
I don't even know why I'm typing this here, I should send it to the fruitbasket who wrote tfa.
Anyways, his position is so wildly overstated as to make it incredible.
Inherent *in* his position is a dichotomy distinguishing between two different qualities of not only development but of product.
The producers in both camps know exactly where they stand and how they're viewed. There's no illusion to shatter.
And it's very likely that prices will drop somewhere between 5% and the 13.5~18.5% range, but there's no justification for dropping more than the traditional markdown to markup. The only reason anybody drops more than 50% is clearance and the software companies have no reason to clear house at this point. They just opened up a new point of sale -- if anything their market hold just got stronger. The only reason to drop below 75% is a firesale or closeout. Again, companies aren't going out of business over this, if anything they just got a whole new vista of opportunities to fill for relatively little effort.
Whereas ten employees could work a year designing the update to one app, the same ten can in their spare time each design one or two tiny apps of less function and lower quality, a piece. The ten to twenty apps selling at a buck a piece equate to the same twenty bucks for a powerful, robust app running on a more powerful structure. So it comes out the same, and in the meantime even less effort was spent, fewer programmers were needed so the entire process of organizing an overhead structure for the code project never even occurs, you end up with 10-20 coders instead of 30-200 (oh wow, don't even have to outsource, whaddayaknow) and so the profit margin increases wildly. It's lucrative. It's quick and decent. People eat it up. And best of all, you don't have to charge rock-bottom one-dollar for your myriad of tiny apps because you're a reputable company with something "real" to offer. You get to charge two bucks or maybe... three. Damn... five bucks. Before you know it, you're multiplying profits a million times.
That's great, that's fine. That's why that model continues to work. It has no bearing, no relevance on the world of software that has to be developed using a giant code-sharing framework, with tons of employees specialising in different layers or functions of various parts of the code, and with a whole dev team just to get it off the drawing board. And nobody *thinks* it does, not even the person who wrote the article.
So if anything, opening the store means companies will want to hold prices steady to firmly demonstrate the difference between the two tiers of software quality apparent in the dichotomy, considering neither one threatens the other in any way, shape, or form.
God, what a terrible article.
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
The grandparent is spreading FUD. GNUstep has theme support and the project leader spent Christmas working on
Christmas was less than two weeks ago. I prefer to assume good faith: not having checked on a long-standing situation in the past two weeks is lag, not FUD.
a GNOME theme that mimics the currently-selected GTK theme [...] There is also a Windows theme that does something similar with the UXTheme API
Good steps.
Unrelated WTF: Why can I no longer paste into Slashdot text boxes? Is this some kind of anti-troll thing?
The JavaScript used on idle.slashdot.org and *.slashdot.org/story/ is defective. Google Chrome won't let me paste into a "Reply to This" textarea on a /story/ page unless it's empty. You can try editing the entire comment in Notepad or Gedit and then paste it once it's finished. The JavaScript used on comments.pl works better; try opening a comment ID (e.g. #34766084) in a new window before you click "Reply to This", and pasting into a textarea will work fine. Or under Firefox, you can middle-click "Reply to This" to get the pre-D2 comment interface.
Buying from your website: no middleman.
A software firm can run its own web site, take payment itself, develop its own system to distribute copies of a program to users, develop its own technology to measure whether running copies are authentic, and make sure the program is listed on popular lists of applications. Or it can concentrate on its core competency and hire Apple for the rest.
I think a Netflix player wouldn't _contain_ any rental content.
I'd advise against construing "contain" so narrowly. Consider that Apple rejected the Project Gutenberg app that didn't "contain" the Kama Sutra but allowed the user to download and read any of a large set of books, one of which was the Kama Sutra.
Whether there were good reasons for the decisions or not, they were all examples of Apple changing its mind--saying one thing would be the case, then suddenly turning around and doing something else. Just because you agreed with them doesn't mean Apple won't change its mind on something you (or I) disagree with.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
I kill-filed kdawson so I wouldn't have to listen to his inflammatory sensationalist drivel. Yet here he is, still on my front page. It vexes me. I am terribly vexed.
On the iPhone, apps are toys that make the phone more interesting, so people are willing to pay $0.99 for them but not much more. On the iPad, you expect greater functionality, or at least better interface, because the screen is bigger and it's a more apparently useful device on which you can do more, or do the same more easily. The Mac is just the next rung on that ladder, and will command higher premiums for a better experience.
If Harbormaster offers the identical version on the iPhone, iPad, and Mac, it'll cost the same. But what we've already seen is that the Ipad version is bigger and better, and costs more. Any app with a more enriched Mac version will carry a price premium for it, quite appropriately, and people will pay more for it.
The glut of devs and available apps will create some downward price pressure, but anyone offering anything that takes advantage of the greater capabilities of the Mac will still get a higher price for it. The iPad didn't get trapped in the iPhone's price swamp; the Mac won't get caught in the iPad's.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
We're not talking about Apple "changing their mind" - any business that doesn't "change its mind" as the competitive landscape changes is moribund.
What we are talking about is Apple's track record of *behaving in the manner you fear they will*. Specifically, where is their history of "locking down" a device that they've already sold you so that something you were previously able to do with that device is no longer possible? I'd say their history there is actually in the opposite direction - expanding the capabilities of the device from its initial state as they release new software.
If "I could, conceivably, change my mind on a whim" is the only measure we use to determine whether or not something will happen, then RMS could decide to abandon GNU and the FSF tomorrow, and Linus could decide to abandon Linux and work on Windows 8. Your devoted wife of 20 years could decide she wants to murder you tomorrow. That's all *possible*. The question is, is it *likely*? Is there a *reason* to expect that this outcome is likely, or at least more likely than some other alternative?
And if you can't cite a pattern of activity that makes you think this outcome is likely, then you're simply declaring somebody guilty and hand-waving away your burden of proof. It's paranoia, not a prediction.
More than $15 for most utilities is a ripoff.
Microsoft will not allow you to publish a GW-BASIC program on the Xbox 360
If you write a GW-BASIC compiler targetting .NET & XNA, and use it to write your game, Microsoft will happily allow you to publish it. Apple won't. Therein lies the difference.
Most ports of applications require nothing more than C and/or C++
Not all apps are written in C or C++. A lot are written in Java or C#.
The Cocoa wrapper for a C++ game for example is minimal.
What does the Cocoa wrapper for a C# app or game originally written for WPF or XNA look like?
Where are these price points exactly?
All your argument does is prove that piracy can act as free marketing for a product.
The same crowd that would use a pirated Photoshop when free or cheap shareware alternatives would have served them just as well are the ones perpetuating the idea that Photoshop is a "superior product" worth having. (At the same time, they obviously aren't the target market for Photoshop sales, and wouldn't resort to shelling out many hundreds of dollar for a legal license if it was forced upon them. They'd just make do with those cheaper or free alternatives.)
If only a small segment of true professionals ever installed and used Photoshop, I'd say Adobe would have to spend far more on advertising (cutting into their profits) to keep up the level of name recognition and respect they've gotten for free from all the "wanna be" users praising and passing around pirated copies.
Your comment makes no sense. No one was using the "Classic Environment" unless they had already migrated to OSX. Classic was provided in the first place to enable migration to OSX. It wasn't removed until 7 years later, by which time it had performed it's function. The reason for removing it is that Macs were transitioning to x86 processors, and it made no sense to put work into porting it.
Apple is bringing OS elements that make sense back to the Mac, in cases where they add something useful. That doesn't mean they are making a unified UI. The Cocoa Touch UI is designed specifically for touch screens, and makes no sense on a mouse or trackpad controlled UI. Nor is it suitable for professional/office tools of the type people run on Macs.
The Mac UI will remain distinct from the iPad UI, just as the iPad UI is distinct from the iPhone UI.
There's a lot of validity to it, too. Most of the software you see for, say, an iPhone or iPad, is relatively small in size and developed by a single person or very small team. When these same individuals decide to port it over to sell for OS X in the Mac online store? They're just re-using the same codebase with modifications for screen resolution and input devices, in most cases. (In fact, they may have even started out designing it to handle the larger screen resolution of a Mac anyway, if they were "future proofing" the iOS app for HD displays that might come along down the road.)
You're comparing this type of project to large commercial undertakings .... Two vastly different scenarios.
And in some of the big commercial projects? I'd argue that a lot of money is wasted, too. I've said before, for example, that too much money on modern game development is wasted on licensing "name brand" soundtracks. When I go to play the latest EA Sports title on my PS3, I don't need it to have a whole CD's worth of music tracks from bands like Nickelback or Fallout Boy on it. I'd rather have the game for $5-10 less, and just have original or royalty-free background music tracks in the thing. It doesn't have any effect on the quality of the gameplay itself. And documentation? That's almost laughable, considering practically ALL the software I ever purchased that I have real books or printed manuals for are 10+ years old now! Basically, as programs got more advanced and expensive, they tossed out the idea that good documentation was worth including. These days, they want you to basically figure it out on your own with the aid of built-in help dialogs, and to pay for training/support (often from the software vendor themselves) for help beyond that!
What this means is there will be a way for solo developers of shareware to be able to put stuff into the marketplace and actually see a return, instead of seeing only 1 in 10000 users actually pay their shareware fee. ...about 10 years too late for me.
There was an unknown error in the submission.
Breaking news: sky blue, grass green, water wet, predictions of looming macpocalypse drive clicks, ad revenue. Details tonight at 10.
0 1 - just my two bits
Most of the stuff in the iphone store I wouldn't pay for at all on a windows or linux box. They are not as easy to find I guess as an app store but I am not sure easy to find makes it work an infinite amount more money. While there is a world of difference between the price point of games on the iphone and the PC/Mac, there is also a world of difference is quality. If you compare similar products you will find that they are of similar prices.
The idea is that they might decide that unsigned code is deprecated on consumer machines, the way they decided Java code was deprecated and Carbon was deprecated.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Yes, and the idea that they would do what you're suggesting is foolish for lots of technical and business reasons.
RMS has said that he doesn't object to people making a living off of software. Do we jump from there to saying that he fully embraces proprietary software and thus has abandoned the FSF, GNU, and the GPL? It could happen TOMORROW!
And that's just about as likely as your Apple Doomsday scenario.
The problem is, you are *fundamentally misunderstanding* Apple's products. The iPad is *meant* to be an appliance. The iPod is *meant* to be an appliance. The AppleTV is *meant* to be an appliance. The MacBook and iMac and Mac Mini and Mac Pro lines are *meant* to be general-purpose computers.
They are two different sets of products for two complementary needs.
But I'm not surprised that, on Slashdot, where everything with a processor and memory MUST be 'open' and 'hackable,' that this nuance is completely lost on someone with a hate-on for Apple.
And as far as "java code being deprecated", that's bullshit and you know it. They decided they weren't going to continue supporting Java bindings for their UI frameworks because *almost nobody* was using them.
Java is alive and well on the Mac if you want to use it - In fact, I can and do run Eclipse just fine, javac works just fine, and a host of JNLP-based apps work just fine as well. Does it make your life harder than ObjC with native bindings? Perhaps. But how much time and effort should they be expected to expend on making sure that an unused part of their OS is kept up to date? Dev hours & budget are a limited resource.
While I mostly agree with what you're saying in this thread, apple did specify that they were porting the carbon API to 64 bit and then the next year told everyone (again at WWDC) that carbon would never be 64 bit and they should rewrite using the cocoa APIs. This didn't go over well for a number of developers (adobe was a big one IIRC). As a mac developer myself, not caring about 64 bit carbon I heard about it from a number of sources. Granted, this didn't make it to release, but it wasn't one of apple's better moments with it's 3rd party developer community.
That said, I agree with their decision to go cocoa only and understand it. However it was handled very poorly.
Did you cut and paste all that out of an iPhone discussion thread? Because here, we are talking about MacOS, on Mac computers, which are closed, but not anywhere near as closed as their cell phones and music players.
This article has so many holes that swiss cheese is jealous. I'm not sure if it was sarcasm, a joke or something else. This App store may turn out like Ping. This may help a few developers but are people going to pay .99 for Air Hockey when some free Flash version resides on some website? I'm not sure if this will even drive gaming on the Mac, We'll take a "wait and see" approach with the Mac "App Store"
Mac can run IL in Mono, but the Store guidelines prohibit it
Quote the rule that prohibits it.
"Apps that use deprecated or optionally installed technologies (e.g., Java, Rosetta) will be rejected"
I mentioned this rule against "deprecated or optionally installed technologies" in another comment. I imagine that any rule using the JVM as an example would likewise apply to the similar CLR.
That's why developers with portability in mind tend to write their model in C.
I understand the reason behind this. But some interesting platforms cannot run third-party C code at all, such as BlackBerry, Windows Phone 7, and Xbox Live Indie Games.
If anything they'd be cheaper if sold in a less restricted market place.
So, where is that marketplace? The flea market? If you go to a Bricks-and-Mortar establishment, or to Amazon they will promote some goods over others and refuse to carry some goods. The app store permits competition and that's why it's been a race to the bottom of the profit margin barrel. The only thing between you and the app you want is the rafts of crap.
This is still less restricted than an app store that has zero alternative if your app is not approved or is pulled after the fact. You can always go to another brick and mortar store, set up your own web site etc. If sales are restricted to an app store there is no such option.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
I guess my point is not that the App store isn't restricted, but that it is only differently restricted, not less restricted than other options.
I refuse to play in the walled garden, but that doesn't mean it's inherently more restrictive than any other individual option, only as compared to all other options combined. Fortunately, there are alternatives to the app store already.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
If you write a GW-BASIC compiler targetting .NET & XNA, and use it to write your game, Microsoft will happily allow you to publish it. Apple won't. Therein lies the difference.
Same on Android. If it runs, you can publish it.
Hell you can publish it even if it doesn't run, but don't expect good reviews (and it'll probably get delisted).
The only reason you can't program Android apps in C#, or any other language, is because no one has made the development tools for it. Yet.
The Windows Shareware market died a long time ago... the market filled up with mostly free knock offs, and the quality dropped. There is some try-before-you-buy demoware, and some nagware, but no real "shareware" except a handful of IT Applications that old time IT guys are happy to buy.
Meanwhile, the Mac Shareware market has been doing alright. Versiontracker.com was THE source for Mac Shareware applications, but now it is as distributed and messy as the Windows one. The funny thing is, I have bought a couple of $20 - $40 utilities on my Mac, and small sized applications, and the process is annoying.
As a result, lots of shareware level software for the Mac has sold through Apple resellers and now the Apple store in boxed format. If you ever go to a Staples/Office Depot/Office Max, you'll see rows of that for the PC, the market still exists, we just ignore it because it doesn't cater to techies.
If I can setup a simple account with Apple - or use the one I use at home for ordering prints of the kids for great grandparents, etc., then I might buy a bunch of $1 - $10 utilities.
And that's great for the Mac ecosystem.
Will prices drop, probably.
When I see a program in an Apple Store for $50 (also available on their website for $50, probably contractual obligation), how much of that goes to the actual developer? $15-$20? (guessing retail + distribution channel grabs a lot).
If the developer puts it on the App Store for $30, he probably gets the same $20, and sells a lot more units because the price is lower.
This is going to be a HUGE boon for Apple developers.
The problem is, you are *fundamentally misunderstanding* Apple's products. The iPad is *meant* to be an appliance. The iPod is *meant* to be an appliance. The AppleTV is *meant* to be an appliance. The MacBook and iMac and Mac Mini and Mac Pro lines are *meant* to be general-purpose computers.
You need to study Apple history. Steve Jobs always meant the Macintosh to be an appliance. It's the word he used right from its introduction.
And as far as "java code being deprecated", that's bullshit and you know it. They decided they weren't going to continue supporting Java bindings for their UI frameworks because *almost nobody* was using them.
Java is alive and well on the Mac if you want to use it
Except that you are prohibited from distributing Java applications via the Mac App Store. That's what I mean by deprecated.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Then perhaps the "appliance" term isn't quite the best fit. Let's try this: Stand-alone. iOS devices aren't intended to be *standalone* devices - they are designed to be companions, almost peripherals, to a general-purpose computer, which would be the Mac. If you can't look at the product lineup, and see that they are targeting very different use cases with Mac OS X and iOS, then again - you've fundamentally misunderstood their product lineup.
Also, there's a world of difference between "you can't install it this way" and "deprecated."
The Java-Cocoa bindings were deprecated back in 2005? 2006? The Java install is an *optional* install, because it's not controlled, developed, or released by Apple. As such, they can't guarantee that the package (or some specific version of that package) is installed on a given Mac, and as such, it's not suitable for distribution in the App Store.
You want to write Java Apps on a Mac? Go for it. You can, and it looks like Oracle is committing to continue maintaining Java on the Mac, so you will probably have a reasonable guarantee of being able to run it. The java apps run, and they run fine. They look a little clunky if they have a graphical UI, and that's about the only thing you'd notice that would tell you it's not a standard Cocoa app.
Deprecated means "going to be phased out and won't work in a future release," not "you can't distribute it via our app store."
Microsoft's .NET goes a long way towards making it easy to use a diverse range of programming languages within a single application.
But not including C or C++, the languages in which software being ported from other platforms is written. Sure, there's C++/CLI, but standard C++ fails to compile in C++/CLI's verifiably type-safe mode (/clr:safe), and verifiably type-safe C++/CLI fails to compile on a standard C++ compiler because the syntax for arrays and pointers is different. So if you want to target Xbox Live Indie Games or Windows Phone 7, it's rewrite time.
What do you want them to do? Provide a bunch of C wrappers all of which do nothing but translate C idioms to Objective-C idioms?
Ideally, it'd be an Objective-C front-end and a back-end in some other language, using model-view-controller or some other multitier architecture. But some platform gatekeepers dictate what languages can be used even for the back-end, encouraging development of a new application from the ground up over porting an existing application from another platform.
I seem to recall Android's done in Java, and I'm not aware of any support for using Objective-C for Windows XP, Windows 7
GNUstep is a free clone of Cocoa for GNU/Linux and Windows.
Windows Phone 7
This is because Microsoft provides no way to P/Invoke native code or load unsafe IL on Windows Phone 7. Objective-C includes C as a subset, and C does not map well onto the CLR.
Android
DroidStep is a free proof-of-concept clone of Cocoa Touch for Android NDK, based on GNUstep.
The iPad is *meant* to be an appliance. [...] The MacBook and iMac and Mac Mini and Mac Pro lines are *meant* to be general-purpose computers.
Apple has chosen not to make a low-end netbook; instead, it makes the iPad. So people looking for an Apple product below MacBook Air are forced to either choose an appliance instead of a general-purpose computer or drop Apple.
The iPod is *meant* to be an appliance. The AppleTV is *meant* to be an appliance.
What alternative to the iPod touch or Apple TV should I choose if I want a general-purpose computer?
And as far as "java code being deprecated", that's bullshit and you know it.
From page 3: "Apps that use deprecated or optionally installed technologies (e.g., Java, Rosetta) will be rejected"
Which is exactly the point. Like many Mac users, I worry that the Mac store will become the only source of allowed Mac applications for non-pro Macs, with a token OS X Pro kept around at $500 for graphic arts pros and others who absolutely need to run software from anywhere, and a locked OS X for everyone else. I hope I'm wrong, though, as I just bought a new Mac...
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
The only reason you can't program Android apps in C#, or any other language, is because no one has made the development tools for it. Yet.
They're working on it.
Mac software has historically been priced on a parity with other desktop software. That means small products are about $20. Utilities run in the $50-60 range. Games in the $50 range. Productivity packages and creative tools in the hundreds, and specialty software — well, the sky's the limit. Tomorrow, the sky will fall. Tomorrow, the iOS developers move in and the traditional Mac developers better stick their heads between their legs and kiss those price points goodbye.
Yeah, because that's exactly what's happened on the PC (read: Windows, not Mac) since there are thousands and thousands of open-source and cheap apps competing against traditionally-sold software--wait. No, it isn't like that at all.
If Apple's products don't address your needs, then don't buy an Apple product.
Which is very close to what I meant by "or drop Apple".
The Nokia N900, from all the stuff I read about it here on /., seems to be a ridiculously powerful handheld computer that runs Linux.
I just wish the N900 were available in my city to try in a store, as opposed to having to ship one in to Fort Wayne, try it, hope I like it, and pay return shipping and a 15 percent restocking fee if I end up not liking it. Somehow Apple managed to get into stores where Nokia failed.
My price point is pretty low, since I've spent $10 on software in the last ten years, not counting operating systems I was forced to buy with computers.