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Mac OS X 10.6.6 Introduces App Store
Orome1 writes "Apple today released Mac OS X 10.6.6 which increases the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac. What's also very important in this release is the introduction of the long-awaited Mac App Store with more than 1,000 free and paid apps."
People were previously not able to buy enough Apple products online, in the Apple store, and Best Buy and Walmart. Finally a new way to consume more!
I went to battle M.C. Escher, but drew a blank.
Looks like CmdrTaco has been studying at the Fox News School of Journalistic Neutrality. I believe the preferred formulation would be, "Apple today released Mac OS X 10.6.6 which Apple claims 'increases the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac'".
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
without a community repo.
And that's the big difference. Developers can't just set up their own PPAs and the like; instead, they have to pay $8.25 per month for hosting and rely on review guidelines that will be hotly contested.
It's an interesting move, and it brings us one step closer to the end of the "PC era."
Does it?
As far as I know, it does nothing new besides offering Mac users a shortcut.
Before, you'd have to Open Up Google and type in "Mac Apps" and then sift through the top 20 ranked pages! The horror!
That's not an analogous situation though. In the case of iOS, you can only install an application if it's available in the iOS App Store (ignoring jail breaking and such, of course). The only way around that would be to have a web application, which in many ways is a poor substitute for having a native app. But in the case of OS X, you can still install/build any application you'd like. It's not as though using Steam prevents you from buying Starcraft II from Blizzard. In fact, the Mac App Store model is explicitly meant for types of applications that don't have to make system changes or integrate with the OS, something entire classes of desktop applications need to be able to do. Unlike iOS, this isn't attempting to be the only avenue for application installation, it's simply meant to be convenient. (can use your Apple ID, download and update your apps through one central location, develop and distribute paid applications without having to have your own purchasing infrastructure, etc)
Really? Is that why I can move my home directory from one linux install to another and the programs will still run?
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
Don't like the Mac App Store, but like the repository concept? Install and use Bodega - http://www.appbodega.com./ They have no guidelines, and have said they're not going anywhere.
Or, you know, continue downloading and installing disk image and other installer files from the web like you've always done.
Apple "innovates" again and re-invents the package manager Linux has had for ages...
Yeah, pretty much. I wish it had not taken them so long though. I wish they'd do a better job copying virtual desktops while they're at it. I notice Canonical innovated and added apps for sale to their own app repositories. Now I wish Linux distros would innovate and re-invent GNU-step style packages and required package signing with real credentials to get into the default repositories, and heck system services while they're at it.
I really, really like it when OS's copy the best parts of other OS's and my daily computing experience is made easier. I don't really care that someone else came up with something first.
The Debian project does have some fairly strict guidelines: they're just not related to content, so much as they are licensing of content. It must be "free" and unencumbered. They also, I suspect, have some guidelines/rules related to functionality, packaging namespace, privacy functionality,
Honestly, aside from the guidelines which mainly pertain to for-pay programs and legal liability (crude content, violence, etc.) I didn't really see anything in the Apple dev guidelines that jumped out at me and said "bad!" It's mostly just "if you want to play ball with us, you have to play by our rules." Exclusionary? Sure, if the dev wants to do something different, sure.
FreeBSD doesn't do 'repositories', so to speak. They do ports, and then FreeBSD. They're conveniently independent (I suspect so that the FreeBSD project can claim superior security to everything else). Even then, ports don't really have 'guidelines'. "I maintain this port and I'll update it as I please, consequences be damned" seems to be the guiding message, though.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
What the fuck are you on about? The Mac App Store has the same requirements as the Snow Leopard release:
1) Mac system running Intel processor;
2) 1 GB of RAM;
3) 5 GB of disk space;
4) DVD Drive
That's it. The entirety of the "required specs" to run Snow Leopard. There is no Intel mac that's been released since 2006 that doesn't have at least those specs, unless you ripped hardware out of it, or put together a Hackintosh of your own, and did it badly, and cheaply.
Or are you complaining because *you decided* not to upgrade to Snow Leopard, and now can't upgrade to the latest Snow Leopard patch, which includes the App Store?
Really? Is that why I can move my home directory from one linux install to another and the programs will still run?
Please don't even argue this point. Linux is a bit behind the curve and the only people who would argue otherwise are people who don't use both OS's. Sure you can copy your home directory on Linux, or use the stored installer (if you are expert enough to know where they go) for an individual app (on some distros)... all provided you are running on the same architecture.
With OS X you can literally drag an application into a chat window to a friend, who is running a different version of your OS, running on a different chipset and that friend can double click the app and run it. It's a great deal more painless since all the apps are the installers and are self contained directories ending in .app. It's one of the things Apple got right and where no Linux distro has enough pull to push change, especially since it is not a big pain point for end users. Additionally, the OpenStep packages make running software off a network drive or flash drive or anywhere really, easier by allowing for multiple sets of preferences and multiple included binaries to get around the whole hack of symlinks or multiple copies for multiple architectures.
Linux is not ahead in every area, just as OS X and Windows are behind in other areas. Get over it.
If "developers will hand over 30 percent of the purchase price to Apple," what will consumer prices be?
Have you ever worked in the end user software development business? 30% going to distribution, credit card processing, and managing updates isn't bad. When you add in the amount of publicity it generates by being in THE searchable software database for end users, well, likely prices will drop as advertising will drive more sales, more price competition, and larger volumes.
My four year old Intel-Mac doesn't have the required specs.
It has. You are just too cheap to spend $29 on Snow Leopard.
There is more to 10.6.6 then just the App Store, not much more but there are various patches and security updates also included.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
This isn't actually true is it? Can I send an app built on my linux box to someone running a different arch & distro -- no! Can an Apple user send a current intel-only app to someone running OSX on PPC or iOS on a mobile device -- no! Then we get to the question of why anybody would ever want to copy a raw binary instead of using a linux distros package manager?
Fat binaries were a temporary workaround and both Apple and MS include emulators. Can I run a linux ARM binary via a distro under QEMU from another arch -- yes.
The Debian project does have some fairly strict guidelines: they're just not related to content, so much as they are licensing of content. It must be "free" and unencumbered.
Wrong. They just have separate sections; main, contrib and non-free, all maintained by the Debian project. You can search for non-free packages as easily as with free packages: http://www.debian.org/distrib/packages#search_packages
Sure, they must be legality distributable binaries - or else Debian themselves couldn't put it in the mirror - but it's not required to be free software. Adobe Flash, the proprietary Oracle JDK, non-free firmware, there are plenty of non-free packages in Debian.
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Apps have to return a special exit code when the appstore verification fails (for example when the app was copied from another Mac). The global app launcher has to check for that exit code and launch the verification process in that case. I guess the dock app also needs minor modifications for that download animation.
I very seriously doubt that this is where we are heading in the short or mid-term. I know it's fun to speculate on worst-case scenarios, there haven't been any indications so far that OS X is being groomed to be locked down. Apple has continued to treat the Macintosh as the center of the Apple ecosystem (hell one of the big techie complaints about the iPad is that it requires a computer to set up and that it is not a stand-alone device).
If something like this were to happen, I think it is much more likely that it would take the form of the Mac App Store being sufficiently popular with Mac users that it's just not practical to sell software outside of it as the user base has become blind to it. (This is more or less what what intellitech was talking about) While that is in effect the same situation you're talking about, in that case it would be the users who essentially decided (with their wallets) that is how they prefer to acquire applications, not something that was imposed on users or developers by Apple itself.
I think that's a fair concern, but I'm a little skeptical. There were similar concerns about Steam being a go-Steam-or-go-home platform for game developers, but so far it's been that the major players decide for themselves if they want to use it and it's been a boon for indie game developers who might never have the attention of potential buyers.
There are going to be plenty of firmly-established OS X application developers that are not going to want to use the Mac App Store because they want/prefer their own purchasing platform or can't provide their software within the requirements of a Mac Store Application (system modifications, OS integration, etc). I wouldn't be surprised if Adobe was one of them; despite the tiff over Flash, they are important to the customer base for their other tools.
Even assuming they want to, Apple isn't going be able to tell them to play ball or go home. As long as that door is open, the Mac Store will be the go to place for general consumer applications (convenience, price) and independent development (exposure, low entry point).
I've had Macs for about 6 years now. So far I haven't found anything that restricted me. I do have enough sense to keep my data in formats that I can move around but there's nothing in OS X that forces me to stay there. On the Mac I keep my photos in iPhoto but only use jpgs, all my music is in iTunes but ever file is an unrestricted mp3, I use Firefox or Chrome, OpenOffice, Emacs, Adium, KeepassX, etc. A couple of times I've backed up my data onto an external drive and moved it over to a Linux computer and was able to use all of my data. I use a Mac purely for convenience but I could be just as functional with Linux. I don't have an iPhone or Pad so I can't argue with you on those.
Alex, I'll take keybindings not used by Emacs for $400....
The App store detected my copy of Aperture and considers it as being installed.
Jonathanjk.com
Here are the stats I see on our website (major financial institution):
The remaining 2.73% is crap data.
With the first link, the chain is forged.
Furthermore, the framework is open to ANYONE.
You can package ANY app and create your own Debian repository if you so desire. It doesn't matter who you are or what your app is or what it does or how it's licensed.
apt itself is licensed and distributed like any other bit of free software.
Skype, Hulu, Sun, Oracle, Indie developers. They can all have their own deb packages and repositories.
They can all be managed with the same interface as your "main" packages.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Actually, Linux relies upon dependency resolution at install time. OS X uses self contained packages with a dynamic linking scheme. That's the difference I was bringing up and what enables OS X to have more easily portable applications and better ability to use remote software.
Again, no, you seem to misunderstand what linux does and does not do.
Both systems work in both of the ways you have described. See e.g. MATLAB for linux (no install time dependency resolution), or Fink/Macports which does install-time dependency resolution on OSX.
On OS X the executable(s) and resources are in the same directory along with the libraries that aren't standard on the OS.
That's exactly the same way that 3rd party self-contined rather than package-managed software works on Linux. And the standard Linux way is exactly the same way that third-party package-managed software works on OSX (e.g. Fink).
As for unable to share libraries, that's not true. They do share libraries dynamically linking to the most up to date within the stable line. You can literally install a singed package and your other apps will upgrade or fall back to their own copy as needed because multiple copies are stored (one per app that uses it).
Are you claiming that if two different .apps have the same .dylib buried in their directory somewhere, then when the two apps are running, only one copy of the .dylib will reside in RAM? If so, then [citation needed] because I've never heard of that happening before.
It doesn't work as well, especially for...
No, it works vastly better except for... ...apps installed not using the package manger (as a Linux user I'm sure you have to deal with these as well) and it falls down in the several, specific use cases I mentioned in my last post (and which you did not address).
Of course the package manager doesn't manage non-packages. Much like the .app method doesn't help executables that aren't .apps. For non managed packages the install process is usually a case or running the installer executable, which is I will grant more awkward than using a .app on OSX (though plenty of OSX programs also seem to require installing, too). But not much, given that the majority of installed software is done through the package management system.
For the managed packages everything works effortlessly, like magic.
OK, back to your other points. I've never had a problem with networked executables. Things seem to run over NFS just as well as locally. And multi-arch programs also seem to run just fine. I believe that matlab uses a wrapper script internally to invoke the correct binary. But frankly, I run it and it works.
You do know that basically no applications get stored in /sw/bin right? That's mostly for bad ports and legacy software. Even OpenOffice installs as a .app these days and it can be stored anywhere the user likes.
No, everything fink installs goes in /sw. It isn't just "legacy" things as fink has up to date versions of plenty of packages. I find that the term "legacy" in computing is generally used as a pejorative, to dismiss a piece of software without offering any coherent reasons.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Why do we need to upgrade and reboot the operating system to run, just, a new application?
Love it or hate it, Apple will drag its userbase, kicking and screaming if necessary, forward. In the end it's for the good of both Apple and their customers. If you want to live in the past, install windows xp ;)
Apple supports their OS to, at most, one version back. Period. No exceptions, no extensions. But they also do their damndest to make the transitions as painless/smooth/transparent as possible. (classic,rosetta,etc) If you make it easy and orderly, and do it periodically, it's not a problem for the vast majority of users.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
I think the opposite is true. It will be a boon to the small developer. Reduced overhead, no payment handling headaches, and reduced piracy make it much easier for a small shop to compete. The 30% is a bargain.
I'll go to my grave not knowing why people freak out so much about this. I have not heard of a single developer who has done WORSE in iOS than they did in Palm, WinCE, etc. Didn't anyone ever take Econ 1, or hell, 2nd grade math? Which would you rather have: 100% of a very small number, or 70% of a much, much larger number?
Hell, Apple could take 99% of my money if it meant I'd sell 1000x more copies of my app, because (0.01 x 1000) > (1 x 1).
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Taking your made up example at face value: If the same product that used to be $75 is now $25, then they'll sell more of them. If they sell 5 times as many, then they'll have more income.
And it's not just the lower prices that are going to drive increases in unit sales, it's convenience. Just as it was with the iPhone App Store.
Indie developers with decent products are going to be doing much better out of the app store than they did before it.
Bullshit. This upgrade will run on all Intel Macs. It you've bought Snow Leopard. You of course don't get updates to software you haven't bought.
Just like your Intel Mac is upgradable to Snow Leopard. For considerably less money than the Windows upgrade would cost you.
Now now, it's just barely possible he's too cheap to spend $25 on memory.