
Mozilla Labs lead: Why you want a world with multiple app stores - mbrubeck
http://blog.finette.co.uk/post/1473250030/why-you-want-a-world-with-multiple-app-stores
======
sudont
Once again a Mozilla affiliate misses the mark completely.

Apple is not a developer-facing company in the slightest anymore: they make
products for consumers by and whole. Every single one of Pascal's arguments is
to developers, and his lone point for consumers is really about the operator
not letting developers do things all willy-nilly. Apple needs developers, they
provide for developers, but their platforms are _built for consumers._ Meaning
that features for developers aren't in the final build.

Repo competition is great for developers, but bad for consumers, in that yes,
consumers _really do get that confused._ "Vibrant, more dynamic, more
innovative place" means odd changes and sharp edges, and most computer _users_
don't want that in the slightest. Stable, similar and uniform are awesome for
the majority of users, even if the curve is slightly behind what early-
adopting technical users want.

You know how some people think that Microsoft Word is their operating system?
Yeah.

~~~
bryanlarsen
Why does it matter that Apple is a consumer-facing company? This was a blog
article written for developers.

If it's "all about the apps", then cons for developers mean cons for the
users, in the long term.

And then you go and repeat an argument that the blog writer acknowledges as
one of the tradeoffs in the article. So it's not like the blog writer
disagrees with you fundamentally, it's just that you both have different ideas
of the relative importance of "stable, similar and uniform"

And he does list some benefits of alternative app stores for consumers.

~~~
sudont
It matters because he says developer needs should take precedent in a consumer
product.

Most people will never care about the benefits of competition between stores,
and the negative of confusion will greatly outweigh the benefits. I really,
really want to stress that. It's hard for anyone here to understand, but
computers _are pretty damn scary_ for many people.

Android's app model is much better for anyone who reads HN (me included), but
I don't know any non-technical Android users who have ever downloaded an app
from the marketplace, let alone side-loaded one.

~~~
bryanlarsen
_It matters because he says developer needs should take precedent in a
consumer product._

Your argument would be stronger if he actually said that.

------
glhaynes
_Current stores nearly unisono suffer from poor search functionality, lack of
social discovery features_

There are all sorts of sites like appshopper.com, though, that provide
alternate interfaces to enable such things. It's not like Apple's App Store
(and I'm sure Google's Marketplace is no less open in this way) is closed to
outside linkage.

