

Mac App Store: Open for Business - shawndumas
http://www.apple.com/mac/app-store/

======
pclark
Is it just me or is the .app an abomination of a UI?

Why does Apple now have three different window control styles?
<http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20635/Screenshots/r3da.png>

Why are there back buttons ("like a browser") but you can't click hold to get
the contextual drop down?

The navigation (Featured, Top Charts, etc) are so far away from _the other
controls_ (Back and Forward) its insanely awkward to use.

It feels kind of ... weird using an app store on my Mac. I guess because I'm
fortunate in that I know where to look for Mac applications, I don't really
have the burning need for a central place.

~~~
rimantas

      Why does Apple now have three different window control
      styles? http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20635/Screenshots/r3da.png
    

Only three? That makes very consistent interface then.

    
    
      Why are there back buttons ("like a browser") but you can't
      right hand click to get the contextual drop down?
    

Back buttons are there, you know, to get back. Very common usage pattern.
Contextual drop down? Not that common. Even Safari does not have it. Neither
does Opera on OS X.

    
    
      The navigation (Featured, Top Charts, etc) are so far away from the
      other controls (Back and Forward) its insanely awkward to use.
    

Jus like on every web page? Does not cause much trouble though.

~~~
pclark
Seriously...

    
    
      Only three? That makes very consistent interface then.
    

How is three good? Why are we applauding that, when, last week, Apple had
_two_ styles? I don't use Windows much but I'm pretty sure 99% of all the
applications use the same window elements and style (this one:
[http://media.arstechnica.com/images/windows7/Peek%20-%20Befo...](http://media.arstechnica.com/images/windows7/Peek%20-%20Before.png))

    
    
      Back buttons are there, you know, to get back. Very common usage pattern. 
      Contextual drop down? Not that common. Even Safari does not have it. Neither does Opera on OS X.
    

It isn't right click, its click and hold. Same difference. Safari has it. App
store doesn't.

    
    
      Jus like on every web page? Does not cause much trouble though.
    

Lets compare Safari to App Store in terms of distance...
<http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20635/Screenshots/1bwg.png>

~~~
sausagefeet
99% of Mac apps use the same window elements and style too...

~~~
achompas
We're talking about Safari and iTunes--two of Apple's most frequently used
apps. They might represent 1% of the app space, but they represent a large
majority of the app usage space.

------
pavlov
I'm impressed with the Mac App Store so far. Pretty bold of Apple to push it
so prominently onto every Mac user's Dock as part of a point update to the
operating system.

My little landscape generator app, _Turtledoveland_ , is currently at #5 on
the Top Paid list for the Graphics & Design category.

I'll be sure to let HN know what kind of sales numbers that actually means,
once the numbers come in...

~~~
telemachos
> Pretty bold of Apple to push it so prominently onto every Mac user's Dock as
> part of a point update to the operating system.

I hope you make just bucket loads of cash. However, I wouldn't call it pretty
bold. I would call it "fucking obnoxious." (Also, and totally off-topic, why
does Apple keep insisting that I _restart_ my damn machines for dinky-ass
upgrades like this?)

~~~
danudey
Because it's an entire OS update. It includes not just the Mac App Store app,
but all the underlying functionality to enable it.

------
rudd
I will say this: Apple is not afraid to leave old technology behind. While
website XYZ aims to support multiple versions of every browser, including
those released a decade ago (IE6), Apple won't even support Leopard with its
new store, which was the version that came with the Mac I got just over a year
ago.

~~~
axomhacker
Supporting old browsers by XYZ: you have to, to profit.

Supporting old OS by Apple: of course they want you to upgrade, to profit.

I would not say that's because Apple is brave, it makes business sense.

~~~
riobard
By the very same logic Microsoft should push as strong as Apple because it
makes even more business sense for them. They don't sell hardware. Their
profit comes entirely in software. Do we see the same behavior? Hell no.

~~~
jokermatt999
And risk alienating large businesses who want business critical legacy apps
supported? I don't think so. It wouldn't make sense for Microsoft.

Correct me if I'm wrong here, because I don't have the figures to back this
up, but I'd imagine most of Apple's revenue from Macs comes from the home,
rather than a business environment. It's easier to convince a home user to
upgrade to the latest and shiniest version than it is to convince a cautious
and conservative IT department.

------
ugh
Arrrg! No way of uninstalling apps in one central location. Why, Apple, why?
There is this nice list of installed apps, why doesn’t it have an uninstall
button? It doesn’t make any sense.

I guess you are expected to drag apps to the trash like before? That sucks.

~~~
toddmorey
I realized something that I think is even bigger than uninstalling: There's no
software trial mechanism in the App Store. That's always been the spirit of
shareware (and a lot of hosted services, too). You install it, kick the tires,
and then decide on purchasing before the trial is done. But here, even
programs available for trial on the actual developer sites seem only to be
available for instant purchase. (The equivalent to a trial period on the
iphone I guess is the lite version of an app. I wonder if that will start to
be the dominant approach for Mac software, too.)

~~~
gaiusparx
Apple has specifically mentioned that no trialware or Lite version of app is
allowed on Mac App Store, and advise developer to host such version on their
own. Good move by Apple.

~~~
CWIZO
Care to elaborate on why that is good?

~~~
lancewiggs
It removes the unusable rubbish from the store. The last thing Apple (or I as
a customer) want is a vast quantity of demo or crippleware on my computer and
cluttering up the store.

~~~
CWIZO
Demo and full version of the app could easily be combined into one entry and
that would solve the clutter problem.

I don't know about you, but even 50€ is a lot of money for me, and I'd like to
try the app first and buy it only if I find it useful. And I suspect that the
average Joe will not know how to find the demo version on the internet.

~~~
sp332
Steam does this, and it's great. Games have 3 buttons: watch trailer, play
demo, buy game.

------
ceejayoz
If you get an error 100 (<http://yfrog.com/h4b9kkp>) attempting to download
any apps, clear /Library/Caches and ~/Library/Caches. Something to do with the
Terms and Conditions acceptance not firing.

~~~
ben1040
Clearing the cache directories was also not sufficient for me -- I had to
clear the cache directories, then sign out from my Apple ID (within the app
store) and back in.

~~~
j_baker
Signing out and back in worked for me. I didn't have to clear the cache.

~~~
ceejayoz
I saw that suggested, tried it a few times, no luck. Wonder what the
underlying issue is.

------
fwdbureau
Call me old fashioned, but I fail to see how implementing a corporate
middleman between developers and users can be a progress... OK, from a
developer's stand point, this could be really beneficial (distribution,
centralization etc), but as a user, it feels like seeing independent record
stores about to be crushed by a shiny new Virgin Megastore. I can't help to
hope this will be an immense failure

~~~
etherealG
distribution already exists! it's called the internet. fire up a website, have
a downloadable app, and you're done. I don't understand why people keep saying
the same for "app stores" like iphone and android, and now osx too. why can't
I just search for an app on a search engine, goto that apps website, download
it and run/install it? how does this system benefit me as a user at all?

~~~
jokermatt999
You don't _need_ it, but it makes things a hell of a lot more convenient. When
I run Linux, I don't Google "linux media player", I just search the repository
and install things much easier. If I googled "linux media player", I'd have to
sort through various unrelated sites (reviews, howtos, spam/malware, old
versions on different sites, forums, etc). When I search an app
store/repository, I just get exactly what I want. It's less of a noticeable
benefit if you know exactly what you want (because you can usually look for
the app name and find their site), but it's helpful for searching for a
category of apps. Additionally, it's nice to have a simpler update system.
Updating apps on Windows is a mess, and I know I should really do more about
it, because apps that don't include update functionality generally don't get
updated.

~~~
etherealG
you make a fair point, making the distribution easier is a nice feature. I
still would have preferred a slightly more open approach however. How about
defining an installer protocol? like
install://url.to.my.servers/my.app.installer.json.or.whatever.format and then
my browser could have the app installer for my OS registered on install://
urls. that way the installer format could be cross platform, and not
controlled by any 1 company, but still be an easy point-and-click on a website
without the hassle of running other things etc?

Then if you want the trust that the verification of apple gives you, you
should make sure you only download software from apple.com, but the whole
system is still more open and accessible by being online on websites rather
than specific to a piece of software running on OSX.

------
pstinnett
There are a lot of apps that I'm surprised to not see in the store on launch
day. Versions, Kaleidoscope, Skitch. I'd like to see a way for open source
apps to show up here too, because I think managing my applications from the
Mac App store will be nice.

~~~
anto1ne
Most of the apps I use are not there too, we'll have to wait a bit I guess.
What about Chrome and Firefox. are they forbidden and they didn't bother
submitting ?

~~~
peregrine
Google is probably working on integrating its auto update to the new app
store, similar to how they did it with Debian.

------
evilmushroom
As long as this doesn't become the only way for me to put apps on my Mac. :P

~~~
statictype
It's not. The traditional method(s) will still work.

For me the main selling point of the centralized app store is that you get all
updates in a single place instead of having each app spawn it's own update
mechanism.

~~~
roadnottaken
Why hasn't anyone else thought of this before!?!

EDIT: Sarcasm.... ;)

~~~
sudont
As in Bodega, the pre-existing mac app store, or Sparkle, the mac app updating
framework?

~~~
rigormotis
Or any of the serveral package managers on linux that have been around for ~10
years.

------
vasi
TextWrangler is available, but has removed the command-line 'edit' command,
and the ability to authenticate to edit root-owned files. So it begins...

~~~
jodrellblank
So _what_ begins?

~~~
orangecat
Crippling of the Mac for power users.

------
kleiba
Is this like synaptic et al.? I mean, do you get updates automatically? That
would be great! Also, a central packaging tool helps avoiding multiple
installations of the same software, when dependencies can be tracked and
resolved. If that is what this is: cool.

~~~
rlmw
They don't do dependency tracking, but will notify you of updates. I don't
think Mac developers believe in packaging libraries, since it requires the
same version of the library for all programs. The preferred way to do things
is statically compile all of your dependencies into your binary. This has the
advantage that you can just drag your .app bundle around.

~~~
jonprins
Which, considering disk space is cheap, is a better way to do it than getting
stuck in apt dependency hell.

~~~
tftfmacedo
It's also a security nightmare.

~~~
moopark
No. It is not. I'm really tired of this argument. It assumes other platforms
are the same as Linux, and that's incorrect.

Here's why you're wrong:

Unlike Linux, Mac OS X ships with a standard, stable, and exceptionally
complete set of libraries. Apple goes to great lengths to maintain binary and
API compatibility, and this means a few things:

\- Most applications will _only_ require Apple-supplied libraries, as there's
very little that isn't provided by the OS libraries.

\- Apple keeps the OS libraries up-to-date.

This feature-complete ABI/API-stable environment is not free for Apple to
provide -- it takes a lot of effort to provide a consistent API across
libraries and maintain the API/ABI compatibility across releases, but the
advantages are tremendous. Mac OS X has been able to skate by without package
management for years because this approach allows for drag-install drag-
uninstall application distribution.

UNIX derivatives, on the other hand, were faced with a lack of standardization
of core application libraries, a huge number of incompatible libraries to fill
in the gaps, and a software distribution model that involves splatting files
all over the disk. The end result is that you _need_ a packaging system to
maintain security updates, manage all the files on disk, and upgrade the world
in lockstep due to API/ABI compatibility issues across libraries shared by
wildly disparate applications.

So -- tl;dr -- it's not a security 'nightmare' because the core libraries that
everyone uses are already shared and updated by the OS vendor.

This is also what makes Mac OS X so much nicer to develop _and distribute_
applications for as compared to platforms that require a centralized package
manager authority to keep things sane.

~~~
tftfmacedo
I agree with you and I think all your points are valid but the GP specifically
mentioned statically compiling dependencies, not using only what is already
provided.

Something else that helps with Apple's way of doing things is their reasonably
slow release cycle (when compared to most Linux distributions).

------
neovive
Does anyone else feel that the word "app" is already branded to mean fast and
cheap? Perhaps, it's just a perception that will diminish over time. I guess
it sounds better than the "Mac Desktop Application Store".

~~~
cubicle67
at the risk of telling you what you already know...

programmes on the mac have the extension .app; it's roughly equivalent to .exe
in Windows (except it's not a binary, more like a .jar). When the iPhone
started, I guess 'App' was the natural name for them, and thus App Store came
naturally as well.

Now it's come to the mac, it's makes even more sense, because it's back where
it (Apps) started

~~~
generalk
Minor historical note: the .app extension for application bundles is a
holdover from NeXTSTEP. I don't think that has anything to do with the usage
of "app" on the iPhone, and I think the Mac App Store is branded that way for
similarity with the iPhone store.

~~~
RodgerTheGreat
Macintosh programs have always been called "Applications", and "App" is a
natural slang contraction of "Application". I'd say we're overthinking this,
folks.

------
powrtoch
Disappointed to see Twitter among the most popular apps. For mobile devices
the native-app-front-end-for-existing-websites was arguably necessary and
beneficial, but for desktop clients it really feels like a big step back to
start moving back out of the browser.

~~~
tommi
I highly disagree. Native apps can provide way more better integration to your
desktop and therefore improve the user experience. E.g. showing a consistent
(growl) popup for tweets is not possible as far as i know from the web
version. And that's just a very simplified example.

~~~
philwelch
(Off-topic rant)

Yes, because it's vitally fucking important to interrupt my workflow everytime
there's a new "Shit My Dad Says". God, I hate Growl sometimes.

~~~
mikeklaas
You hate a notification framework because YOU installed an app that uses it to
ping you with stupid crap?

~~~
philwelch
There are a few legitimate things I need Growl to notify me about, mostly unit
tests. Unfortunately, every single time I install any other Mac application
that wants to use Growl to notify me about dumb shit, I have to go configure
it not to use Growl for dumb shit. It's an annoyance.

~~~
jonursenbach
Then don't run desktop Twitter applications. Problem solved?

~~~
philwelch
I don't. That _was_ , in fact, my original point: did you see the comment I
was originally replying to? tommi explicitly named Growl notifications of new
tweets as an important _feature_ of desktop Twitter clients as opposed to just
using the website. I, on the other hand, find Growl notifications to be an
anti-feature more often than not, and disable them for all kinds of things (IM
clients, Firefox, etc.) I actually do want to use.

~~~
chc
So your point is that people who voluntarily it tend to have a less favorable
opinion? That is not exactly surprising. Not to say your priorities aren't
right for you, but I don't see the larger point here beyond "I prefer
different things!"

~~~
philwelch
As I said at the outset, it's an off-topic rant about how Growl by default
enables every application that wants to annoy me, to annoy me. It's a two-
line, two-point HN comment, not my magnum opus. The "larger point" is pretty
banal: I want to use Growl for some things, but I don't want Growl to, by
default, spam me with every possible notification it can, while providing no
easy way to change this default so I continue to be surprised by innocuous-
seeming applications that I install. (If you're ever designing software that
does something similar, think about whether you have users like me and how to
accomodate them. That's as large as the point gets.)

------
scorchin
It's just like a massive computer magazine shareware cover disk.

------
ThomPete
Pretty similar experience to the itunes store but I have to say it's
interesting to see more professional applications on here.

Nice little detail it knows whether you installed an application even if you
didn't do it through the app store.

One interesting little thing though.

It seems like the different applications icons still need to catch up to the
quality of the ios app icons.

------
zppx
Aperture is US$ 79,99 in the Store, Lightroom now seems so expensive...

~~~
seb
Aperture was US$ 199 before.

~~~
smackfu
Still is if you want a box: <http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB957Z/A>

------
watty
Is adware prohibited from everything in the store? It seems like every windows
application I download has some sort of toolbar bundled but maybe this isn't a
problem on Mac.

~~~
generalk
You don't see a lot of that on the Mac, mostly because of the culture. A lot
of the big players in the Mac development world have been developing software
since the 90s or earlier, so have a tangible sense of quality about their
work. Newer developers are usually attracted to developing Mac software for
that reason, and they don't want to disrupt it.

~~~
rbritton
It's becoming increasingly more popular for developers to release a free, ad-
laden version in addition to the paid version though. NetNewsWire is one
example and Kiwi is another.

~~~
calloc
NetNewsWire does its small ad in a very tasteful non-intrusive way. I have yet
had the urge to throw the software away for the small ad.

Whereas on the iPhone the iAds and other ads are annoying, intrusive and
flashy.

------
bengl3rt
I'm at #20 in Top Paid Music, and climbing...
<http://thefiddlybits.miazmatic.com/>

------
igravious
Why does Apple permanently want the 3 digit security code on the back of my
credit card? Shouldn't that be asked for at the time of each payment
transaction?

~~~
forensic
You don't say the same thing about subscriptions do you?

Apple treats it like a subscription. They want one click buying.

------
vokoda
Anyone else feel like <https://chrome.google.com/webstore> makes this seem
old-fashioned? Seriously who's going to be running software on their local
machine a year from now (apart from hackers obviously).

~~~
ceejayoz
Apple Remote Desktop, Aperture, etc. aren't going to run in the browser
anytime soon.

~~~
JBiserkov
There have been browser based remote desktop solutions for years now.

Microsoft Live Mesh and LogMeIn come to mind, but I'm sure there are others as
well. They require some sort of plugin/Java/ActiveX/whatever, but hey so does
video.

~~~
ceejayoz
That's not all ARD does.

------
troels
_Distribute Mac apps on the Mac App Store_

 _$99/year_

Hm ..

~~~
roadnottaken
Really that's a pittance. And it'll keep people from blatantly spamming the
App reviewers with garbage.

~~~
statictype
Yeah but it kind of sucks for open source apps

~~~
rimantas
I don't know. Let's say I wan't to host it myself, I'd pay about $240 per year
for Linode VPS.

~~~
danieldk
I'd pay nothing, and host it on GitHub. In fact I, and many others do.

~~~
preek
The OP said "Let's say I wan't to host it myself". So his pricing is right.

And the new appstore doesn't stop anyone from hosting their OSS on github -
even for Macs. The appstore is for the average user; github is for the better
than average programmer.

~~~
sp332
D'oh, I read _wan't_ as _don't want_ because of the superfluous '.

------
jadedoto
They allow redownload. How nice... I got burned by the removal of this in the
iTunes app store when upgrading my iPad failed.

~~~
msbarnett
What? You can still redownload, for free, any app you have ever purchased in
the iTunes app store.

~~~
chrisbolt
Just not music, TV, movies.

------
wenbert
Whatever the comments on this, Apple is creating another new way/market for
developers to make money and at the same for itself. Genius.

fyi, i do not develop apps for apple. i gave my mac to my brother about a year
ago. i figured that i could do the same with my cheap acer without worrying
about dropping or losing it.

------
cbguder
Categories aren't working properly in the Turkish store. More often than not,
I get the "One Moment Please..." message when I click on a category, and I
have to go back and click on the category again.

Is anybody else experiencing the same thing on non-US stores?

------
awakeasleep

        class UIComplaint(BikeShed.colorComplaint):
            print("blah")

------
tyng
Wow, this is a major step towards creating an uniform marketplace for not just
mobile and tablet but also traditional computers. It does seem like a natural
next step, it should even have happened earlier, how come nobody thought of it
until today?

~~~
ig1
Steam have run an app store for sometime now

------
egb
Bummer - no way to create promo codes for Mac apps as of yet in
iTunesConnect...

------
pepijndevos
Creative icon... If it was black, it would fit nicely with iTunes.

~~~
statictype
I guess it's meant to look like the AppStore icon in iOS. Which in turn looks
like the Applications folder icon on the Mac

------
naz
The Mac App Store is not showing in software update here (UK)

edit: never mind, it is showing up now.

~~~
JonnieCache
It's showing up for me. Comes with the 10.6.6 update.

------
dgroves
My x-wife purchased a substantially number of songs from iTunes - we are
talking a 5 digit investment. When I moved over seas to England; I was no
longer able to partake in my music due to the DRM placed on it by Apple and my
new "jurisdiction."

I am very deeply suspicious about the 'app-store' what if I purchase an
application while I am here in the UK? Is it going to work when I get back to
the USA - or will they force me to purchase it again the way they are
attempting to do with my music?

~~~
calloc
You can actually thank the music industry and labels for that, they want to
artificially keep music in only certain areas. There have been a lot of times
that I have wanted to purchase music that is not available in the US iTunes
store, and have not been able to do so.

------
tyng
iTunes should be renamed, it's not just about the "tunes" anymore

~~~
ugh
The App Store is not part of iTunes.

~~~
anto1ne
App Store app is just a different interface to the itunes servers, you can try
to copy links in App Store and you'll see the exact same kind of url as for
tunes, movies, iOS apps, etc... In fact I don't understand why they didn't
integrate App Store in iTunes. Maybe they realized iTunes is crap, or they
didn't want to change the icon once again. Doesn't make me feel like they have
long term strategies lately.. kind of the same with Facetime desktop not being
in iChat.

~~~
ugh
I’m not sure those technical details matter at all.

If you ignore iTunes, Apple doesn’t do kitchen sink apps. Their apps might not
have razor sharp focus (you can do a lot of different stuff with iPhoto) but
in general they stick to one theme (but everything in iPhoto has something to
do with photos). I’m a fan of the hypothesis that the only reason iTunes does
so many different things is that it has to run on Windows. Apple might not
want to ship a few different apps for Windows, they might want to keep it all
together. Apple might already have split iTunes into a few different apps if
they only had to run on the Mac.

The App Store doesn’t run on Windows, it doesn’t have the same problem so
Apple just reverted to their default non-kitchen-sink approach.

------
mcantelon
Ubuntu's had an app store for years (although paid apps are a more recent
addition).

------
elvirs
Buy, download, and even redownload. its amazing how apple expected customers
to pay for the same digital product over and over.

~~~
rimantas
What are you talking about? I own several programs I bought before Mac App
Store launched and store shows them as installed. I am pretty sure, that if
you delete an app and then try to "buy" it again, you will get the same as in
iOS App Store: a prompt that you already own this app and suggestion to
redownload it.

~~~
seiha
I just deleted CoverSutra which I purchased this morning off the App Store and
it went from "Installed" to "Reinstall" or "Not Installed" (I can't really
remember which) and I was able to reinstall it with one click and it came
flying back into my dock. Pretty darn easy if you ask me. However, I'm not
sure if the purchases are stored locally in the app itself/cloud? Say, If I
just got a brand new machine, would my app list be stored in the cloud and
ready for my viewing if I logged in with my account in the App Store? I'm not
quite sure about that part though.

~~~
terrbold
The site suggests that you'd be covered: "You can install apps on every Mac
you use and even download them again. This is especially convenient when you
buy a new Mac and want to load it with apps you already own."

