
It’s not just the geeks like us - rkudeshi
http://www.marco.org/2012/07/26/not-just-geeks
======
jharrier
Marco's follow-up post is only technically correct because he uses words like
"most", "many", "probably", and "nearly". In fact, do a Google search for
"most many probably nearly" and his post is #6!

He should have just stood by his words. From his follow-up post (quotes from
original post):

I’ve gotten a lot of feedback on my Mac App Store post this morning, and I’d
like to clarify some points and respond. I did not say or intend to suggest
any of these:

1\. I will not buy anything from the Mac App Store again.

"But now, I’ve lost all confidence that the apps I buy in the App Store today
will still be there next month or next year. The advantages of buying from the
App Store are mostly gone now. My confidence in the App Store, as a customer,
has evaporated.

Next time I buy an app that’s available both in and out of the Store, I’ll
probably choose to buy it directly from the vendor."

2\. Most Mac users will stop shopping in the Mac App Store.

"And nearly everyone who’s been burned by sandboxing exclusions — not just the
affected apps’ developers, but all of their customers — will make the same
choice with their future purchases. To most of these customers, the App Store
is no longer a reliable place to buy software."

3\. Most developers will stop putting apps in the Mac App Store.

"And with reduced buyer confidence, fewer developers can afford to make their
software App Store-only. This even may reduce the long-term success of iCloud
and the platform lock-in it could bring for Apple. Only App Store apps can use
iCloud, but many Mac developers can’t or won’t use it because of the App
Store’s political instability."

------
alphang
I find it strange that people would pooh-pooh Marco's argument away. Marco
wrote an article two years ago called "The Mac App Store isn’t for today’s Mac
developers" ([http://www.marco.org/2010/10/29/the-mac-app-store-isnt-
for-t...](http://www.marco.org/2010/10/29/the-mac-app-store-isnt-for-todays-
mac-developers)) so he obviously knows the appeal and potential of the App
Store.

If anything, they should hear him out more because he was an early advocate.

------
fpgeek
I'd like to agree with Marco's argument (and probably do over the long run).
At the very least, I certainly hope this particular argument is correct.

But, seriously, the cognitive dissonance on display here is absolutely
breathtaking. This is the _exact_ argument Android fans make about iOS. If he
wants his argument to be convincing, he needs to address the elephant in the
room.

~~~
geofft
The iOS sandbox is less restrictive in practice than the Mac App Store one.
iOS manages to give a perfectly fine user experience by partitioning the
user's home directory per application. Getting away with that on the desktop
is harder. It's a different paradigm -- very few Android users, I'd bet,
interact with the file manager on a regular basis. Every Mac user uses the
Finder.

~~~
fpgeek
Sure. I'm not saying there aren't arguments to be made about the difference.
What I am saying is that Marco needs to actually make one if he wants to be
convincing here.

That being said, I'll make two other points:

1\. File managers aren't a good example of the benefits of Android's relative
lack of restrictions for non-geek users. Good examples are alternative
browsers (like Firefox - the best Gingerbread browser, IMO) and alternative,
full-featured stores of all kinds (app/books/music/...).

2\. Given items like this ( <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4292754>
)suggesting that Apple is trying to bring the iOS file system concepts to the
Mac, I don't think I'd base an argument on how today's Mac users use the file
system.

