I love the Android / Amazon model - hit the store on a desktop browser, select a device to send the content to, hit buy, and relax knowing that the app or content will be downloaded to said device within seconds. I'm genuinely surprised Apple haven't done this.
Apple has done this. "iTunes in the Cloud" causes purchases made on any device (Mac, iPod, iPhone, iPad) to be downloaded automatically on all devices which automatic downloads have been enabled on. Purchases that are automatically downloaded include music, apps, and books. http://www.apple.com/icloud/features/
iCloud definitely seems like the Right Way, going even further than the Android model. Doesn't this make the method the article talks about redundant - or is the author not using iCloud?
[edit] Oh wait, does that mean iCloud works from any device but not from a browser? That seems like an odd omission.
iTunes purchases can currently only be made from inside of iTunes.app, not in the browser. Apple does offer the ability to link to apps or music in the browser, and a track list, description, screenshots, etc will be displayed inside of your browser. iTunes can be launched to make the purchase.
Any Apple manufactured device, which constitutes about 30% of all devices I own and use. It's probably why I rarely download new apps on my iPad, if I can't trigger a download from any web browser I'm not going to even bother looking unless I need/want something specific.
That's not what he was implying... he wants to trigger a download from a non-Apple device (say, Chrome on a Linux PC) and have it download (or readily available to download) on his iPad.
Or what I want - to be able to purchase an iPad app from my iPhone. Even if I can't download it on the device I'm currently on, I should be able to make the purchase.
iOS5/iCloud works in this use case, actually. You download an app anywhere, including desktop iTunes, and your devices automatically download it too. It is a bit of a bandwidth waste and it asks for your password, but it's smooth enough.
You can download every iPhone app on the iPad too, unless it requires GPS/camera/compass (not sure). The only missing use case is downloading iPad apps when on the iPhone. They cannot even be found in the mobile App Store's search. :(
The appealing option, people in this thread are espousing, would be the ability to identify the app while browsing on a desktop web browser (preferably desktop OS ambivalent).
Personally, I would prefer iCloud run from an app (or several daemons?) on the TimeCapsule supporting multiple devices, and Apple just provided encrypted, off-site back-ups from the TimeCapsule (thus, making TimeCapsule the "center" of my cloud). If Apple could handle my dynamic IP address issues, and my firewall/NAT issues, I could just use my always connected, 250GB-bandwidth/ month (and 1mbps-delivering/ <80ms latency) home connection to ensure security and robustness, I'd be more inclined to buy their hardware. As it stands, I've bought an ipod Touch, only; simply because I'm too cheap to buy a phone from a big-telco (instead: metroPCS, Leap Wireless, and MVNOs like Republic Wireless or StraightTalk are things I advise people to look into).
