Posted on 01/06/2011 9:25:44 PM PST by stripes1776
The Mac App Store has arrived and with it comes access to more than 1,000 different free and paid apps. While nearly identical in design to the iTunes App Store for iOS apps, the Mac App Store represents a big shift in Mac application discovery and development.
We’ve already done a walkthrough of the new store. What follows is our analysis of the overall store experience after spending the last few hours exploring the store, downloading applications, comparing the release to initial expectations and ruminating on how it will change the developer ecosystem.
If you’ve yet to experience the Mac App Store, you’ll need to upgrade your Mac OS X software to version 10.6.6. Once you do, you’ll find the Mac App Store waiting for you in your Dock. We encourage you to check it out for yourself and add your thoughts on the new store in the comments section below.
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The Mac App Store is packed with more than 1,000 applications out of the gate. This vast collection of applications spans 21 different categories, and Apple has done an amazing job at ensuring that the store feels boundless — in the sense that there are more apps than you could ever dream of — and is full of must-own applications. That is: there’s not a lot of fluff here (yet, anyways).
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(Excerpt) Read more at mashable.com ...
For a start, Google "freeware".
Granted I haven’t used it much, but other than being much prettier, how is it not even similar to what Linux does? The idea definitely appears roughly the same if executed better.
There are a lot of differences. The app store will do notification for updates and you can redownload any apps if you change computers or have a system crash. Having bought software off the web, it’s got the potential to be much more convenient. The application update will be a lot more convenient than having individual programs start subprograms every time they start to check for updates, or having to go to web sites to check for them.
I’ve downloaded software before, but a couple of years later, if you don’t have the software key you have to buy it again if you need to reinstall. You also have to remember the web site name where you originally purchased the software. It’s also going to put downward pressure on software prices.
Pages, which is an excellent word processor is twenty dollars, and iMovie is $15.
The people here making an argument that this won’t change anything will, I think, be surprised. There are a lot of small conveniences with this model that will make a big difference.
Tried it, loved it. Downloaded a free game to test and there it was on the Dock. Apparently it even recognized some existing applications installed the old-fashioned way.
I do worry about the overall idea of heavily-controlled digital distribution. Technically, Apple could yank any app just like Amazon yanked peoples’ copies of a book.
Hasn't that been Windows' entire business model??
Oh Snap!!
BTT for later read
There you go again, spoiling the fun by shining light into a dark corner. Don't you remember how some kids like to scare themselves by imagining scary things in the dark and how other girls like to demonize the popular ones?
No, once it's downloaded on your computer, Apple can't yank it back.
Apple is very generous with the number of computers you can install an app on. Essentially there is no limit. If you buy the app, you can install it on all the computers you control. So everyone in the house can have access to an app that you buy. And then there are all the free apps as well.
Here is an article that explains how it works. I posted it here on FR: Apple's Mac App Store fundamentally changes PC software usage rights. You will find a link to the article. As it says, "The rights are hugely generous and more in line with consumer expectations: That they buy software once and use it anywhere within the household."
Yes, very cool. I like the way the icon of the app jumps from the Mac App Store down to the Dock on the Desktop and gives you a progress bar as it downloads and installs. Very cool indeed.
Yes, a genius move. The Mac App Store is really going to shake things up.
I didn't get it either until I bought an iPod touch. After using it for 2 years and loving every minute of it, "I got it". And when "I got it", I also bought a Mac.
I started with Microsoft DOS almost 30 years ago and used every version of Windows up to and including Vista. And then I bought my first Mac. It's the best computing experience I have had in 30 years.
It seems like mac people are dazzled by the idea of putting something different on their computer.
It's not about being dazzled. It's about a better and more convenient user experience.
What would prevent Windows from doing what Apple is doing - if just setting up a website with links to downloads?
It's not about just setting up a website with links. Apple has had that for years. The Mac App Store is a more convenient way to install apps on your computer. And the usage rights are very generous. I posted another article here on FR that explains how this is different: Apple's Mac App Store fundamentally changes PC software usage rights. You might be interesting in reading that article.
I just checked the new Mac App Store. There is a free app "Catholic Calendar". It's a liturgical calendar from the years 1970 to 2300. It shows all the feasts and celebrations. It gives more information about the saint of the day. Here is a link to the calendar operating instructions: http://www.universalis.com/n-macapp-operationC.htm. It looks like a Christian app to me. Does it look like a Christian app to you?
The Mac App Store is only a day old. There are only 1000 apps in it, compared to the 300,000 in the App Store for the iPhone. But I'm sure there will be many more Christian apps added over the coming months.
That’s all good news, but I still have this thing about having software in my hands. It’s the same for books, still prefer dead tree.
But I wouldn’t trust that Apple can’t yank anything back. Nobody thought Amazon could do that with a Kindle, and they did. DRM always engenders a certain amount of distrust from me, even from Apple, which has always had pretty generous DRM terms.
One app out of thousands. The question is, why this one app? The aggrieved party isn’t necessarily going to tell you the whole story, and Apple doesn’t (nor should they) go into public detail as to their reasons.
I don’t know who’s in the wrong here, but neither do you. Odds are, there’s more to the story than you’re being told, though.
I have several different computers, OS X, Windows, and Linux varieties.
Part of what the new app store will do for OS X, I’ve had available for years in Linux. I’m running Fedora, and as long as I install software via the package manager, updates for all of my applications, as well as the OS itself, are all automatically managed via the software update application. All I need to do is review the list and provide an admin password.
The big thing that I see as being new, however, is the “store” itself — the “one-stop” location to explore and download new apps, with a well-designed and useful UI.
The Apple developer guidelines actually say that whining to the press won’t help your situation in trying to get an app approved. I guess they didn’t read the whole thing.
OK - I’ll admit I haven’t tried it and I don’t have a mac.
Would you be so kind as to enlighten me on the features that make it so much better - honest question.
How about explaining how it’s different from a practical standpoint?
I will say that I don’t have a mac, so I don’t really know.
I just get tired of every mac development trumpeted as revolutionary. Wow, so you can download, or install, or use software on a mac. And it doesn’t work the same way as it does on windows, or a different operating system. It works the way mac people want it to. Apple does know what its fans like, and does know how to please its fans.
Can you get a new apple laptop for under $500? Best Buy has tons of Windows laptops for under $500.
I really like Linux. I ran Linux as my main system at home for 10 years. I enjoy compiling the kernel from source to customize it to my exact needs. I like to tinker and administer a computer system.
I have now moved my main system over to Mac OS X. I still spend a lot of time at the command line in the bash shell, which is also the default shell for the Mac. But the more I use the Mac, the more I am using the Finder. For a lot of filesystem management tasks, the Finder is really quite good for a GUI. But of course if I need to do something like make a symlink, I go back to the bash shell.
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