[OT] Mac App Store

[Chipp Walters]

From a posting on my company blog. Some points made with help and ideas from this list. Thanks to you all.

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Apple really is a remarkable company. Without a doubt, they provide flagship innovation and thought leadership for the rest of the industry and the world (Google, are you listening?). This was again demonstrated yesterday in their very cogent and finely tuned presentation of their new best of breed MacBooks.

Lost among the hoopla of the new sleek laptops, and preview of new Apple apps and OSX Lion are a couple announcements which maybe larger issues than first they seem.

The more obvious of the two is the announcement of the new Mac AppStore, where customers will be able to purchase Mac desktop apps directly from Apple. I actually predicted this earlier this year on a forum, which when you stop and think, it's no big deal as this is pretty much a no-brainer marketing decision by Apple. 

On first look, this would seem a natural extension to the iOS AppStore which has been hugely successful-- specifically for Apple. On closer examination, many customers are non-plussed regarding the iPhone app store, with it's lack of features, focussing only on the top selling few apps-- even though Apple claims hundreds and hundreds of thousands of apps available. One problem, just try finding a specific app. There's no keyword indexing in the AppStore, so unless you know the name of the app you want to buy, you're sadly out of luck. The proverbial needle app in the haystore.

The Mac AppStore and it's inevitable downward price pressure along with Apple's 30% split spells problems for developers, especially considering Apple has only 20% marketshare in the US, even less in the world. This is certainly not like the iPhone, where Apple is the big gorilla and there is a captive audience. Furthermore, developers like myself are used to creating apps which can be updated quickly and on OUR schedule, not Apple's. Not to mention Mac AppStore developers will have to use Apple's licensing and copy protection schemes. Ugh. Oh, and did I mention you also have to pay Apple a developer fee? So, they can sell YOUR software? Sheesh.

Also of issue is the simple fact Apple has a history of changing once, then twice, then anytime they like, their own licensing and submission policies. So, a developer may find an app they have been working on and updating for years is no longer allowed, because it conflicts with some new licensing policy just announced. Or even worse, you're declined for conflicting with a not yet announced Apple software product, or not using the right compiler, or you have the wrong politics. Sadly, it all HAS happened before.

Also I've read Apple will provide the terms under which you can talk about the features of your application, only just don't mention it will run on other OS'es. And speaking of talking about the Mac AppStore, if you're a developer you can't. The NDA prohibits talking to anyone about it. Draconian? You decide.

Of course the counterpoint to all of this is you don't have to sell through the Mac AppStore. At least not for now. But, I would ask how long before you'll have to jailbreak your own Mac to run "third party apps?" Don't laugh. No one was laughing when in one fell swoop this past summer Apple wiped out thousands of developers and their chosen tools with a single paragraph change in their license. The Mac AppStore is Step One. Just like hardware and software, the policies are migrating from Mac to iPhone to iPad and now back to Mac. Steve actually drew it up just that way during the presentation. The theme was "Back to the Mac."

And now for the second issue, the lack of a FaceTime app for PC's. So, in case you don't know, Apple created this very cool futuristic Dick Tracy application called FaceTime, and it allows those with an iPhone 4 to be able to video chat with each other, as long as they are on a WiFi network. This is cool.

Earlier today, Apple announced FaceTime for Mac. But not for PC. I'm wondering about the implied message here? My take is Apple is creating a strong case Mac users should buy iPhones and video chat with them, but if you're a PC user, your options are limited. Perhaps people will start to associate iPhones only for Mac users, which surely is detrimental to Apple and leaves the door wide open for Android and others. Of course this assumes Google could one day get their act enough together to actually compete technology-wise with Apple. Perhaps a pipe dream. Just like an Android iPad killer, I'll believe it when I see it.

Congrats to Apple on another superbly crafted and slick presentation. Lots of cools stuff. Thankfully I'm not wearing my Gruber Googles.