[OT] Mac App Store

[Chipp Walters]

Kay,

I get it you're a big Apple fan. Good for you. I'm curious, do you
make a living writing and selling Mac software, or just investing in
Apple stock and watching it rise? Perhaps it might help looking at
things from a developer's point of view. Do you think it fair Apple
exchanges a 70% royalty check for taking your customers-- forcing you
to use THEIR license and copy protection scheme? What if someone hacks
the DRM (and you know they will)-- how fast do you think Apple will
act then?

What if you release something which is not right, and you want to
instantly update it, but you can't because Apple requires update
submissions to go through a grueling submission process which takes
days, instead of seconds like we are used to? Furthermore, what if
Apple could, on a whim,  kill your whole AppStore business down the
road because they didn't like your new interface? Then, you have to
"ghetto-market" your new product without even knowing who your
previous customers were. I suspect my own product, ButtonGadget would
be banned from the store because it has a non standard interface.

And you would surely reply with a grin, "nothing keeps you from
marketing it yourself." Tell that to the thousands of family run
storefronts obliterated when a WalMart moves into a small town. There
is no way a small developer can compete, except in the ghetto.

I guarantee one thing. There will be huge downward price pressure on
apps. Apple has even said how they will take longer to evaluate a
submission the more expensive it is. I remember when people said apps
for iPad would be significantly more expensive than for iPhone. They
were wrong, too. Most still wince at paying over 4 bucks an app.

While many of you really believe this is better for the customer, I
believe it is worse. There are a number of beta and not yet finished
apps which will be banned as well. And lots of small developers,
including yours truly, will just abandon the Mac altogether, because
the threshold for putting up with Apple is just too high. And once
developers figure out how few Macs are actually out there (not like
the number of iPhones), and how little money they make at 70% of a
buck ninety-nine, they will be forced to look at other platforms to
develop for.

I'm tired of Steve making decisions in the best interest of me. I
still wish I could run flash video on my iPad, and I seriously
wouldn't mind the occasional crash. Heck, the browser I use crashes
every 15 minutes anyway.



On Saturday, October 23, 2010, Kay C Lan <lan.kc.macmail at gmail.com> wrote:
> Ah, been extremely busy of late and have a brief moment to visit the List to
> discover nothing has changed, the old OS wars continues lightly disguised as
> Steve is Satan discussion.