Guest post by “A new report suggests that Apple may be planning to eliminate retail boxed software from its Apple Stores, instead focusing on promoting the Mac App Store for software sales. This is indeed a trend that Apple has been pushing for a while, but not all the software that Apple sells would necessarily be a great fit for pure digital distribution.”
And so, OSX pursues its ipadification… I assume that by now, those who used to claim that Apple does not plan to make the Mac yet another iOS device are going to switch to claiming that it is the best outcome possible.
Gruber, we’re waiting for you.
1. How does an operating system pursue something?
2. How is Apple choosing to not stock boxed software in their stores have anything to do with the ipadification of anything? For the most part, the only boxed software in an Apple store is Apple’s software, there is very little third party stuff. Have you been in an Apple store?
Edited 2011-02-08 19:29 UTC
I should let Neolander answer for himself, but I think he means that Apple is using its OS-X monopoly (on Apple hardware) to control software distribution (again, on Apple hardware). by “iPadification,” I think he means transforming the software marketplace (one again, on Apple hardware) to one that is purely digital and on demand (much like an iPad).
I assume this expression does not exist in English. Sorry… Is “the ipadification of OSX continues” syntactically better ?
Quickly had a look at a physical Apple store, but when I look for Apple hardware I tend to prefer “premium resellers” and store.apple.com as they are easier to access where I live.
From what I see, Apple controls a large part of the Mac software market. If they enforce that all software under their control is only available through the Mac store system (and what’s mentioned in this article are some steps in that direction), this means that the majority of Mac software will only be available by this mean, forcing users to get used to it whether they like it or not.
Afterwards, as most commonly needed software and some other are only available on the Mac Store, software distributed on CD or websites becomes the exception rather than the norm. Under customer pressure of lazy users who want all in one place and won’t look elsewhere, remaining software ends up having a choice between putting a copy of their software on the Mac store too or disappearing.
After a while, Apple declares that software distribution outside of the Mac Store is unsafe/legacy/helping piracy/whatever excuse they may come up with, and removes the ability to do this.
Net result : Apple gets 30% on every sale and absolute control on which apps mac users have access to. In short, ipadification.
Edited 2011-02-08 20:38 UTC
First, at least from what I saw, this article was specifically about the Apple retail stores, not store.apple.com. Second, “all the software under their control,” is the software developed by Apple. Everything available in a box at the Apple store is also available at, for example, Amazon. Unless you think Apple can stop Amazon from selling software, I’m not sure how Apple is forcing anyone from doing anything.
Software on all operating systems is increasingly only going to be available through “Application Stores” specific for that operating system, specifically because it’s more convenient for the customers. Calling people “lazy” because they don’t do things the way you want them to is a quick way to lose your customers.
Or they don’t.
LOL, other operating systems…as if consumers are choosing between 10 of them.
Apple keeps setting bad precedents and is providing rationalizations for MS to follow in their path.
Apple is a control-freak company and it goes well beyond convenience. They could make software purchases easier and safer without taking a cut and filtering the submissions.
If Apple controlled every computer you wouldn’t be able to download hustler since Jobs has some weird hatred of adult magazines. God knows what else he would ban if he could. He probably would anoint himself culture czar and filter whatever comes through the internet. He also hates video games even though they make up the bulk of app store purchases.
Apple’s control shenanigans were just kind of silly when they had a tiny market share but now they are leading the charge towards a total control model where all software only exists by the permission of the OS company and the user merely pays for temporary access.
Off the top of my head …
1. Windows Phone
2. Android
3. Symbian
4. Blackberry
5. Ubuntu, IIRC, is working on something and every other Linux distro has their default package list
6. iOS
7. OS X
8. Windows 8 (likely)
Not 10, but close.
How is an application store a bad precedent?
Would you care to point out any store (not just app store, literally any store online or one that you can walk into in person) that doesn’t filter it’s product selection and take a cut of the sale.
So you think Apple is about to have 100% marketshare of all computers, smartphones, tablets, etc.?
Users have been paying for temporary access to their software for decades. And, last I checked, there are even (unsupported and for jail broken phones only) alternative app stores for iOS devices. What evidence exists anywhere that the current situation would change?
Additionally, I don’t understand the focus on Apple. Literally every operating system is going to have an application store by default. Most of them already do (in my list only Windows doesn’t today). Do you think Apple or Steve Jobs is going to dictate what’s available on the Windows Phone app store? How about the new Amazon Android app store?
Its not that everything coming through an app store is bad. Though more choice is better, so why limit it to just that if there are no other motives? The problem arises when apple limits things to just an app store and starts filtering what is coming in, just like they do the ipad/iphone (ie. ipadification).
Apple isnt thinking of the consumer and what is convienient for them. Apple is thinking about the most direct route that they can take to remove all control from the consumer without the consumer noticing. So far their plans are moving along quite nicely, because most apple fans just keep bending over and saying “can I have some more?”
This entire conversation is built up on a strawman that you are continuing. There is no single app store on OS X. No one is prohibited from selling their applications in boxes or online. Apple has simply chosen (or is rumored to have chosen) to stop selling boxed software in their retail stores.
Even worse, in that 1 paragraph you completely contradicted yourself. The first sentence you say app stores aren’t bad. The last sentence you said Apple’s filtering is bad. Pro tip, every store filters what they sell. If filtering is bad then app stores are bad, you can’t have it both ways unless It’s Only Bad If Apple Does It.
Unless you are secretly a senior executive at Apple, or on their board, you don’t know what Apple is or isn’t thinking. So, again, you’re building up an elaborate fantasy of what you think is going to happen. Alternatively, it’s a fantasy and isn’t going to happen.
Finally, Apple is the largest tech company in the world. They have sold 160 million iOS devices alone. They sell 10s of millions of Macs every year. “Apple fans” isn’t some small ignorant club, Apple is selling mainstream products that are appealing to people in all walks of life. Anyone who disputes that is seriously lying to themselves.
Edited 2011-02-08 23:27 UTC
When it comes desktop systems consumers basically choose between two and some of the mobile platforms you listed allow external software.
It sets a bad precedent if the goal is to keep a balance between the OS company, developers and users.
You’re missing the point which is that locking you into an app store prevents you from buying software direct from developers where there is no filer or cut for the OS company.
No but as I said they provide a rationalization for MS and between the two they have over 96% of the market.
Which users? I have Office 2010 5 ft away from me. Are you saying I only have temporary access to it? I found a copy of Office 97 last year that will install just fine. Apple wants to eliminate the whole idea of a licensed copy and only provide temporary access.
That doesn’t foster a healthy external market, it only encourages piracy.
Because they forge the path. MS at least has to be careful over anti-trust issues but Apple is lining up the perfect rationalization for them.
What about it? Is Amazon selling phones that locks you into it?
But way to cheer on Apple as they cut into small ISVs profit and add to their already existing giant pile of cash. Hooray!
If Jobs was in charge of computing there would be no Hustler.com, no video games and all mice would have one button. You would probably have to pay by the hour to access applications and yet people like you would defend it all in the name of convenience. People like you would still wear Apple logo t-shirts and have Apple logo stickers which all say the same thing: I’m a corporate tool.
Edited 2011-02-09 02:26 UTC
Holy irony, Batman.
Sometimes I get the feeling you’re just here to be the devils advocate and play the counter-point to the linux zealots. Perhaps you even have a bushy beard.
He provides spot on arguements consistently and that is the best you can come up with?
Edited 2011-02-09 11:45 UTC
And that’s nice, but quite simply not Apple’s goal, though neither is any of the evil spin you put on their actions. Their goal is to sell a great tech experience at a great profit. If customers by and large didn’t think they were delivering on the first part, the second part would dry up.
I’m fully receptive to arguments that their approach is bad in a philosophical sense, or bad for outside developers, for example. There are good points to be made there. But the argument I keep seeing is that they’re locking down and controlling users utterly, and there’s just nothing to that, because they have competitors who do things differently, and I believe they always will. They’ve never reached for controlling market share, and they’ll never get there by accident as long as someone can undersell them with a comparable alternative. Their influence on the industry as a whole is sustained by their profitability and cultural impact, which is sustained in turn by their continuous introduction of desirable products.
They have no de facto popularity or monopoly. They’re popular just because people like what they make. It’s healthy capitalism at its best. If they overstep their bounds, they’ll lose a leg. Remember Sony and the ATRAC fiasco that killed the Walkman’s decade-long dominance? That’s anti-user behavior, and it got what was coming to it.
And only the portable platforms take that approach. I honestly don’t think effectively retiring OS X is plausible, especially given how dependent iOS devices are on a desktop machine to feed them content and initial settings, but we’re speculating a long way out.
Apple is known for cutting the cord with the old ways, but in all cases, there’s got to be a very good reason for it. USB did the job better and more efficiently than the myriad predecessor serial ports. Floppy disks were worthless liabilities, and optical drives are noisy, energy inefficient, and fragile, because they’re full of moving parts.
The only argument they can make for curating the desktop software market – which would be an incredible commitment of resources – is the same one they make for mobile: that it renders crashing and viruses essentially unheard-of. But they already have a huge lead with safety and stability in the desktop space, and if they stripped out all flexibility, they’d be unceremoniously exiting a market where they’re currently making good money. The move just doesn’t make sense, which is what Apple-loving analysts like Gruber and Dilger are actually looking for when they “change their minds” about Apple’s new policies.
I’m with you here. I don’t think it’s fair to talk about jailbreaking as if it were an iPhone feature – unless someone is trying to sell rooting as an Android feature. In that case, it’s fair game.
At last report, the app store breaks even. The income goes to server and testing costs. It’s a constant ordeal to keep broken software out of your store.
Meanwhile, they use their giant pile of cash to set up supplier deals so they can price high-end devices competitively. They’re a very smart company, and some people just get paranoid about that sort of thing, but they’re doing well because they’re doing it right.
And of course, if your doomsday scenario came true, Apple products simply wouldn’t be a feasible choice, so it’s a good thing they are a choice. I always thought .Mac/MobileMe was a rip-off at $100 a year because it offers approximately what Gmail and Dropbox are giving away, but some people relish its other features and are glad to pay. Everything is a tradeoff. Apple’s not going to do very well charging exactly two users millions of dollars each, nor could they get away with charging by the minute unless they were offering the iPhone in a world where the best anyone else has to offer is carrier pigeons. Someone will always do it cheaper than Apple, so they have no choice but to do it very well at a reasonable price if they want to compete in the real world.
The idea of a “licensed copy” is temporary access… Read the license terms and you will find that for 99% of commercial software the licensor reserves the right to revoke the license at any time.
You can’t make software purchases easier and safer without at the very least filtering submissions (otherwise people can simply submit malware), and no for-profit company would do that without taking a cut either.
The original sentence sounds fine to me (a native American English speaker). I think rhavyn was just being pedantic (i.e. an OS is not a person). Your alternative is fine too.
But still those spaces before question marks…
Can’t get around my mother tongue’s typography, except in heavily-checked texts like articles ^^
Edited 2011-02-08 22:12 UTC
Yes, it is a step in the ipodification of OSX and that is a bad thing.
But, I’m fine with application software not being available in a box. I don’t mind downloading it at the time of purchase. However, I’d prefer there to be an open market of software, rather than closed one with a censoring gatekeeper that takes a 30% cut off the top. I still need to be able to install random software from non os approved sources.
Probably:
It’s to stop all that terrible jailbraking activities out there where OS X is desecrated and installed on those ugly gray boxes;-)
Hahaha, I’d love to see Apple try to distribute OS X through the Mac app store. Oh shit, my hard drive died. Never mind, I’ll just get a new one and… damn!
Well, Mac EFIs have been able to do with a bluetooth mouse and a GUI boot device selector for some time, why wouldn’t they also include access to the Mac app Store while we’re at it ?
After all, those Splashtop-powered desktops/laptops show that there’s plenty of room for feature bloat in motherboards’ flash memory nowadays…
Edited 2011-02-08 20:54 UTC
OS X is pretty big. Even if it only downloaded the necessary components, you’re still looking at a good 5 gigs. Now, I’m lucky enough to have a broadband connection with no usage cap, but a good majority of people aren’t that lucky. They may well be able to offer OS X as a download, but I don’t think they could offer it *only* as a download. Plus, if Apple want to promote Macs in the enterprise, I don’t think most businesses are going to be happy that they’re dependent on Apple’s download servers if something goes wrong, and there’ve been several times when the Apple servers have been swamped or even offline.
Many potential purposes to distributing OS X software only through the Apple Apps Store:
Let’s do this in reverse order.
The Ugly:
As you are suggesting, the Apple Apps Store may be sophisticated enough to dis-allow connection to a Hackintosh (or worst – reporting its existence to the iJustice Department). The eventual drying up the supply of applications would removes the temptation of hackintoshing a generic X86 system.
In the same vein, it would not be surprising if the next major revision of OS X (10.7?) installs applications and updates only through the Apps Store interface. In this eventuality, the hackintoshers would have to remain forever at revision 10.6.x, by-pass this feature, or set-up their own Apps distribution channel.
The Bad:
The absolute right of veto by Apple to re-sell or not a given app on their Apps Store gives me shivers. The Android and BlackBerry apps stores appear to also follow this business model. I don’t recall a story about a coming Microsoft apps store but if there is ever one it will likely be following the same business model.
Yes, there are potential apps which should definitively go through some filters (age filters? ratings like for games and movies?). However, such filters are generally applied by an agency with an arms-length relationship to both the developer/producer and distributor/reseller. In the end, the customer is still allowed to overide the rating if he/she so wishes.
The Good:
Application of quality controls – e.g. verification of consistency in the user interface, testing for easter eggs/back doors into the OS, testing for general compatibility with the other applications, ensuring no tainting by malware in the distribution, etc.
I don’t understand why your post has been downvoted.
I remember seeing a news item about how the UI for the app store program was not consistent with the rest of OS X. I even remember Thom denouncing Gruber’s changing opinions to adopt whatever Apple did.
Logic Pro comes on 9 DVDs. I don’t think they’ll want you to download that somehow.
OTOH Apple have been quite explicit that only some software is *not* sold via the App store, things like Betas are not allowed on it.
I don’t know that program, but if you really believe that anyone could program something that takes THAT much space you are sorely mistaken.
IF that software would ever be sold only through the appstore all the fonts/stockphoto’s/cliparts/sample sounds/sample movies would be accessed through a website later, reducing the size to about (guessing) 250 MB which nowadays takes only minutes to download. A LOT faster than going to a store
(also, some games on Steam are quite big and lots of software on MSDN is “DVD-size”)
Logic Pro is professional-level audio creation and mastering software, and a good excuse for owning a Mac Pro (or G5 Power Mac in the past). I haven’t touched it since those G5 days, but I can easily see several DVDs worth of sound samples and instrument packs in a modern version.
The size isn’t what will ultimately keep Logic Pro off the app store though; rather it’s the anti-piracy USB dongle. I don’t see them squeezing one of those through the tubes.
I didn’t know that technique still existed. I remember having heard one of my university teachers talk about such a device (on COM or LPT ports) for Windev, back in the late 90s.
USB dongles are still very common for high end professional software.
But the “9 DVDs” would still need to be downloaded, right?
I’m not surprised. This is just Apple tightening its grip on its loyal user base. Without boxed copies of OSX on store shelves, the ‘Hackintosh’ will go the way of the Dodo and users of older Macs will find it easier to simply purchase newer ones when OSX is updated. It’s another win-win for Apple and another nail in the self-built coffins of its users.
I honestly don’t think Apple will ever go the route of preinstalled-only OS X. That is a tech support nightmare they are surely aware of after seeing the past 12 years of it with PC vendors.
It blew my mind that my HP netbook not only didn’t ship with the OS on a disc or even a thumb drive, it didn’t even have a restore partition! If I had made a new-user blunder when first setting up the device I’d have been hosed for the two or three weeks it takes them to ship restore DVDs. Actually I wouldn’t have, as I would just load up Ubuntu or Slackware in my external DVD drive and go on with life, but most regular consumers wouldn’t even own a USB DVD drive, much less know what to do with it.
I believe worst-case for future Macs is that Apple will drop the optical drive altogether from the lineup (assuming Steve never overcomes his nonsensical loathing of Blu-Ray), and ship the OS on a thumb drive as they currently do with the MacBook Air.
Then again, Slackware, Debian and I’m sure many other Linux distros have had net-installable options for longer than OS X has been around, so who knows what they may do.
I’ve taken this with a giant pinch of salt.. why? Am I a “blind idiotic fanboy”? No. Last time a sensational story like this happened it was “Apple to remove screen protectors for iOS devices from Apple Stores!!!!” and you know what? I’ve since bough screen protectors from Apple Stores in Canada and the UK. So, it was total bollocks… I shall treat this with the same logic, but accept and understand I could be wrong to do so.
As a shop owner, I have the right to stock and sell the products I believe are of good quality, and that are something I feel my customers will demand. Basic economics and supply and demand, folks. Just because a product is made, that does not mean that I HAVE to sell it. And if I have some moral or philosophical objection to a product, I can refuse to sell that product in my store if I want as well. That is a basic right of the marketplace, and one that Apple is exercising in its own iOS App Store, and its OS X App Store, and I have absolutely no problem with that. It’s their store and it is their right.
Their store is not the only place I can buy software for my computer, there are plenty of other places to do that, either online or a physical loation. And they have said NOTHING about preventing any other means of installing software on Apple computers, so anything about that subject is absolutely PURE speculation.
Their App Store IS the only place I can buy software for my iPhone, but in that instance they are dealing with another business (AT&T or Verizon), that also has restrictions on what can be put on the phones they sell in a desire to maintain a guaranteed user experience on their system. Jailbreaking destroys that guaranteed experience, and anyone who complains to AT&T, Verizon, or Apple if some software bricks their phone is just “up the creek” in my book because they themselves broke the experience on a product by not using it as it was intended or designed.
Back to my shop analogy, if I refuse to sell Playboy or some homophobic rap music because I don’t personally like it, that is fine, there is no law that says that I must sell those or any product in my store. If I feel a product might be defective or harmful to my customers in ANY way, I don’t have to sell that product in my store. Apple is doing the same thing; they evidently have a desire to protect the “customer experience” they are trying to build, and that is perfectly legal and I personally applaud them for it.
What about countries where the Iphone is not restricted to one carrier?
Edited 2011-02-09 12:27 UTC
The idea of selling boxed software in stores is a pretty dated one these days…
Even if you do buy software in a store, chances are it will be a dated version which requires all manner of bugfixes and security updates to be usable, which you will have to download anyway.
Not to mention the hassle of manually installing the software from physical media and quite often manually tracking down and installing the updates too.
The repository or app store model is a far superior one than dealing with the hassles of physical media or manual downloads… As a long time linux user i have benefitted from this model for years and it was quite laughable to see how far behind in usability the closed source systems are.
No surprise that Apple are the first, but you can bet MS will follow along soon enough too. Not sure what Oracle are planning to do with the package management system they inherited from OpenSolaris.
Yay, and the anti-Apple hate mongers come out of the wood works to once again to further their agenda (what ever that maybe). To try and claim that Apple is locking down the systems they sell simply ignore the flexibility of a computer over a single purpose device but more importantly ignores the fact that there are a whole heap of restrictions that excludes many useful applications from ever being sold through the AppStore (look up the restrictions, I’m not in the mood to list them all).
The AppStore will eventually win developers over because it is a sure way to fight piracy and for me given how easy it is to buy applications rather than going through the rigamarole of a traditional ‘cart’ option websites provides means that I’m more inclined to spend more money; so far I’ve spent NZ$134 so far – money I wouldn’t have probably spent had it not been for an easy way to purchase software. The biggest buzz? the fact I can install it on up to 5 computers for personal use – if there was ever the biggest royal screw job out there it is vendors who, for a single end user, demand that they must purchase a copy for each computer they use – there is one of me but I have two computers why should I pay twice for an application I can only use on one computer at any one time?
Oh well, back on topic, I love the AppStore – but as the old saying goes “haters are going to hate”.