Apple needs to change its priorities for the Mac App Store or just shut the whole thing down. As it now stands, developers who are tired of being second-class citizens are making that decision for them and leaving on their own.
Even as a mere user the Mac App Store is a horrible experience. It’s slow, has a crappy user interface, and many developers ignore it anyway. They might as well shut it down.
Totally agree with this. I don’t even bother to check for my apps there, because I’m unlikely to find them. They don’t even have such basic apps as Skype. Forget it, Apple. It’s done.
You mean like all those (centralized) Linux repos?
Funny how times change: Some years ago there was an argument on OSNews about how superior Linux is because most distros have a central point for software installation and update and how badly Windows and MacOS are for missing that ..
No Store or Linux repo ever manages to have all software and updates. That’s completely OK. It’s your problem if you willfully reject one source for software solutions you are looking for.
Is that what that tab is for on the Software Updates application?!
Anymore I just hate Apple. Starting to get annoyed by their fans too. Didn’t use to give too much of a care either way. Then someone I used to work with was a total jerk, and also happened to be a big Apple fan, then got the other people who worked there to think because they had Apple devices they were superior to people who didn’t have Apple devices.
They eat the Jobs Reality Distortion wafers. I’m not sure how they can think every iteration of every iDevice is a brand new innovative thing, when all it comes down to is some gradual progression like everything else.
Though more on topic, didn’t everyone already expect the Apple Mac store to fail? I always thought they opened it on a whim, same thing with the Microsoft store on Windows 8.1 (ooh, apparently they redesigned it for Windows 10?)
Seems to me they’re attempting to do the same thing Linux users have had for more than a decade, just badly maintained. And we all know what happens to a Linux package repository that is badly maintained.
What? Just recently? Like, you’ve been fine with them since 1986, but with the release of the Apple Watch its finally too much go bear?
i use the app store, a lot of my apps have migrated there, 1Password, EverNote, OneNote, Pixelmator.
I find the app store better as ive discovered lots of other apps i wouldn’t have heard about.
When i now go for software on my Mac i generally go to the app store first as it’s easy to discover the apps i want, i know they are going to be of reasonable quality and i can redownload/install when needed without having to bother with logins/serial numbers and activation’s.
Can you find a spellchecker in there?
You missed “activation’s”
😉
Only one of the quotes would have actually been caught by a spell checker. If you’re going to nit pick, at least learn how to pick the proper nits.
Don’t worry, we can pick right back at the OP, who’s clearly unaware that OS X has an extensive, built-in spell checker. Therefore, no app needed.
Maybe you could find some tact, or something reasonable to complain about.
you can’t assume that everyone is sitting at a nice desk with a keyboard typing this. portable devices abound and in some cases its a pain to use the shift key. don’t be an ass.
A spellchecker is built into the OS and of no use in this example as there is no misspelt words
I actually rarely install updates for anything because of the App Store. It’s so slow and tedious to use I forgo it, probably risking security issues as a result.
The fact that it’s the only place to get Xcode etc. too is just stupid. I have download managers for a reason.
I update from the App store every morning….it’s plenty fast and consistent for me.
The Mac App Store is a critical infrastructure component for the operating system providing a source of secure software and ease-of-use for the customer experience that is essential for mass-market success.
With the proliferation of malware in the general software population, even in the Mac world, App Stores have become a critical piece of the ‘secure computing’ environment. iOS would be a totally different experience if we had to download and install Apps from the general internet as well as vet those applications for malware, etc. Apple does a better job than Google or Microsoft, and should be credited with providing a vital component to the mobile space that made mobile so ‘easy’ and so popular.
The same translates to desktop space. The App Store provides a source of digitally signed applications with a uniform install and update experience that works in combination with stronger OS platform components that prevent unsigned/untrusted applications from running (see apt, windows update, go). Combine that with Apple’s better-than-others filtering for malware, and we have an excellent experience.
We can argue about the ‘fairness’ or ‘I can do the same with my own download manager’ or ‘we could do that before the App Store’, but from a user experience, the App Store does the same thing that Amazon and Windows Update created – a unified market where you can find ‘anything’ and keep it up to date sanely.
It also provides an awesome piece of infrastructure for the average developer with respect to distribution costs and updating of their software. Without the ‘App Store’ model, each developer would need a website, bandwidth, monthly costs (greater than the developer publish costs), and advertise such info to the whole market. We see the proliferation of copy-cat stuff in iOS, but it’s interesting too that I can create an application and access a market of hundreds of millions with a simple publish. That’s a powerful distribution network but does create it’s market pressures (low $/application).
Uber lives off this instant distribution model. Any person in the world (mostly) with a car can now have an instant job making money using their resources because they can instantly become part of this uber network by selecting ‘app store’ and knowing the name ‘Uber’ or ‘Lyft’, etc.
Just as easily, a user can gain access to the latest game-craze or killer-app (do we even call them that anymore?) without suffering the usual start-up distribution problems (slashdotting the server — 503/509 errors).
The same logic applies to the Mac App Store.
The AppStore owes a lot to Windows update and up2date/apt for ease-of-use, and we should all remember what it was like to keep all our shareware up to date. (remember shareware — that was $15 for a piece of software in 1993. Talk about deflation)
So we may not like the terms of the Mac App Store, but as far as a fundamental OS component for ease-of-use, scalability and security of the OS, an App Store is a critical piece of infrastructure.
Any OS without one will immediately fall behind. The Mac App store is not going anywhere whatever the experience.
I would argue the same now for a photo, movie and music organization system. Windows and Linux still fall behind Apple on that part as far as a unified experience (Hard to believe that was 17 years ago this august).
[aside, The itunes UI is getting more complicated now and harder to navigate. They take something ‘perfect’ and tweak it to death. When it’s not intuitive how to just play your songs in random order anymore….]
Edited 2015-07-25 08:19 UTC