As expected, the announcement of the Mac AppStore rapidly sparked a shitstorm of heated debates. Many view this as the company tightening its grip on the last mile of computer user experience. Some say it’s a shameless regression towards 80s Microsoft style oppression. In typical right timing, Cupertino has offered little comfort by publishing this set of most stringent AppStore publishing guidelines ever (“Apps that exhibit bugs will be rejected!“).
Let’s temporarily cast aside the grandoise responsibility of accelerating computer technology and look at it from an ordinary user’s point of view. Since becoming a switcher over seven years ago (my first box was a G4 Mac Mini with 512MB ram), I’ve only came to purchase a handful of third-party software packages (namely Delicious Library) and opting to stay in “trial” heaven for other apps (Sorry, “Cyberduck“) indefinitely. The fact that the Mac’s pre-loaded bundle of useful software and the abundance of free/open source alternatives out there almost eliminate the need to do so.
Pricing has been another factor. While incredibly helpful and well designed, does Screenflow‘s $99 price point really stack up against iLife ($49), Parallels ($79), Snow Leopard ($29) or COD4 ($54)? Sure, developers have the right to charge whatever price deemed appropriate and frankly, $99 is a little to ask for a piece of great software, given the amount of brains and efforts behind the making. However, as in the case for music and films, software has become a commodity in the web era, and traditional marketing principles do not apply to this market — it plays by its own twisted rules. With the ubiquity of the AppStore, unprecedented volume of downloads and a solid payment model, iOS developers have struck profitability even with a race-to-the-bottom effect in force, so to that end, there seem little reason why desktop users won’t embrace the Mac AppStore as they have with the iOS AppStore.
Ubuntu's Software Center - efficient role model for the Mac AppStore
Steam‘s commercial success and Ubuntu‘s uprising have proven that downloading is the way to go for software distribution. All that remains is how delicate issues such as restrictions and rights for “control” are handled. When Apple got that nailed and have enough developers convinced, the rest of the industry will have no choice but imitate. Follow or perish. That‘s what the lion in 10.7 really stands for.
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