Apple's Mac App Store Debuts Thursday

By  |  Wednesday, January 5, 2011 at 9:32 pm

With all the hubbub surrounding CES and everything non-Apple, chances are you may have forgot that Thursday will be a big day for Apple itself. As it had previously confirmed, the Mac App Store will launch — although we’re not exactly sure when.

Jim Dalrymple at The Loop claims that sources are telling him the service would become available at noon ET, and it will follow a similar structure to Apple’s successful App Store for its iOS products. The goal is simple: users will have a simple one-stop shop to purchase both free and fee-based applications.

No doubt many folks will scoff at Apple’s attempt to once again exert its control over the experience of its customers, but it will have benefits. For example, smaller developers would be able to benefit from the widespread exposure Apple would be able to give their application, while at the same time not having to worry about the expenses of delivering the product to the consumer.

The standard 70% developer/30% Apple cut applies here, which is the same deal iOS developers get on the traditional App Store.

I do like the fact that an app purchased on one of your computers would also be installable on any other Mac you own. Are there things I don’t like? Of course, and one of them has to do with what this may do to the developer.

Pricing low (or free) has become a strategy of many a developer in order to get their iOS apps in the hands of as many consumers as possible. It already seems like most plan to carry over this strategy to the Mac App Store.

This is somewhat of a concern to me: are we now cheapening the work of the developer, making them work for pennies on the dollar on what will obviously be more sophisticated applications? While the larger companies may be able to absorb this loss, the bedroom developer cannot, and that may end up not being very fair in the end.

What do you think?

 
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2 Comments For This Post

  1. Joey d Says:
    January 5th, 2011 at 11:20 pm

    I think it could be good for developers if it's used right. Yes maybe u sell the app cheaper but if it is a good app you will sell more of it and have more exposure. This really protects the consumer who in the past had to purchased 50 to 60 dollar programs from the store only to find out they were horrible but could not return them. not to mention that now the developers have access to millions of app store users with Credits cards on file who only need to press a button to purchase. Pretty simply like anything in sales you get out of it what u put into it, if developers deliver great apps.. They will see great returns.

  2. @heulenwolf Says:
    January 10th, 2011 at 8:03 am

    One of its great benefits to the Mac Dev and User communities is taking DRM out of the hands of each, individual developer. To an individual developer, DRM has often been an afterthought. Afterthoughts baked into applications sometimes ruin the experience for users and, therefore, hurt sales. Its one less thing for developers to worry about so they can focus on the quality of their application. If Apple can do better than MS's WGA, whose false-positives have ruined the Windows experience for many users, its a win all around.

    Whether the sum of the App Store's features and drawbacks justify the 30% cut Apple takes is up to each individual developer. If I were a lone developer, the App Store would be a no-brainer. Were I Adobe, who has already solved many of these distribution problems in-house, or another large software house with multi-platform applications, it wouldn't be worth it unless I could negotiate far more favorable terms from Apple.