Did you watch Apple’s keynote speech this morning (or afternoon depending on your timezone)?
There were some pretty interesting announcements, but the most significant of those is the new Mac App Store. Its being opened in 90 days and it works pretty much just like the iOS App Store. But, what does that mean for the apps that it offers, and for the developers?
There has not been anything like this before, and its a merge of two different ways of thinking (so to speak). The success of the App Store has been mostly due to it being the single source to get software, but you cannot discount the pricing of the apps that are found there. I mean anything above $5 is considered pricey for the App Store. In the mean time, there are apps that go for hunders of dollars in the desktop space, not to mention the fact that most companies offering apps already have a sales channel.
Does this mean that they will just add 30% to the apps to make them more easily available?
What does the licensing mean to these vendors?
Will every app need to be reviewed and approved?
With the App Store, you can buy a single copy for all your personal Macs, and updates are free if its anything like the iOS App Store. There was no mention of how the latter situation would be handled specifically since major upgrades are never currently free, but as you can see it has a lot of implications.
I couldn’t get any more details at this stage since the site would not let me in right now, but what are your thoughts?
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