Earlier this month, Apple launched the Mac App Store. While this doesn’t affect me personally (I don’t own a Macintosh … at least not one built during past two decades!) it’s a pretty interesting concept and news story.
App stores (speaking generally) are virtual, online stores that sell applications, games, and media, and deliver them to consumers via the Internet. There are lots of these stores in operation today: all three current consoles (the Nintendo Wii, the Xbox 360, and the PlayStation 3) have dedicated online stores, as do many other devices. Historically these stores are device specific, and their roots can all be traced back to the iTunes Store.
The iTunes Store, launched in 2003 by Apple, has become synonymous with “online mp3 store”. Sure, you can buy mp3s legally from other sources (name 3 …), but iTunes quickly established itself as THE go to source for legal online mp3 purchases. And it would be even bigger, if iOS devices were locked into it as their sole source for media. Using my iPhone I can connect to the iTunes Store and purchase single mp3s, but I can just as easily rip my own CDs into mp3 format and copy them on to my phone, bypassing the iTunes Store. When the iTunes store launched, mp3s had been (illegally) available for free for nearly a decade, and iTunes was seen by many as an attempt to “put the genie back into the bottle”. Apple’s vision was that if they got enough artists and labels on board and the store was simple enough to use, people would pay $.99 to legally own music. I loudly proclaimed that I would be surprised if they sold a single mp3. In February of 2010, iTunes sold its 10 billionth.
If you like real world comparisons, iTunes is Walmart. Yes, you can shop other places, but Walmart is the place that will have everything you are looking for under one roof. Both Walmart and Apple have been publicly lambasted for the profits they keep from the products they sell, and yet neither company has a shortage of both suppliers and customers waiting to do business with them.
Over the years, electronic manufacturers have tightened down the connections between their devices and their online stores. For example, on the three video game consoles I previously mentioned, the only way to purchase games online is through their official stores. There are no “third party” online stores to access. While operating these online entities comes at a financial cost, the ability to control quality, availability, pricing, and profit margins gives them great power. Apple learned this lesson with iTunes, and in 2008 they launched the App Store ™.
The App Store is the only legitimate way to install applications on any iOS (iPod/iPhone/iPad) device. (Everybody loves a captive audience!) Like iTunes, the App Store can be directly accessed from and iOS device, purchases can be billed directly to your account, and programs are delivered wirelessly to your device. It is a very simple, quick, and painless way to purchase software. Without jailbreaking your phone and voiding its warranty, it’s the only way.
This gives Apple an unbelievable amount of power and control over their products. Every application for sale in the App Store must first be approved by Apple. From a quality standpoint that’s usually a good thing as nobody wants to spend their money on a non-working “crapplication”. However, many developers and consumers feel that Apple’s rules are unfair and, at best, inconsistent. Apple can deny or pull any app from their store for any reason at any time, and more than once have removed previously authorized applications! Apple continues to deny applications that enable tethering (allowing a computer to piggyback on your phone’s cellular Internet connection) and recently changed their stance regarding nudity in apps, something that recently threw a wrench in Playboy’s plans to launch an iPad application. It’s an imperfect system to say the least.
The concept of an App Store for personal computers is unique in that, unlike an iOS device, computer owners are not limited to purchasing programs through a single website. In fact, we are accustomed to doing exactly the opposite. As owners, we are used to purchasing any type of software from anyone, anywhere, install it, and use however we want. In fact, the home computer revolution was launched by people who wrote their own programs! The core concept of an app store, a single (and sometimes mandatory) focal point for purchasing online apps goes against what was ingrained into many of us who were raised on 8-bit machines! For me, the ability to do what I want with a computer is freedom; on the surface, App Stores directly butt heads with that ideal.
I will concede that the concept of an app store for computers isn’t all bad. For one thing, app stores offer quality assurance. If (as with their iOS app store) Apple is perusing source code and testing every submitted application, it stands to reason that anything purchased through that store would not contain malware or viruses. If the success of the store depends on the store’s reputation, you can be sure Apple will be vigilant in patrolling their wares for sale. Plus, without having seen it, I can guarantee you that the Mac App Store is simple to use. As is with iTunes, you probably need to have a valid credit card on file at all times. With that, the physical act of “paying” is removed out of the equation, which makes it all to easy to purchase things on a whim.
For each application sold through Apple’s App Store, developers receive 70% of the sales price while Apple retains 30%. Trust me, there’s not a developer alive that wouldn’t gladly give up 30% of their profits in a heartbeat for access to such a focused audience. It would be like getting your product shown on the Home Shopping Network to people who only have that single channel. Angry Birds has sold over 10 million copies on iTunes. $7 million is $7 million, folks.
I can see the appeal of an App Store for less-technical computer users. In the days of DOS, the ability to boost your amount of available memory by relocating drivers into high areas of RAM using your config.sys was not only a badge of honor, but often a required skill. Few of today’s computer contain such skills or technical knowledge, nor do they care to. “I just want it to work,” is today’s creed, and an App Store could guarantee that, taking care of difficult installations and configurations from users. Not all of us want or need this level of assistance when it comes to installing software, but there are plenty who do.
An App Store can also limit the search for a program. Instead of comparing the thousands of calorie tracking programs and websites available via the Internet, the App Store may limit the numbers to a small handful of apps, each one containing screenshots, ratings, and reviews by fellow customers making it easier to know what you are getting before you purchase it.
It would not surprise me to see, in the near future, an app-based laptop — one limited to a specific app store. Google’s new Chrome-based laptop is essentially cloud-based (and damn them for not sending me one), but if you could tie that into a single store where apps could be purchased (and perhaps loaded?) from a single remote location … interesting concept.
The thing I’ve heard time and time again from Mac users is that “they just work,” and from that point of view, I can see the appeal of an App Store for computers. I don’t see myself personally using one, but I think we’ll see several large ones spring up within 12-18 months.
Problem with these stores is the competition aspect I think. The only form of price competition there is the fact that there is usually more than one person who has a certain application posted, which at least keeps the prices down, but some stuff is way too high on price imho.