Apple’s new online Mac App Store worries me. Scheduled to open as 2010 becomes 2011, the Mac App Store will supply the same one-stop shopping, convenience, and software reliability that the current iOS App Store provides to users of the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. It’ll also give developers a simple, no-overhead way to market and distribute their apps and pocket 70 percent of the take, with Apple keeping the remainder.
That’s the good news—but as is customarily the case, when Steve Jobs giveth, Steve Jobs also taketh away. The Mac App Store will shackle developers with the same high level of restrictions that the current iOS store does and will flip the concept of a free software market on its head.
You, the software purchaser, will no longer solely decide which apps will succeed and which will fail. Apple will.
To be sure, when Jobs announced the Mac App Store in October, he said, “It won’t be the only place [to buy Mac apps], but we think it’ll be the best place.” Realistically, however, it’s a safe bet that the vast majority of consumer-level Mac users will prefer to shop at a centralized, Apple-approved online app repository rather than take their chances in the wild and woolly web.
And that’s when things get worrisome. If a small- to middling-size developer can’t get an app into the Mac App Store, that app’s chances of survival are at the crystalline-H2O-sphere-in-Hades level.
“So what?” you might ask. “Competition makes markets work by separating the winners from the losers.”
And you’d be correct—if the Mac App Store were an open market. But it’s not. Apple and Apple alone decides which apps it allows into its sacred store and which are left cold and lonely in the vast wasteland of the web. Which also might be reasonable if Apple’s Mac App Store Review Guidelines for developers were more evenhanded and less tilted in Cupertino’s favor.
The guidelines are a list of 93 restrictions designed to guide developers through the app-submission process. Most are reasonable, but many others raise fundamental questions of fairness, market manipulation, and the possible quashing of innovation.
Take section 6.4, for example: “If your user interface is complex or less than very good, it may be rejected.” Apple will decide whether an interface is acceptable, not the market. By doing so, it reserves the right to define innovation and to
be its gatekeeper.
Or section 2.7: “Apps that duplicate apps already in the App Store may be rejected, particularly if there are many of them.” One of the glories of a truly free market is that a potentially better mousetrap can compete with all existing rodent-assassination devices. This will no longer be true when the Mac App Store comes online—Apple will decide when enough is enough and shut the door.
I’ll end with section 5.3: “Apps which appear confusingly similar to an existing Apple product or advertising theme will be rejected.” Apple, needless to say, will define “confusingly similar”—which isn’t merely competition-quashing, but also a wee bit paternalistic to us poor, easily confused consumers.
But more important is this stricture’s anti-competitive nature. Is Yahoo Messenger, for example, too similar to iChat? If Apple deems that it is, it can ban it, no matter whether you, Mr. and Ms. User, might prefer it.
And that’s what worries me about the Mac App Store: Apple decides who wins and who loses, not the marketplace. For more worrying, check out bit.ly/byPbtl.
scottrey
December 20, 2010 at 11:41am
i have to agree with most of you. most mac users will find the apps they want whether it is in the app store or some where on the web.
i think that Rik's point is valid only to those who are either new to mac or are not very confident in their abilities on a computer. ie, those who primarily uses a mac to surf the web.
also, Rik, you scarily look like a cross between Roger Ebert and Bill Gates. no offense.
sleepystu
December 16, 2010 at 7:18pm
It seems to me that the Mac App Store is not much different from a "bricks and motar" store. In the later case, the store owner decides what goes on the shelf, how much "selection" there needs to be of similar products, and whether to support certain brands or not.
Unlike the very closed ecosystem of the iOS App Store, you have the choice to shop elsewhere without messing with your device. If Apple is smart (and similarly, the people at Mac|Life) there will be reviews of "the best outside the Mac App Store".
maclover
December 16, 2010 at 4:15pm
I tend to agree with you Rik, I think it will add new developers like we have seen to the iOS platform, however, there are Apps that won't get approved. WireTap for instance is an incredible app, but won't get on because it uses system level code. There will be better apps that may not get the recognition, but I have a feeling you will see some free apps on the store, that will try to point you to the website to upgrade to a "pro" version. 30% of the cut is quite a bit for Mac developers as well, but we'll see how this goes.
MacAddict4Life
December 16, 2010 at 1:46pm
Rik, your thoughtful articles are, to me, the most impressive content on the MacLife website.
wvmikep
December 16, 2010 at 10:59am
Unlike for iOS, it won't be the only place to buy apps. There will be plenty of opportunity for developers as well as other curators.
strabes
December 16, 2010 at 10:48am
It is true that Apple will decide what apps are admitted into the app store. However, the point you miss is that Apple has an incentive to provide the best apps (and user experience) possible to its users. Apple doesn't just arbitrarily decide to impose restrictions for no reason because Steve Jobs loves to control people.
I tend to agree that "the vast majority of consumer-level Mac users will prefer to shop at a centralized, Apple-approved online app repository," but this will only increase the incentive for people to conform to Apple's requirements and thus make better, more uniform in interface, and easier to use apps. This can fairly easily be seen in the difference in app quality between the Apple App store and the Android Market. Yes, Apple will reject certain apps, but not because they want to make the user experience worse.
Overall I think the Mac App Store will increase the quality, user experience, and profits of everyone.
sportmac
December 16, 2010 at 10:30am
and netflix doesn't carry porn in it's "store" but it is freely available on the web and people know where to go to get it.
you're putting a lot on what you call "a safe bet". i'll bet you're wrong. i'll bet that people who want yahoo messenger will know where to get it and it won't impact it at all. i'll bet that people who want to buy the latest book from their favorite author won't go to joe's sporting goods, bbq, car wash and fish emporium to get it.
gfranklin
December 16, 2010 at 10:20am
At least on the Mac platform if an app is rejected and we want it, we can get it other ways without having to jailbreak, or am I confused? I wasn't thinking the mac app store would lock mac users into that as the only way to purchase software. If apple rejects an app that is good, you will just have to make sure we know about it so we can go get it from the developer. I think quality products will still sell, in or out of the mac app store.
leicaman
December 16, 2010 at 10:11am
The sky is falling!
Never hurts to have a healthy dose of skepticism. But even then, the skeptics are hardly immune from that being the response to their claims.
I think this is a bunch of unnecessary hand-wringing. There's no way it's going to be that dire. And maybe some new to the platform are not going to wander outside the realm of the app store, but they are most likely not going to anyway. They're the people who use the installed apps and that's it.
And the idea that Apple won't allow a better app in than ones that exist already in the store is pure hooey, based on the assumption that this App store is already evil, so no matter how wildly I speculate about it, what I say has to be true.
This is one for Gruber's Claim Chowder.
