Looking Forward to Apple’s Mac App Store

The recently announced app store for Mac is the biggest news for the Mac OS X platform in the last couple of years. It is going to revolutionize the software buying experience and be come the standard way that people get and update software for their computer. The app store model has several advantages over the current software buying model that will make it an instant hit.

When compared to shrink-wrapped software there is no comparison. Starting with the software developer shrink-wrapped software represents a huge financial investment and risk. Bringing a product to market requires skills outside the typical developer’s field in disciplines of desktop publishing, tech writing, marketing, and advertising. Once the software has been boxed a distribution channel is needed. They will evaluate and help determine the retail price if you can get them to carry your product. It may take weeks for the product to go from GM to the hands of your customers. By then the software on the disk is out of date because of the eventual bug releases. This model will still survive in the near term or the likes of the really big software houses and for the impulse look-alike publishers that you find at the checkout counter of your local office supply store. For the big software packages a physical distribution may still be necessary. I cannot imagine someone downloading 500MB Photoshop or Final Cut from the store today but we shall see.

When compared to the shareware model the app store model is an improvement because the developer no longer needs to maintain an e-commerce system, a file download server, and a software mechanism for registering purchases. Apple provides these services for a 30% fee. That is probably a good value for those services by themselves but that is not enough to push the app store over the top. There are already app stores available today such as Digital River which take care of the e-commerce, distribution, and licensing. The user experience is generally pretty good. Digital River is a backend service and not a retail experience.

One key advantage that the new app store will have if software developers take advantage of it is to break up bundles. Bundles are a way for software developers to get people to buy more of their software are once. The developer only has to box, ship and sell one SKU. The customer gets a couple of programs that hopefully work well together. MS Office is an example of a bundle that is doomed. Today the bundle is sold in such a way that if you want any two of the products you might as well buy the full package. Then the customer is stuck with extra junk like MSN Messenger and PowerPoint that they would never use. Microsoft, Adobe, and Apple are all guilty of bundling their software. The app store promises to let you buy individual Apple products like Pages and Keynote outside of the bundles without having to bring the kid brother Numbers too. This will be the death of lesser used products like iDVD.

For the consumer the single condoned shopping experience for software will become the favorite way to buy software. Users will be able to browse for software and read reviews. They will be able to buy software without whipping out the credit card because the number is already on file. Users will have some feeling of security that the software packages have been vetted by Apple and buy other Mac users. Click, download and run will be the new standard.

The real advantage of the app store will be post-purchase. Ten minutes after a software package is shipped the software developer is going to find a small bug that they wished they had fixed. With the app store model the developer will be able to put the update in the channel and users will be notified that they have update. This is not the first time this has been done. I’ve subscribed in the past to software update services like Mac Update and Version Tracker with mixed results. These services would scan the hard drive and catalog the software found to tell the customer which ones were out of date. Then it was up to the customer to click to download and install each update. This could take some time. Nowadays most software applications have their own software update function that will pop up when you launch the application. This can be really annoying when you just wanted to launch the application for something quick and now you have to wait. Some software vendors have installed their own software update daemon that is constantly running and checking to see of your software needs updating. When it does they act like a manic Jack Russel terrier trying to get your attention to update. These updaters have their own problems. I’ve written about the Adobe updater before that during the update process installs new software that had been previously uninstalled. Having these daemons running from the likes of Microsoft, Google, and Adobe contribute to the loss of performance of your computer. By contrast the app store model promises one click updates like we have now on the iPhone and iPad.

Licensing of software is a tricking thing. When you buy a piece of software today, how many computers are you allowed to install it on? The answer depends on the vendor and in some cases the SKU purchased. In some cases the software is for one “machine” and for others it is for one “user”. Most users probably do not really understand software licenses. If my company buys MS Office then I am allowed to take a copy home to install on my home computer if that is covered under my company’s license. If I buy a copy of MS Office from the store it comes with three licenses that I can install of three different computers. The app store promises to work like the iOS app store to allow me to install my software on any computer that is managed by my Apple ID. It remains to be seen if this really is how it will work. If it does work like that it will make managing the computers in the family home much easier. Today when I buy an application for iOS the rest of my family can also run that app on their iOS device without having to buy it again.

I look forward to testing the Mac App Store. I expect there to be a gold rush when the store first opens up and we will see stories of fart app developers making millions of dollars. It should be fun.