[quote=135487:@Bob Keeney]Interesting article about the Mac App Store. http://blog.helftone.com/mac-app-store-the-subtle-exodus/
The criticisms are valid and I agree with everything he wrote. The MAS is a great avenue for developers to sell their software but the general pricing structure is too low to live on unless you’re selling boatloads of apps. There is no try before you buy option and their is no reasonable way to get upgrade money from existing customers. And then add on top of it all, sandboxing is a major PITA for developers to workaround (if they even can).[/quote]
The issue is that Apple considers software all software including songs as a disposable commodity. To impulse app sales, the 99 cents song is the general model everything is based on. Impulse buy, no rationale other than instant gratification. This catters well to the brainless crowd that consumes jackass video and thumping music, but not so well to people who genuinely look for value software.
Compound with that the stupid in app advertising, and the model starts resembling the worst of TV : commercials wrapped around the mosts idiotic topics geared towards the lower end of humanity.
However, having to elbow with crass morons will not deter me from having apps in the MAS. I have been selling moderate ticket items for years though my web sites ($19.95), and providing evaluation versions from the onset. That business has not changed. When I went MAS back in 2013, I created apps based on my popular font packages, and guess what, the price was $19.99. They sold fine. Actually, about the same as my web sites did, and the nice thing is that it came as a plus on top of my existing business.
The key is that the MAS is not for me the alpha and omega of software distribution. It is only one channel, even if rather prominent in terms of worldwide sales. I never got that many sales worldwide as the MAS before.
I did not put in the MAS more expensive packages, such as the $99.95 MICR Fonts with calibration software, or the school licenses starting at $129.95. They simply do not have their place in the MAS. Not only because of the price range, but also because they require a level of support I do not think the MAS allows, since Apple keeps to itself the name and email of the end user.
As an additional revenue, I like very much the MAS : put the app there, and they will come. Now if I was to depend only on it, I may not be that of a happy camper…
The arrival of iOS Xojo will be an interesting occasion to verify that another way : such software cannot be sold out of Apple’s maline hoops. I intend to port some of my apps to the iPad and see what happens.