Now is it just me, or does this seem not only pointless, but that it is just a cash cow for Mr. Jobs?

App store on the iPhone is great IMO, apps are exactly right for the iPhone. But a Mac is a proper computer, the App store is not only gimmicky, but sells WAY overpriced rubbishy little apps that wouldn’t look out of place on the iPhone. Why? Who actually buys them? Is it just to appeal to the people that have bought an iMac or a MacBookAir on the back of buying an iPhone in the first place?

And why oh why can I no longer find the software downloads page on the Apple website any more?!?! That used to be quite good. Have they tried (and failed) to integrate it totally into app store?

Maybe Jobs’ idea was

“If you’re dumb enough to pay over the top prices for what is essentially an Intel PC…. you’re highly likely to buy more useless crap!”

Bet he’s laughing all the way to the bank!

jez…

As the new OS is going to be available through the app store for only £30, how much was that copy of windows?

It is a way of making money, but it keeps things simple, which is the beauty of Macs in general. Windows is ,and never gets better, clunky.

Have i used the app store, no, i haven’t needed any applications for a while. But i will be using it to get the new OS at some point.

Ok, it is mainly aimed at having a VERY easy way for you to buy apps for your Mac so apple have almost a direct tap into your bank account. And yes, there are quite a few crappy apps on there.

But. Some are much better priced than boxed versions. Take Aperture – about £180 in the store and about £50 on the App store. Or Apple’s iWork suite which you can buy individually. Other ‘proper’ apps are the same price or cheaper as you would buy them elsewhere and for those, using the App store just makes it a million times easier in terms of installtion and updating (both automatic). As long as you can filter out the rubbish, there is some great stuff on there you probably wouldn’t discover otherwise.

You’re missing the point. For years there have been loads of useful little apps for the Mac like Windowshade, or the various apps to let you copy music from an iPod back to iTunes, which were a pain to track down, some were shareware, some free, but always time consuming to track down. The App Store allows all those small developers to put their ‘ware in one easy to search marketplace. Speaking as someone who’s used Macs as a work computer in the print/graphics industry since 1995, I can assure you that having access to small useful and free or cheap apps in one place is a great thing. The Mac bods at work, one of whom I’ve worked with for over thirty years, said much the same as you; until he started to look through it. He’s been downloading all sorts of little apps that he didn’t know existed but provide handy little shortcuts. Look at the cost of Lion. Around £20 for the full OS as a download. That’s entirely due to it being available through the App Store. Go ahead and pay £150 or whatever for an OS upgrade on a DVD, the overwhelming response has been ‘damn, how come Lion’s that cheap!’ I think Snow Leopard was £50, and that wasn’t a major OS upgrade.

Agree with CountZero – things like a NTFS file driver are really handy – I use the App Store for free boltons like that. NB Aperture looks a steal on there as well.

And why oh why can I no longer find the software downloads page on the Apple website any more?!?! That used to be quite good. Have they tried (and failed) to integrate it totally into app store?

D’you mean http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/?

But. Some are much better priced than boxed versions. Take Aperture – about £180 in the store and about £50 on the App store. Or Apple’s iWork suite which you can buy individually

That’s good to know, thanks 🙂
I’ll hopefully have enough money for a Mac in a few months and you’ve just saved me a lot of money there!

Here come the Acolytes of Jobs, worshipping at the Temple of Shiny Thing….

Whatever you do, do not question their faith.

– works with your Apple ID, no faffing about typing in address and credit card details on some random developer’s website

– if I use another Mac and want some app that I had on my other one, I can go to the App Store, see my purchase history and just pull it down again

– big one for those with more than one Mac: just like with the iOS iTunes store, you can install App Store purchases on multiple Macs and only pay once for them.

It’s much like Steam for games on the PC – makes it all very quick and convenient, the buying and downloading just happens in the background, and if you switch computers, just log in and pull down anything you’ve bought in the past, rather than keeping drawers of software CDs just in case.

Here come the Acolytes of Jobs, worshipping at the Temple of Shiny Thing….

Whatever you do, do not question their faith.

it’s just an inbuilt store interface where you can browse different kinds of software and often purchase them cheaper than elsewhere.
you can take advantage of this without being a fanboy or a geek.

Minor irritation that everything gets put onto the dock by default.

How do people manage their applications by the way? When I look in the applications folder I’ve loads of stuff that I can’t remember the purpose of, I could do with something like a windows start menu…

How do people manage their applications by the way? When I look in the applications folder I’ve loads of stuff that I can’t remember the purpose of, I could do with something like a windows start menu…

Make a new folder called whatever say My Menu. Right click on each application you want in it and choose Make Alias – copy that to your newly created folder. Dump the folder on the dock and volia – remember you can set the view content as setting by right clicking it.

I think Snow Leopard was £50, and that wasn’t a major OS upgrade.

snow leopard was more like £20 – but the fact that a major OS upgrade like lion will only be £30 can only be a good thing

Flashy in inability to come up with original insults shocker. (from he who was asking for app recommendations a few weeks back).

Just once, for once in your miserable travelling saleman’s life, stay away from a thread discussing apple products will you?

Nope i bought the Numbers Keynote Pages and Aperture for more less than half price has buying
the software with my Laptop so How you can say the App store pointless is simply beyond me????

As the new OS is going to be available through the app store for only £30, how much was that copy of windows?

£20.99, but to be fair, I’d rather just go and buy it on DVD from the shop anyway, will be best part of 8GB which will take days to download, and I’ll have to burn it to a cd anyway… But yeah, I applaud the idea of it for those with fast internet… And agreed on the price of Windows still, though only a couple of years ago Apple’s Leopard was the same price as Windows was, they only changed their pricing structure when moving to Snow Leopard.

Ok, it is mainly aimed at having a VERY easy way for you to buy apps for your Mac so apple have almost a direct tap into your bank account. And yes, there are quite a few crappy apps on there.

Yeah understood, but where’s the good stuff? And why so few free bits of software? There’s tonnes of good free software for macs out there, why is almost none of it on AppStore! Appreciated, it’s new and will grow, but I had a good look round earlier, and there was nothing I wanted, let alone needed… Full of overpriced crap (£25 for an app that is essentially a basic database, to help you categorise your wine collection FFS! Not wishing to stereotype Mac owners eh…)

That’s good to know, thanks
I’ll hopefully have enough money for a Mac in a few months and you’ve just saved me a lot of money there!

Unless you need a laptop, don’t bother. Do what I’ve just done and build a

Minor irritation that everything gets put onto the dock by default.

Minor irritation? Bloody annoying I’d say! Rather not thanks…

How do people manage their applications by the way? When I look in the applications folder I’ve loads of stuff that I can’t remember the purpose of, I could do with something like a windows start menu…

Cmd-Space
Type first few letters of app name.

Minor irritation that everything gets put onto the dock by default.

ctrl+click > remove from dock

if that’s too much bother get a pc (or run windows on your mac)

ctrl+click > remove from dock

Or just drag it off! even less effort 🙂

How do people manage their applications by the way? When I look in the applications folder I’ve loads of stuff that I can’t remember the purpose of, I could do with something like a windows start menu…

Folders within the application folder?

You don’t have to put the app in the application folder though, it will run from pretty much anywhere. It’s just a nice place to keep everything together.