Death Star
I’ve been thinking about Apple’s App Store and the industry paradigm shift it represents. Apple loves to change the game like this, simultaneously unseating previously entrenched adversaries while building for itself a defensible system for the future. The trick to making it work is to not appear to be too greedy and I think Apple is accomplishing that. They are greedy, of course, but as Fernando used to say, “It is better to look good than to feel (or be?) good.”
Apple’s original App store was for the iPhone — a portable and for the most part cloud based method of distributing and updating iPhone apps. This was followed by Apple’s App Store for OS X, which did much the same for Macs. Both are being extended fully into the cloud next month with the release of OS X 10.7. For users the App Store lowers the cost of applications, keeps them updated and synced, and allows their deployment across several computers. For Apple, the App Store destroys shrink wrapped software, eliminates product serial numbers, vanquishes piracy, and punishes competitors like Adobe.
Software goes from being a box of bits to a cloud of electrons. Remember Larry Ellison railing against the box of bits metaphor in my show Nerds 2.01: A Brief History of the Internet? That was back in 1998. None of us, even Larry, knew it would take 13 years for that vision to be realized.
With the App Store prices are lower because costs are lower, but also because Apple wants prices lower to gain market share for both its devices and the associated ecosystem. That’s an important but little recognized part of this paradigm shift. The old question used to be whether Apple was a hardware company that sold software or a software company that packaged its products in hardware. The new reality is that Apple is an ecosystem in which hardware and software are important but then so is the cloud that lies behind both.
At the same time that the App Store allows you to run one $299 copy of the new Final Cut X on all your computers, it becomes nearly impossible to pirate that software without first hacking Apple’s data center in North Carolina. This is huge and its effects will be profound, keeping legit customers honest at little cost while pushing pirates toward other solutions, especially Open Source.
But what about Adobe or Microsoft or Symantec? They can sell their software through Apple’s store, accepting lower prices and sharing 30 percent of the money with Apple. Or they can stick with serial numbers and piracy. Or they can roll their own app stores, but in doing so forgo the power of the Apple ID or risk infringing Apple IP by somehow reverse engineering it.
It’s a tour du force that will have painful consequences for competitive products like Adobe’s Creative Suite. Apple to Adobe: we win, you lose.
Reduce piracy? How?
If the app runs on my device, I can copy it.
Are you talking about apps that run on the cloud and only do i/o on the client? In that case, I can still steal the data.
As to how difficult it is to hack a data center, not that hard. I read stories right here at I Cringley about that.
I spelled CRINGELY wrong! Sorry about that.
I think you’ll find the new 10.7 versions won’t work for very long without re-validation. And while someone may well hack Apple’s data center I hardly think they’d be doing so simply to enable Final Cut piracy.
agreed… you can copy it, but only your iTMS account can install it. DRM as copy protection. As long as you don’t share your ITMS account, you can copy all you want.
Sorry to say, but Mac App Store apps are actively being cracked with all DRM removed. You don’t get the benefits of easy updates and management, but the sw on the app store is still prone to piracy.
Obviously no DRM / anti-piracy measure is perfect, but Apple’s is:
a) more convenient for honest people than dishonest (already a huge win)
b) more convenient for developers than any rival option
c) allows Apple to create a new tier of users at OS-level — right now we have “can install anything”, “can’t do diddly squat”. Apple can add “Can install from App Store” and solve 100% of 90% of people’s problems and 80% of the other 10% of people’s problems and thus make life stupendously harder for trojans.
“a) more convenient for technophobes than those concerned with fair use (already a huge loss to the public good)”
There, I fixed that for you. You’re welcome!
There are pirated versions of FCPX already up, and it’s not too difficult, it’s about switching one file to make it seem valid.
Lion is also going to be very easy to pirate.
I agree about the market share, but think of itunes. it didn’t stop music piracy, but made it so easy and cheap to download a song, it appealed to people (whether morally or out of how technically easy it was, or just laziness)
The questions is – Why pirate a $30 OS?
Same reason people pirate $2 iPhone games.
The question I have is simple, can I buy a full version on DVD of 10.7 so heaven forbid a Mac crashes or I replace the HD, I can easily re-install the OS from one disk?
They are saying that 10.7 is supposed to install a backup copy on a protected segment of your harddrive that will be available for re-installation in case the rest of your hardrive info gets blown away. If you replace your hardrive, then you will be able to redownload your authorized copy from the Mac App Store along with the versioning-backup of your files stored in iCloud, and/or your TimeMachine backups. So far, no talk of 10.7 being sold on DVDs
SolarSaves, thanks for the info.
I personally like to have a copy of the OS laying around. I hate the fact Apple, who used to make it so easy to install an OS, plays games. It’s never just a matter of installing one DVD, it’s the original DVD, then the downloads and more downloads to get the OS up-to-date.
I’ll bet bag of Beers that hackulo.us, or its metaphoric offspring comes to the Desktop powered by magnet links. This is a cat and mouse game that can never be “won.” The average public consumer will buy through the systems that Apple sets in motion when its so easy and quick. I would submit that this same consumer was unlikely to seek out ripped versions of software and their keygen counterpart.
Make it easy and the lazy consumer will pay for convenience. Marketing 101, ok maybe marketing 102.
And there you have it. With ” traditional” software the pirated version is sometimes (often) easier then the original, so why and pay money and go through the hassle? Compare that with those app stores: pretty cheap and very easy… So you don’t have to lock it down completely because pirated will only be cheaper hardly ever easier.
For $29 apps it’s easier/cheaper, but for $300 apps like Final Cut the “easy” half is going to have to be pretty amazing to justify the “not so cheap” half for those who were not ever going to spend real money. You can say thieves are going to steal, but there’s a price point where thieves will pay because it’s not a lot of money. There’s a continuum of convenience vs cost where different people drop off at different points depending on what they’re willing to pay.
Then Steam opens an app store… which Valve could probably do in a couple of weeks if they were so inclined and some app vendors asked them nicely.
An app store on Steam? I like that idea. Steam is my preferential way of acquiring computer games, it would be only natural that I’d look to it as a way to acquire business/productivity/creative apps. Great idea.
Steam has been doing that at least since Portal (the first one) was released. I didn’t even realize it, but when I fired up my new computer two weeks ago, installed Steam and logged in with my old account I was offered a free download of Portal (again, the first one) because they knew I already owned it. Maybe not the Apple App Store, per se; however, prior art on the distribution of purchased software across different hardware based on a remotely-stored (i.e., cloud) user account.
Good point. Steam could give Apple some competition. I’ve never used the app store, but I’ve been buying through Steam for years.
>> None of us, even Larry, knew it would take 13 years for that vision to be realized.
~15 years, actually! The Ellison’s “box of bits” quote can be seen at the end of “Triumph of the Nerds”.
BTW, we’d love to buy Nerds 2.0.1 on DVD… and NerdTV Season 2. 🙂 We love you, Bob!
Or watch them on Netflix watch instantly, in case the Cringely IP department is paying attention to this conversation…
“The old question used to be whether Apple was a hardware company that sold software or a software company that packaged its products in hardware. The new reality is that Apple is an ecosystem in which hardware and software are important but then so is the cloud that lies behind both.”
Apple doesn’t give away razors to sell blades
nor does it give away blades to sell razors
Apple sells an ‘insanely great grooming system that has you shopping factory direct”
Great reply! i had always been saying the Jobs mantra that it was they were a software company that made hardware. Your answer is perfectly solves this question.
>>Remember Larry Ellison railing against the box of bits metaphor…That was back in 1998. None of us, even Larry, knew it would take 13 years for that vision to be realized.<<
Nor that it would be Apple bringing the vision to the masses. Would have sounded preposterous.
I remember watching the show way back when and thinking of Steve Jobs as an unfortunate casualty of the industry. Oh how the times and tables turn.
Oh woops, I was thinking of Triumph of the Nerds 1.0. Before 1998. Wasn’t that where Larry went on about his disdain for bits in plastic?
Apparently so. I need to re-watch my own shows!
Here, you go Bob, from “Triumph of the Nerds.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8g_tcdR_pQU#t=1m46s
Though it does beg the question, when will I be able to get Nerds 2.0.1 on DVD? Or iTunes?
Ask Oregon Public Broadcasting, which owns the rights.
Bob,
The way I see it is it’s a cost / benefit analysis for software Cos. and that the “accepting lower prices and sharing 30 percent of the money with Apple” is a bit hyperbolic.. Is piracy costing boxed software companies more than 30 percent and would you as a Apple competitor with a huge advantage in current market share get out the white flag??? The supposed iron grip of the cloud may bite Apple in ways they haven’t anticipated.
Theoretically, it’s costing MS billions in revenue when folks multiply-install Office, Windows, etc. So 30% seems a low cost to avoid that loss.
The thing is, if someone wants PhotoShop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, etc where are they going to get it besides buying a shrink-wrapped copy? I was just thinking about that the other day. I needed a vector drawing program so I looked on the Mac App store for an vector drawing clone of Illustrator. I couldn’t find one.
Maybe Adobe will open their own App store for customers to buy their wares. They may have to come down in price but they seem to be the industry standard for graphics software.
Suck it Robert M. Young Jr (or whatever your name is)!!
inkscape.org
… and it’s free.
Yea, Inkscape kicks ass.
Here’s my vector graphics editor:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/intaglio/id417852764?mt=12&ls=1
Err…not to rain on your parade, but I bought both CS3 and CS5 digitally…Adobe has been selling their software electronically through their own website for years. In fact, ironically, the only “pro” software left that I had purchased physically was Apple’s (Aperture and Logic), but thankfully they’re finally selling digitally, too.
You are correct. Adobe loves selling direct and especially loves the 30 day free trial followed by selling direct — something that Apple really ought to add to its App Store. Bug beyond the Adobe’s system is nowhere near as sophisticated as Apple’s because it hasn’t had to be… until now. The game is truly in flux.
They have a 30-day trial for Aperture.
Hmm. So you’re really saying that Adobe needs to step up their game and make their software better? Because the Mac App store is so convenient people will look for alternatives? How does that bode for Office for the Mac?
I for one would gladly ditch Office if I could find a suitable replacement for Excel.
You’re very right. Apple are doing things right but their core success is that they have become a company extremely adept at conceptual agglomeration, by which I mean they get or invent concepts regarding the way things should be done, and they make it happen, but they don’t stop there. They keep bringing additional concepts into their core. The expanding scope of the app store is just the latest example of this. Ultimately the App Store concept will supersede any other software distribution model. In truth it probably already has and the traditional software purveyors just haven’t cottoned onto the fact that their distribution model is dead (it was always fundamentally broken in any case – hence the piracy sickness that has beset it from the outset).
So. The question is, do software vendors sign up with Apple to take advantage of their flawlessly functional distribution model, do the vendors set up their own app stores, or does some canny third party set up an app store distribution model in parallel/competition with Apple’s and offer to distribute software for a fee/percentage……ooh, I think the software industry is about to sneeze…..A—A—-AMAZON! Whoops. Guzundheit, Apple…..
Stay tuned.
The problem with the Mac app store is the same problem with the iOS app store: do you really want Apple, and Apple alone, dictating what software you’re allowed to use? There is no doubt in my mind that within 2 more releases of OS X after Lion, installing software other than via App Store will be either practically impossible or so arcane and painful that only lee7 haxors can manage it. At that point we’ll all (consumers and developers alike) be at the mercy of Apple and their totally opaque, sometimes arbitrary idea of what we should and should not want.
I think iPhone is a really great device and iOS a pretty good piece of software. But these are reasons I choose not to own an iPhone. I don’t want ANYONE dictating what I can and can’t do with the devices I own (as long as what I do isn’t illegal).
Furthermore, stifling competition, while beneficial in the short and medium term, causes great damage to the consumer in the long term. Micro$oft is reaping the consequences of that strategy now; I suspect Apple will be in the future.
(current MacBook Pro and Droid Incredible owner)
Exactly! Apple’s strategy is fundamentally to stomp on competition, and gain control. For anyone who appreciates openness on computer platforms (be they desktops, laptops, phones, tablets, game consoles, etc etc), Apple’s direction is 180° away from where you would want to go.
I’m reading the book “The Master Switch” right now, and this discussion fits in nicely with Mr. Wu’s thesis. The Cycle of openness –> control.
What will be interesting is what new idea and its implementation that deflates the Apple idea and brings more good things to the table. (I do think there are some benefits to Apple’s system, despite where it’s headed.)
Jerry, can you guess how many people do “appreciates openness on computer platforms”. A hint, they don’t Cringely (sorry Bob).
The masses just want something that works, and works seamlessly. The new iCloud doesn’t need configuration, setup or install. You turn it on and shit is backed up.
But it is NOT open is just not a real argument. The market does not care at all! Unless Apple abuses the customers (they will a few CEO’s after Steve is gone), the customers will keep pouring money into their wallets.
Apple will not be the only computer company in the future. Eventually the idea of a computer being something separate from the fabric of life will be thought of like the pony express.
I disagree with you. I think they do, but only after they buy a Mac.
I agree with Doug; most consumers don’t care one iota about openness. Most of them don’t even know what openness means. Most just want everything to be quick, easy, and free of problems.
You have to understand that the readers of this blog are in no way the average user. And most of us rarely come into contact with average users. When we do, usually don’t even realize it. We think of the users who have no clue what their device does, can do, or even how to get the most out of it as being a small minority–clueless neophytes. The reality is that they, and others who know only a little more, are the majority.
The only people I hear complaining about the lack of openness are the “tech” people — developers, programmers, hackers, and those with a lot of tech knowledge.
My wife has been using desktop computers for over twenty years and is more tech-savvy than most of her peers, yet she simply wants everything to work and couldn’t care less about openness. If most people are opposed to non-open software and systems, then why have so many people purchased iPhones and iPads?
I’d bet money this never happens. Apple has a completely closed controlled system. Why does it need 2? ios device sales are much higher than mac sales… they don’t need to make the mac into ios.
Remember the programmers who work at apple use macs too… and truly closing it up with make many many things incompatible.
The point of ios is to be a much simpler platform for users. It actually frees the mac to stay relatively complex.
For all the talk of apple’s “control” remember this is also the company that has included its developer tool suite with every copy of OSX (though no idea what happens with Lion.) To repeat I believe that the utter simplicity of iOS frees the mac to be a fully programmable computer.
At that point we’ll all (consumers and developers alike) be at the mercy of Apple and their totally opaque, sometimes arbitrary idea of what we should and should not want
No, not all of us.
In the 20’s there were hundreds of car manufactures ( OK but more than 20) Ford was still making the T model. WHY? Because Henry was stupid? NO Henry thought that the Tin Lizzie was all that was needed for the worker as a car! The inventions of others in their cars was not necessary in the T. My favorite car of the era is a British Lancaster — who’s heard of that? Move forward to 2008 and USA without the intervention of the state would have one repeat one manufacture of cars! WHY?
MANAGEMENT! GM and Chrysler had the Henry Ford mentality of “we know what is best for you”
Its the same in computers — one idea is invented and then needs to live for ever as the gods of business decree!
When Apple begged Adobe to improve its Flash ( because more than 50% of Mac stalls were caused by Flash) Adobe said “F$&@ You!” AND YOU Robert X cry for such a company!
You Robert X complain of ” Engineering Lies” in other blogs but here want the shoddy work to survive!
Well evolution kills failures — Don’t cry for Adobe.
Apple thinks they’ve won, but wait until the carriers start taking a piece of the action. What would Apple do if Verizon and AT&T walked in and demanded 50% of the profit? They’d be on their knees.
It’s also a risky model, trapping customers and screwing developers. It creates bad blood between software developers and Apple. They should have not been as greedy, but that’s Steve Jobs and the proprietary model. Lots of defections from Apple development already.
Evolution kills failures, but more are wiped out due to arrogance and greed.
Are you developer? Good look trying to distribute couple thousand apps a day for only 3 dollars a piece and only using 30% for distribution infrastructure, banking, accounting, legal advice and refund handling. And guess what Apple also lists you in some “weird directory” that is preinstalled on over 200 million devices.
The App Store has worked well for Indies and Corporations.
op was saying he likes choices. the distribution model is fine — can’t we have more than just Apple? i think we will. maybe we will have devs that publish in multiple markets. maybe some devs will be like .`’*stars in hollywood of yore 😉 now with an exclusive with some boutique market.
your points about bottom line is right on. Apple and other markets will need to deal with other head-aches too. “people like easy”. no easy for average jane to follow threads in dev forums as to why her app thing has bugs.
genius bar you say? perhaps. but can it scale? i say. how can it scale? well, like anything else in da Real World. Brick and Mortar services.
insects are considered bee-u-t-ful creatures by some other creatures. note that they can only grow so big. something about vital pipes being in the expansion zone of some hard bits of their body. so it goes with Apple. it will get big, fail on quality control on the service end of the Appliances that Steve set out to make and sell (remember?) since Steve not being a Developer did not consider BUGS aka insects …
The Mac App Store isn’t the only vector for buying apps for a Mac. You can sell apps off your own site if you wish or via the standard in-a-box way. Its just that the App Store is generally better.
It would be at that point that we find that Apple has decided to buy or build its own cellular network, or better yet, aggressively cuts the price of its unlocked cellular products.
Remember that Apple has billions of cash in the bank, uninvested. Why have all that cash? To keep people from getting leverage in them.
The Mac App Store is untouchable by AT&T and Verizon, and Apple has the resources to buy or roll their own networks. It doesn’t want to do that, obviously, but Apple above all else hates to be bullied.
BAZZ, I think the reason nobody has heard of the Lancaster car is because it was the Lanchester
The Lancaster was a bomber
Thanks I was close only a few letters missing or in the wrong place!
But why is that manufacturer forgotten but important?
How many software packages does the average pc user buy anyhow(not including preinstalled)??
1? 2? 3?
Jobs is hell bent on making that number bigger.
That and this is a way of permanently undermining the value of Windows and Office in one slice. This was his death blow to Microsoft (who by the way still hasn’t found a solution to iTunes in what, 7 years now?). Steve must have seen the weakness to them after the unpredictable and unimaginable success of the AppStore.
Jobs pretty much pre-ordained the death of desktop Windows and probably any mobile Windows OSes, too. Microsoft will have to port its apps to Apple’s online behemoth and Amazon’s and Google’s stores, too, jettison Ballmer and install a CEO with the foresight and gumption to radically streamline and reorganize the company’s business.
Meanwhile, Android continues to constantly shoot itself in the foot.
This will show up the true cost of piracy I think, if Apple take 30% of the sale price then it will only be profitable if that 30% loss is made up for the fact the software can no longer be pirated.
Wait and see, I doubt the maths will mean too many companies will move.
I think most companies realise pirated software is generally used by hobbyists and home users, but then they demand paid versions when they need it for work.
Block the hobbyist and home user and they never experience your software so don’t realise what it can do.
Pete, that is a clever way to look at software piracy. The software companies say they have “lost” sales due to it. But how many people that purchased cheap, pirated software would have actually purchased the full priced, legal versions? Perhaps not that many. The software companies should just consider piracy as a form of advertising and promotion, at no out of pocket expense.
Once they have developed the software, the actual cost of production is trivial. (Moreover, with pirated software, there are no distribution or support expenses.)
They certainly can’t show the cost of piracy on their income statement. It doesn’t cost them anything. The loss is just in their heads. “If this had not happened, we would have make x more sales.” Wishes and assumptions, not facts.
— But how many people that purchased cheap, pirated software would have actually purchased the full priced, legal versions? Perhaps not that many.
Which is why Lotus looked the other way. Kapor was no dummy. The current crop, even Jobs, think their software is God’s Gift. It ain’t. It’s not a coincidence that “piracy” goes up as the economy goes down. D’oh!!! Even Homer knows that.
All piracy is is not paying the author the price set by the author! I remember Formosa copying text books and selling them for less than half price.
News on the net or paper or TV must come from people — either they paid by paper or TV company or from persons at the scene. Its why paparazzi live — one good shot will pay for their children’s college education! You just pay the dollar to the paper or ads pay for it on TV. The cost is shared by many people or ads.
A job must be paid for! If its not the job goes because the person dies of starvation. Slavery in the USA is the alternative do you Robert Young want to be a slave? Work for free to a vindictive master who beats and starves you?
That you get something for free means someone does not eat and goes bankrupt.
Philanthropy only comes from profit elsewhere! Bill Gates III struts the world and speaks a lot because people 500 million plus paid him for his OS! And Microsoft takes to court anyone they find getting their OS as a pirate copy! WHY Robert?
So if no one pays no one makes anything and we’re all poor!
Russia pirated cars TVs etc their stuff was junk do you want junk Robert Young?
Or do you want to be a slave owner and make others work for you for free?
If capitalism has gone so bad then bring on communism and see what is better!
I agree with you that capitalism is preferred. But Robert’s point is that some companies wisely choose to make pirating more inconvenient and less desirable than legit copies while at the same time not “going after” pirates simply because they make more money that way. People who would otherwise use a free competing product will instead be publicizing the benefits of the expensive product instead of the free alternatives.
As others, before I got the chance, pointed out, the marginal cost, and thus the price, (if Adam Smith’s notion of economics is correct, and it is) of software is near zero. Anything more is monopoly rent, which Adam Smith (whom the Right Wingnuts glorify without ever knowing what he wrote) is four-square against. Consumers always find a way around monopoly rents.
And, as has been mentioned more than once on this thread, the assertion of lost sales/profit rests on the assumption that the “pirates” could (and would) purchase at full price. Even M$ knows better, having price well below cost to drive out competitors (Linux most recently). Isn’t that stealing from “legitimate” business?? Stopping corporations from making 10,000 copies of Office makes sense. Does it make sense for home use?? M$ generally has looked the other way. In the beginning, they provided lavish docs (for which they provided regular updates). Late, like Lotus, they went into the publishing business, so that any but the most casual Office user needed at least one of their books. They’re no fools either.
Zero cost means zero price, if one actually believes in Capitalism. Most who make that assertion only believe in Monopoly Capitalism (theirs, of course). Capitalists routinely complain of “ruinous competition”, but are more than willing to sell into a market below cost; if they decide that thus they can gain a monopoly (at least, oligopoly). One man’s pirate is another man’s Business Model.
Robert Young’s reply shows his belief in orthodox economics and is on a par with Ben Bernanke. Both spout stuff and the economy does not work! It is based on assumptions that are faulty but belief is fundamental in fundamentalism — the core of self deception — the sun goes around the earth when revealed to be false has no prior believers all know that to be false and deny they ever believed such a foolish idea!
The state* gives a person the RIGHT to limited MONOPOLY for all novel inventions.
It is how the state rewards the person for his effort to make idiots have a easier life.
If the idiot wants to “pirate” my Camaro GTO and take it for a drive well he goes to jail!
If the idiot wants to “pirate” my state allowed patent and take it for a drive well he goes to jail!
Ask Kodak how much it cost to ‘copy’ Polaroid MONOPLOY in the 1980’s!
It do not matter that many crimes go unpunished — they are still CRIMES!**
What you Robert Young is doing is inciting people to commit crimes.
MUSIC copying is not a crime in your book — You get on the radio for free you can have it on your hard drive for free also. The radio pays for the broadcast of music — when you copy music the musician goes hungry. You may not like the Rolling Stones being Billionaires but it is their effort and their music that others paid to make them rich!
But your criminal communist economic polemic makes you believe that there is a zero cost — there isn’t the CO2 you breathe out is pollution and causes global warming.
I think its a Y generation belief that everything others have can be yours for free if you “PIRATE” them Circumvent the “monopoly rent” and gate crash the party.
Well your CO2 needs to be converted to O2 by others at an energy cost.
* Disney has a monopoly right to Micky Mouse that should have expired in the 1980’s (50 years) but Disney has asked for extensions from Congress and got them. So pirate Micky and see the inside of a jail if you want to circumvent the monopoly rent!
** Change the laws to make them noncrimes. And see how long we survive try North Korea. They pirate cheat and steal but can’t eat!
“A monopoly granted either to an individual or to a trading company has the same effect as a secret in trade or manufactures. The monopolists, by keeping the market constantly understocked, by never fully supplying the effectual demand, sell their commodities much above the natural price, and raise their emoluments, whether they consist in wages or profit, greatly above their natural rate.”
Adam Smith (the real one)
Adam Smith is only partially correct. Euler had a proof the the X^n + Y^n = X^n but he had no room in the margin to write it. Today 5 hours of computer time and 2000 pages make the proof not as elegant as the one in Euler’s head! Well he’s dead and that monopoly or secret doesn’t grace any book on maths!
He has forever kept the market in knowledge as Adam Smith says “constantly understocked”. The choice is Euler’s as Adam Smiths says I paraphrase “That the butcher looks for his profit helps the world”. Well for want of a blank page we’re poorer! A reverse of Adam Smiths polemic!
Fate plays a part in economics that Adam Smith seems to forget — The “natural rate” of pay depends on the time of year Try buying a Xmas tree in June WHY? Why not? There is a “natural rate” increase with Xmas trees cheaper on Dec 27 than on Dec 20 that Adam Smith has not accounted for mainly because Xmas trees were not invented then!
My education in economics was with cherries!
Very high prices at beginning of season and very cheap at the middle of the season!
Its typical supply and demand. And Adam Smith could not make a “natural rate” on them. Orchidist’s go out of their way to find very early or very late variety cherry trees to take advantage of scarcity!
Who do we blame God or a naive Adam Smith for the “natural rate”?
It seems that one of Apples’ selling points, its’ immunity to virus attacks, is about to go out the window of sorts. With everything moving to the iCloud, every hacker and his brother will be attacking the iCloud. Apple has concentrated the entire iCloud in one building at one location in North Carolina. Hackers must be salivating. I can see the headlines now, “iCloud Service Taken Down Again…”
(former iPhone user, now Droid X user)
The natural evolution of this is away from apps and towards web (cloud) delivered functionality. Though there is convergence, with standards like HTML 5 allowing local device storage, and some technology like JavaScript that runs on the client device where it makes sense, is indispensable.
So as you say, also an ecosystem, some parts running on the servers, some on the clients. But both parts being necessary, and therefore you are right, it defeats stand alone copying (aka piracy). This took so long because we needed network access everywhere for this to even be possible.
I wish I could find an old Berkeley Macintosh Users Group newsletter circa 1985 with a cartoon of Jobs at an event saying something along the lines of “we always meant to ship a Torx screwdriver but there was a screwup somewhere”.
The Mac AppStore is really the closing of the circle; as someone who was a Mac developer for 20 years or so, it’s been mooted several times and attempted at least in a couple of variations since the late ’80s. Hell, I even petitioned for it in one form in the mid ’90s.
It’s simultaneously a really good thing – especially for indy developers like I was – and a bad thing in that Apple has the final say on everything (the reality distortion field leads them astray every so often).
I don’t see it being a big problem for Adobe though – the piracy rates on their products are amazing (I recall estimates of something like 100:1); they could afford to drop their prices in line with the “AppStore ideal” if it mean even a 20x increase in sales.
I desperately hope they don’t attempt to lock out any attempts at creating alternatives… that would be the ultimate betrayal of many of their loyalists.
Final Cut X is already available on the torrent sites. http://d.pr/qN02
That’s not a link to the torrent; it’s a link to a screen cap of the torrent page.
Don’t be so disappointed.
Uh, I was replying to my own comment to clarify for people who may feel trepidatious about visiting a torrent site, asshole. And I think my comment renders Cringley’s whole post incorrect, since I *ahem* know people who’ve been easily easily easily pirating app store apps on torrent sites. And using the 10.7 preview, and updating it through Software Update. Cringley’s post is pure ignorance.
Yup – i grabbed the torrent and followed the instructions just to test out if it really was “cracked”. It appeared to be cracked. The app loaded just fine after following the ‘cracking’ instructions – didn’t dial home, didn’t say “hey, you aren’t who you say you are”, etc. The ‘cracked’ app may not (most likely will not) get the automatic downloaded updates, but if you are hacky enough to hunt around torrent sites for cracked apps, that is probably not something you particularly care about – you are already on the internet to know when the new versions come out, and thus will know when a cracked version of the update is available, etc. etc. etc.
No, I am not keeping the cracked Final Cut X on the system. No, no no. I just wanted to test out Bob’s assertion that piracy will be eliminated (or at the very least, seriously thwarted). I don’t think it will do a single thing to combat piracy. “_MASReceipt” (the directory where the validation code is kept in the app) is just another version of serial numbers (but less intrusive).
The only thing that thwarts piracy is cost. You make the cost high enough, it will be pirated. You make it low enough, it will not be pirated. $29 for OSX Lion, total, for every computer in your house, thwarts piracy. If it was $129 per machine? Lots-o-lots-o-piracy.
This is what makes me so vehemently angry about the BSA (business software alliance) when they publish their statistics about “lost revenue” due to piracy. There is no lost revenue due to piracy — the cost of piracy is essentially “baked in” to the cost of the software (i.e. the valid purchasers of the software are subsidizing the pirates). Just as the cost of clothes reflects the amount of shoplifting that is done. It’s simple economics.
…and hopefully, for you, the person who cracked the security didn’t add a virus or trojan horse to the application before making it available on torrent sites in order to make some money from his effort.
I agree, Michael. And this is just like any other cracked app you would get on a torrent site – you are taking your fate into your hands. I certainly don’t recommend doing such a thing.
But again, the point of my reply was not about the benefits or cracking apps or how great torrent is or whatever. It is a rebuttal to the claim that with something like the app store, piracy is eliminated. An app store doesn’t do anything about piracy, good or bad.
The reason we don’t talk about apps being pirated on something like the iPHone or iPad is that you have to jailbreak your iPhone/iPad first, and most people simply do not do that. But once you do, you can get tons of the app store apps for the iPhone on torrent sites, too. There is nothing about the architecture of the iPhone app store that prevents the piracy.
Jobs has realised that one of the main factors for piracy is cost. iTunes store gave a way for legal downloads of music to be possible, and he fought with the record companies to keep those costs down. In the UK the BPI try to stop people buying music, only increasing the desire to pirate. iTunes store cost in the UK should come down again (please). The BPI aren’t the smartest monkeys on this planet of apes.
Adobe, however, are equally stupid. I used to buy Acrobat Distiller for creating PDFs, but the price now is out of this world. Thankfully Open Source came to the rescue.
I’d like to buy Photoshop to edit my pictures, but I’m not going to spend $600+ on a copy. I’d pay $60, but “Elements” version has nothing to do with Photoshop. It’s useless. Again, other free software has taken over but I’d still buy Photoshop if it were $60.
I used to buy Paint Shop Pro, but Corel have completely screwed it up! Demo’d the last version, what a mess that was.
Check out “The GIMP” for an open source (i.e. legally free) alternative to Photoshop. Doesn’t do all the fancy stuff Photoshop does, of course, but costs nothing to try.
Bob,
I think you are sightly off target here. Apple hasn’t stole a share of pie from Adobe; they have simply made the pie much larger. The group of users that uses app store is mostly mutually exclusive of the group that buys shrink wrapped software. The marketplace has grown in total. You are correct about Apple creating a “vurtuous circle” that will be hard to penetrate however.
Peter
Not related to this post, nonetheless an interesting question:
http://theintelhub.com/2011/06/22/why-is-there-a-media-blackout-on-nuclear-incident-at-fort-calhoun-in-nebraska/
So I read the linked article and all the media that the article links to. All I can say is that it’s a non-story. (1) There is no media blackout, in fact the article links to many sources of media with further information. (2) There isn’t much of a story because the plant is operating safely. In other words, there isn’t a media frenzy because there’s nothing to talk about.
And what happens to everyone when the data center goes down?
I’m not talking about hacks, but a real world event where Apple is now the proud owner of a very expensive data farm that is worthless.
It doesn’t have to be anything malicious either, a cut cable by a careless backhoe operator, drunk driver taking out a power line (or a copper thief), or some kids for the lutz seeing what happens when steel wire is dropped on bus bars…
I’m not familiar with the specifics of Apple, but any mission critical system should have redundancy throughout the whole system and for the system itself such that any part can fail or even the whole data center, and something else will be there to transparently take over.
All the more reason,
to never buy
any Apple i
This is insane. It make Bill Gates and IBM at their megalomaniacal best look like friendly chumps.
What will happen as Apple’s user base expands? Will anyone ever care
I’d love to see an Apple-owned App Store for…windows apps.
I wonder why. Regardless of who runs the store, I fail to see how it would benefit any particular user. If it reduces piracy, it helps the developers. In any case it helps the store itself since it takes a share of the revenue. If you think it would insure better software, maybe, but now all you need to do is read the reviews on reputable websites before downloading software, whether free or paid.
Our family members have compiled a list of apps purchased directly from the App Store on our 4 iPhones and 2 iPads; what’s really interesting is that we have about $240 worth of apps that were used rarely or not all, and fair to say will never be used. Surely this is the case with every user who reads reviews and looks at screenshots and text descriptions, but ultimately iOS at risk for a few dollars at most
Just for the record, the Impulse app store has sold non-games apps for quite a while, and, then, of course, there’s Steam. On the mobile side, there have been Symbian stores for a decade now, and there’s Qualcomm’s BREW platform.
So I don’t see any particular innovation on Apple’s App Store — beyond not giving operators a share of the profits (which BREW did). And that means I don’t see much how much patents they could have to protect that business.
Hilarious – “Microsoft will have to port its apps to Apple’s online behemoth…”
No love of MS here, but seriously – Apple is to Microsoft as AOL is to The Internet.
To me,
The point in using the app store is one of trust. If Apple provides access to the apps I need/want via the app store, I can be relatively assured that the apps have been vetted and are (hopefully) virus free.
Of course I have downloaded a few “open source” apps and installed them, but my grandmother’s mac (speaking figuratively) would be safer using apps directly from the app store.
I think that Apple is consciously moving toward a relatively safer computing environment. Downloading from the app store and running other code in a sandbox (when Lion gets here) seem like good things to me.
Those that think the current situation about being able to crack AppStore software is more than a temporary situation are in for a surprise.
I would bet a dollar that every Intel based Mac shipped is TCM/TCG compatible, and that an environment like that which currently exists for iOS based devices is entirely feasible from a technical point of view. I would bet another dollar that there is an OS X build already done that demonstrates this stuff.
The number of Mac developers in relation to users is tiny. The number who actually matter financially to Apple is smaller still. Many of the “must have” apps are already owned by Apple (the music stuff, Final Cut etc).
Historically Apple has shown no compunction about putting developers through the wringer if they feel it’s for a “greater good” (ie: benefit of the shareholders).
The actual Mac customer base will probably applaud having an iPhone like walled garden with no “bad stuff” able to get in.
Apple has shown the digital world that if you provide a product with value people are willing to pay, the pirates show if you have a product which you have done nothing for it will be surpassed, often with greater knowledge of that which you hope to peddle.
As long as apple provides an outlet for people’s creativity to be expressed they will continue to prosper
I don’t think that things are as clear cut as “we win you lose” like the article says. I feel from personal experience that most users just want a product that works well and simply. The easier to use the better. Apple has been good at this. The iPod won against other digital music devices because it worked well and is easy to use. It did not have a better quailty of sound or ther technical benefit beyond user experience.
In the same way if they do it well and the cloud is easy to use with the products just working well most people will not care about any loss of being open or if Apple limits some choices or options. And just like there could only be one final winner of Blueray vs HDDVD the cost and effort to support multiple methods will eventually drive the industry to accept either Apple’s vision or not.
From experience Apple has been on the ball for a while now and I think it likely that they will succeed in this bringing down Adobe and Microsoft (well hurting them both) but just because Apple announced it does not guarnatee it will succeed. Other people have pressed to have everything in the cloud before. And apple has had misses in the past. I don’t think the fight is over yet.
Mr. Cringely,
While I see the previous comments focus mostly on the daily life of which application or brand is the most meaningful I offer this. The internet consumer is the new serf in a world of subscription.
Apps that are downloadable are nothing more than an appetizer to this reality.
After awhile, it seems so easy to put down for a monthly fee of nothing more than $19.95 for that service that is so useful, whether it is a movie or research tool. What worries me is that those subscriptions will become indispensable in the new landscape of our economy and culture and thus add into and up to an unsustainable sum.
Most people have no idea about automation.
I’ve always wondered why Apple doesn’t just buy Adobe. I think now is the perfect time!
I always wondered why adobe didn’t fight back and take a risk. I have ideas for them, and your are right, now is the time.
The price is too high right now in comparison to the value. Adobe is mired in a mess of its own making. If they can work out a solution to the multiple FUBAR code bases, then they’re probably high on the list for Apple or Microsoft. If they fail, then their IP bones will be picked by the vultures for pennies on the dollar.
“Both are being extended fully into the cloud next month with the release of OS X 10.7.” So this column is celebrating the elimination of the sale of physical media? How is that better than what we have now…both cloud and physical?
I love this i want more on this subject
any references please?
Linux has been using REPOSITORIES for software distibution (and updates) for a long, long time. This precedes the “App Store” by a long, long time. Apple simply monetized this approach to secure software distribution.
Nothing new here. Move along. Move along.
And Microsoft has had “Windows Update” since 1995. But there is nothing “simple” about “monitization”. For example, try to monitize your contributions to this column.
Ronc,
That was a great challenge! Now, if you choose to click on my above name, you will be taken to the sales site for my amazing ebook. This product is guaranteed to improve your life in 60 days or your money will be refunded.
Ready… Press the button and order the product.
Monetization, you are in my power!
“This video on YouTube” is missing.
Ronc,
Thanks for your notice
Robert Young’s “Consumers always find a way around monopoly rents.”
IS disproved by Somalia the capital of Pirates.
What product in a failed state is a monopoly rent where all crimes are unpunished.
Why do the consumers not find a way around a monopoly rent?
Well its the Cell Phone system the pirates need it and pay the monopoly rent and protect it and provide it with power.
They don’t cheat on their plans because all phones are prepaid! AND a monopoly survives in the land of pirates!
We say “tour de force” not “tour du torce” in french!
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With Apple’s continued push to make developers use the App Store, it should be interesting to see when developers push back. The application signing and sandboxing requirements coming up will further limit developers. Will the big guys like Adobe play along?
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