I've been a Mac user since almost forever and an iOS user since also almost forever. I never use either store for discovery, largely because I can't imagine any way to do that and get good results. If I open the App Store on iOS and see something neat, I'll check it out. If I open the App Store on macOS, then either I'm going to my 'purchased apps' or 'updates', or I'm following a link from someone's website.
Both stores are terrible places to find apps; I think it was John Gruber who said that the Mac App Store is a warehouse, not a storefront, and I think that's only become more true on macOS. People find good apps on the webs via Google and then click through to the app store.
Getting featured is neat, but beyond that you have to do all the hustle yourself, and if you're doing all the hustle I don't see the point in paying Apple a 30% cut if you can avoid it.
Agree about warehouse vs discovery and finding links elsewhere.
But contrary anecdata -- if I have a choice between a great app not in App Store and a just ok app in store, I buy from the Mac app store.
The experience across multiple Macs and new Macs is too convenient to give up.
I'd imagine this is even more true with a multi-Mac family with family purchasing enabled.
I will happily pay 2x for "don't make me think" features like one stop updates, purchase history and new machine restores, etc. Time is money, in the long run this convenience is cheaper.
OTOH, I buy a ludicrous number of apps so maybe my problems aren't typical.
1) I moved countries, now half my apps are on a separate account I have to log into separately randomly (sometimes updates need it, sometimes not...) and logging in and out of Apple IDs always confuses their system mightily.
2) Several of the apps left the app store...
So now if I see an app in the app store I'll look for it on the web to buy from the dev directly.
When I moved countries (also 4 years ago), you could. However, you would lose the list of all applications that you purchased (this also happens with purchased music). However, when you repurchase them, you get the application for free. Of course, it is a bit difficult to guess for each application if you already had it and at the same version.
Even after re-purchasing an app that you already bought, it does not always show up in your purchases list. E.g., I bought Pixelmator before I moved. It won't show up in my purchases list. I have to purchase it again (for free) every time I install a Mac.
The next time, I will just try to keep a local bank account and will not migrate the account.
Used to be the same. Given the choice I would prefer an app from the AppStore. I know that I can click and use it across my macs. I don't have to try and figure out what the licensing terms are.
I did feel a little guilty that the dev was losing 30% but I did it anyway.
Now. With many apps I use shifting out of the App Store, it's a liability and I think twice before buying on the AppStore if I think I may be stuck on an older version after the developers shift to direct purchase.
But contrary anecdata -- if I have a choice between a great app not in App Store and a just ok app in store, I buy from the Mac app store.
The experience across multiple Macs and new Macs is too convenient to give up.
This and sandboxing. You can do sandboxing outside the App Store, but almost no developer does. I don't want most apps to have access to my complete filesystem.
For hackers like ourselves, I recommend brew cask for installing GUI apps.
If I am setting up a new computer, I have a shell script that installs all of the programs i commonly use, both CLI tools and GUI apps. The only caveat is that this won't work for Mac App Store apps. For that reason, I always get the non-mac app store app. I guess App Store is somewhat convenient, but IMO not as convenient as:
The App store took the classic package management idea from the Linux/OSS world and butchered it.
You can add a 3rd party repository in most Linux distributions.
I really wish mobile/ARM devices were more of a universal platform like PCs. That way we might have seen more fully OSS linux distributions come to mobile and give us a real viable alternative to Google and Apple.
Whats' horrifying is the over 10GB I have to download every couple of months for OS/X components and apps I have on my MBP (iTunes, xCode) - how come Apple couldn't make differential upgrades and library based, modular package management approach on OS/X common?
In contrary on my Linux with i3 WM, and minimal set of updates - sometimes I do JIT install an app, use and uninstall, because it's kind of small and fast.
> People find good apps on the webs via Google and then click through to the app store.
Here's an anecdotal counterpoint that occurred to me just yesterday. The Witness is a very highly-rated game that's been available for PC for over a year. It just got released for mac the other day, much to my delight. Thing is, I only discovered that because of its featured spot on the Mac App Store.
Try googling for 'the witness mac'. You'll see links to the App Store, articles about when it might be released, rants about it not being released, etc. It's very strange - even the developer's site doesn't announce the release!
I'm not sure this proves anything, it just seemed very relevant :-)
I've been a Mac user since almost forever and an iOS user since also almost forever. I never use either store for discovery, largely because I can't imagine any way to do that and get good results. If I open the App Store on iOS and see something neat, I'll check it out. If I open the App Store on macOS, then either I'm going to my 'purchased apps' or 'updates', or I'm following a link from someone's website.
Both stores are terrible places to find apps; I think it was John Gruber who said that the Mac App Store is a warehouse, not a storefront, and I think that's only become more true on macOS. People find good apps on the webs via Google and then click through to the app store.
Getting featured is neat, but beyond that you have to do all the hustle yourself, and if you're doing all the hustle I don't see the point in paying Apple a 30% cut if you can avoid it.