Apple today announced that its Mac App Store has surpassed 100 million downloads in less than one year of availability.
“In just three years the App Store changed how people get mobile apps, and now the Mac App Store is changing the traditional PC software industry,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “With more than 100 million downloads in less than a year, the Mac App Store is the largest and fastest growing PC software store in the world.”
The press release also offers promotional comments from representatives of Autodesk, Pixelmator, and algoriddim highlighting the value of the platform for app distribution on the Mac platform.
The Mac App Store's pace pales in comparison to that of the App Store for iOS, which easily surpassed 100 million downloads in less than three months of availability back in 2008. But with a smaller user base, a smaller library of applications, more expensive average pricing, and the fact that the Mac App Store is not an exclusive official distribution platform for OS X, it is unsurprising that the Mac App Store has grown more slowly than its iOS counterpart.
Apple has worked hard to shift Mac application distribution to the Mac App Store, moving most of its own software, including OS X Lion, to the store and in many cases also discontinuing or severely limiting availability of boxed versions of its software. The Mac App Store is also gaining traction with even the largest developers of Mac App Store, and while flagship products such as Microsoft Office and Adobe Photoshop are not yet available through the store, Adobe does offer several applications including Photoshop Elements via the store. Microsoft is also said to be "actively working" to bring Office to the Mac App Store.
Update: Apple provided some additional information on the milestone to The Loop, noting that the number does not include purchases of OS X Lion, updates to previously-downloaded apps, or repeat downloads from a single user installing apps on multiple computers.
Top Rated Comments
1. Trial software
2. Discounted upgrades to new versions
3. Transferring licenses from apps purchased outside of MAS to MAS
If they can address those three critical things then I think they would have something really good. Right now it's just something I have to have for Lion and other OS updates.
Edit: Bonus #4: A better way of finding apps. Just like iBooksore, it's just a royal pain to look for things outside the top 25 of a broadly defined category.
Oh Gawd. No "freemium" apps please. Nothing is more annoying than the "free" apps that do little until you purchase "in app" options. Before you know it the "free" app cost more than if you just purchased a full featured version outright. Plus it's annoying to keep getting nickel and dimed for basic features.
As for trial version -- completely unnecessary for the very reason Apple doesn't allow them. It clutters up the store, hogs bandwidth. Unlike iOS apps, users can d/l trial versions from multiple sites online, including the developer's site.
I didn't read it like that at all.
Everything is transferred, bit by bit an identical copy of my old HD, onto the newly installed HD in the iMac. I restart, everything is as it was the day the HD crashed. All information, everything.
That's magic. That's impressive.
That app is not available on the MAS.
From my perspective the MAS is a failure, it is solving a problem that was never there (unless of course it is solving the problem that Apple didn't get 30% cut of every Mac app sold, in which case it is trying to remedy that)
I have always found software I need, just search the web.
In fact, I find it more difficult to find the app I need on the MAS; I can't look for apps by price, by specific function or expect all apps to be represented.
Furthermore, apps are all subject to Apple's review, redaction and cencorship - something I don't appreciate.
Finally using the MAS means I have to link my credit card to the Apple account, an important step for one to be "embraced" fully into the Apple ecosystem. :p
No you don't. According to *LTD*, Apple's success does not need to be analyzed, unless it's a failure, then we blame the public for not being ready for innovation.
Note that this standard applies only to Apple, and may not be used to quantify the success of any non-Apple company; the success of any other company is, by default, non-innovative and takes the easy path.