The Times They Are a-Changin'

The Times They Are a-Changin’

I remember just two and a half years ago visiting Apple on my way back to New Zealand after a whirlwind trip to iPhone Dev Camp in Austin TX and talking with a certain individual about the very first iPhone SDK announced a few days earlier. We talked about the App Store and how huge this thing would be, given our experience with ‘Installer’ in jailbreak, and how awesome it would be if there was a Mac version of it too! The response: “That’s an interesting idea.” delivered with a wry smile.

I mean, it seemed perfect:

Single source of software for customers
Frictionless payment system for both customers and developers
Instant app delivery for customers
No license keys for developers to issue, and users to enter, and file away for when they need to reinstall.
Gives developers easy access to almost their entire market in one place

It quickly solves a LOT of pain points for developers looking to sell their software, and it also gives customers an excellent experience in purchase and backup.

However when the App Store launched, no one knew how it would look, or work. It quickly became apparent that it was missing so much of what the software industry had considered virtually essential in assisting sales. Almost two and a half years on, some of these have been addressed, but many of these important limitations still exist:

No volume licensing ability.
No ability for businesses to purchase off the shelf apps for distribution amongst devices in their company.
No sales analytics. There’s no way for me to track sales from lead through to purchase on the App Store to judge and measure marketing effectiveness.
No ability to offer upgrade pricing.
No ability to offer time limited trials.
No realtime sales reporting.
No functional refund mechanism.

Not all these limitations are relevant to all software, some are nice to haves, but the important thing is that none of this can be implemented by anyone other than Apple right now, either due to technical details of how app purchase process works, or it’s expressly prohibited to build something which would allow this functionality.

Yes, the App Store has absolutely improved slowly over time, but these are some extremely important issues which need to be addressed, and have been known, and reported for a while.

Apple’s focus is clearly on the end user. They will always take priority over developers. If there are trade offs to make, they’ll be made in favour of users every time. But the interesting thing is that implementing these features would, at least for me, move the proposition from being a case of ‘hmmm a Mac App Store’ to being an ‘Awesome! a Mac App Store!’

It’s not that the concept of a Mac App Store is bad, or that I don’t see the significant benefits it will bring, it’s that right now there are real trade offs for developers to consider. Those trade offs need not exist. They don’t conflict with end user experience, in fact, many of them dramatically enhance it.

But wait I hear you say, the Mac App Store isn’t exclusive. For all intents and purposes it will be. After all, it’s a great way for customers to purchase and manage software, wouldn’t it be great if it matched developer business requirements better too?

Here would be my ideal scenario. Apple provide their In App Purchase frameworks across all platforms to enable arbitrary dollar value payment processing, giving developers ultimate freedom in how they charge and track sales, whether they offer time limited demos, upgrade pricing, volume licensing. The user simply uses their iTunes account to pay, retaining the no license code, friction free payment and delivery process which everyone loves, but giving developers flexibility in being able to build the business tools they need around sales.

The times they are a-changin’, there’s no doubt that the App Stores have and will change the price / volume equation. I can’t help but think this should be exciting for both developers and customers, but right now my overwhelming feeling is a muted, conflicted ‘hmmmm’.

Layton Duncan