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Missing Mac apps we hoped we'd see
After the shock of seeing the Mac OS X 10.6.6 update and Mac App Store arrive early this morning, as opposed to the 12 PM ET launch we expected, many of the TUAW bloggers began browsing the virtual aisles to see what was for sale. While there were a few surprises, there were also some apps that were missing that we had really hoped for. First and foremost, the absence of iWork '11 from the Mac App Store was a shocker. I was particularly dismayed, as I'm scheduled to write a book about the productivity suite whenever it finally arrives. iWork '11 isn't the only Apple software that was a no-show -- iWeb and iDVD are nowhere to be found. The Final Cut Studio suite? Nowhere. And even FaceTime, an app that we speculated might go from beta to production with the opening of the App Store, was untouched. Although Apple hasn't said anything about availability of iBooks for Mac, this would have been a great time to launch that app. Some of our favorite Mac utilities and apps were not in the store: No Scrivener, TextMate, Colloquy, Cyberduck (although my favorite FTP client Transmit is in the store), Bento, and Toast. In the area of communication tools, Adium, AIM, MSN Messenger, and Yahoo Messenger were missing. There was no sign of Postbox or Mailplane. Web browsers? No Firefox, Opera, or Chrome. And Reeder is nowhere to be found. While Angry Birds for Mac is flying up the charts already (by the way, it's awesome on a 27" iMac), World of Warcraft and Starcraft, The Sims, and most other popular games aren't in the store yet. Plants vs. Zombies for Mac? Not there. Adobe and Microsoft apps are completely missing. Want a financial app like Quicken, Cha-ching, Moneydance, or TurboTax? Sorry, you'll have to order 'em somewhere else. Some other free apps, Kindle for Mac, VLC, and HandBrake, were not here. What does this tell us? A lot of developers may have adopted a wait-and-see attitude, or simply didn't get their apps ready in time to make the App Store launch. Ged Meheux from Icon Factory told us on last Sunday's TUAW Talkcast that they just weren't ready to release Twitterrific 4 on Day One. As with the iOS App Store, it will take some time to see just how popular and widely-used the Mac App Store will be. Judging from the response we're seeing already on Twitter, I think it's going to be a success. Which missing apps do you want to see in the Mac App Store? Leave your comments below.
RapidWeaver giving users trouble, fix has been submitted
Fans of Realmac Software purchased RapidWeaver from the Mac App Store today, only to have trouble with the app. Fortunately, Realmac is aware of the issue and a fix is on the way. Users took to Twitter to lodge their complaints. One customer wrote, "just bought [RapidWeaver 5] on the app store and I can't edit my RW4 project. The add page dialog is empty and I get missing plugin errors." We spoke with Nik Fletcher, head of support and QA at Realmac, who assured us that it will be taken care of soon. "The fix is already in with Apple for approval," he said, "and it should be live later today via the [Mac App Store] update mechanism." Indeed, the app's official Twitter stream, which Nik calls "the best thing for people to keep an eye on," confirms this as well. Sit tight, Rapidweaver users! You'll be back in business in no time.
Tweetie for Mac has a MacHeist secret
The storied history of MacHeist continues with the release of Twitter for Mac in the app store. As you may remember, MacHeist bundle customers were promised early access and a free copy of Tweetie 2. Then Tweetie 2 never arrived, and Twitter bought Tweetie, and now there's a free version of Twitter for Mac which is what Tweetie 2 would have been. MacHeist customers have, understandably, felt a bit cheated by MacHeist on the Tweetie 2 front, even if the circumstances were outside MH's control. In order to make up for it, MacHeist announced today that Twitter for Mac has a secret. If you click onto the help menu for Twitter for Mac, then hold down the control, option/alt, and command keys at once, a secret menu option is revealed (shown above). If you enter your "Tweetie 2 registration information" from the MacHeist nanobundle, you will get a new "Super Secret" menu in preferences that gives you custom settings for the app: It will be interesting to see what Apple thinks of this secret. Given the rules governing App Store purchasing, it's possible that the app will get "pulled" from the Mac App Store until these "secret" features are either removed or made available to everyone. Lost your MacHeist information? You can look up your orders here. UPDATE: Kudos to Zach who figured out how to enable this. (See his comment below.) To enter these, launch /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app and paste each of these lines in. I tested it on one Mac where I hadn't entered my MacHeist information, and it appeared to work: defaults write com.twitter.twitter-mac ScrollingMakesKeyAndOrdersFront -bool true defaults write com.twitter.twitter-mac UserTimelineDerepeater -bool true defaults write com.twitter.twitter-mac TypeAnywhereToTweet -bool true defaults write com.twitter.twitter-mac HideInBackground -bool true defaults write com.twitter.twitter-mac ESCClosesComposeWindow -bool true defaults write com.twitter.twitter-mac NormalComposeWindowLevel -bool false UPDATE 2: Aral Balkan posted a free little app which will enable these features for anyone who downloads it. Appropriately enough I saw it on Twitter.
Mac App Store by the numbers -- almost 1,000 apps on Day One
Today's launch of the Mac App Store will doubtless be feeding analyst speculation for some time to come. Developers who choose to work within it gain exposure; users who use it gain frictionless purchasing ability, unobtrusive DRM (perhaps too unobtrusive), and slick updating. However, there are costs -- most prominently, Apple takes a 30% cut of revenues, which might not sit too well with some companies. Apple's tight restrictions on what apps can do rule out a lot of programs which modify your system in various ways that Apple doesn't approve of. It's too early to say how it's going down with users, but how many developers have committed to the store for launch day? The Mac App Store UI doesn't make this easy to figure out; there's no master list of apps, but instead a sub-list for each of 35 categories (including the various sub-categories of games.) Even worse, many apps are listed in more than one place, meaning that if you start adding up across those categories, you double- or even triple-count many times. Fortunately, I have devised a method of working around this (gory details at the end of the article, if you are curious.) Click through the break for some analysis of how launch day on the Mac App Store is shaping up.
Why isn't the Mac App Store part of iTunes?
See this? It's a standard iTunes link. Thing is though, that iTunes link doesn't direct to iTunes. It goes to the new Mac App store. Do you know why? http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/angry-birds/id403961173?mt=12 First, there's the obvious reason: the Mac App Store isn't part of the standard iTunes suite because there's no point in providing its features to Windows users. Here's the less obvious, going out on a limb, thinking-about-this-in-too-much-detail reason. Although the App Store for Macintosh is a whole separate application, in its secret behind-the-scenes-superhero-identity, it's basically just an iTunes browser. When you look at App Store, the application, there's really not much there there. There's no preferences, no application management (which wouldn't make a lot of sense, as you have Finder sitting right there behind the app, whose job it is to do exactly that), and not much of anything else other than its core feature: browsing and searching for apps, and purchasing them.
Mac App Store: some of those apps are expensive
With at least one application on the front page of Mac App Store priced at $59.99 and others in the $20 range, it looks like Mac developers are trying to avoid the iOS App Store race to the bottom syndrome. A quick survey of applications shows that Mac App Store publishers with low-priced iOS offerings are picking more realistic and sustainable pricing for their Mac apps. Developer Kristanix, whose well-received Mahjong Epic sells for $0.99 on iOS, are offering Majong Epic Gold for Mac at $9.99, an order of magnitude difference in price. Hibari for Twitter, a simple Twitter client that might also sell at the $1 to $3 price point on iOS, has an "introductory" price of $13.99. On the other hand, as Dave noted earlier, several of Apple's own Mac apps are cheaper than their previous incarnations. The iWork suite comes to $60 when purchased app-by-app, versus the $79 retail cost; Apple Remote Desktop is $79, way less than the $299 cost for the boxed version (and even cheaper than the street price of about $140). Aperture 3 is also hitting that $79 price, a real bargain versus the $199 retail cost. Participate in our poll and read more about Mac App Store pricing after the break... %Poll-58300%
Lack of receipt checking could enable Mac App Store piracy
Not long after the Mac App Store opened, several warnings via Twitter began to surface. "You did implement receipt checking so that people can't pirate your app. Yes?" developer Nik Fletcher (also one of our former writers here at TUAW) asked his followers. Ged Maheux at the Iconfactory also pointed out that he was able to run a for-pay app purchased by another person, and run it on 10.5 and 10.6.5 Macs as well -- none of which should be happening, it would seem. Receipt checking is the process that lets developers verify that the app is installed as a valid purchase by checking the embedded purchase receipt, which is included (in encrypted form) by Apple and contains the UUID of the Mac authorized to run the app. Apple did not force developers to implement a particular way of handing these receipts and as a result, some paid apps are not properly protected against piracy. While the number of affected apps is not known -- and probably very small -- it's not clear there's anything Apple could have done to protect developers from themselves in this situation. According to veteran Mac developer Daniel Jalkut of Red Sweater Software, the burden of preventing the app from running in an unlicensed setup is on the app itself, not Apple's receipts. "If developers think anything doesn't check out, at any time, they are obliged to exit the app," says Jalkut. "So nothing Apple does, short of breaking the exit system call itself, would cause an app to run when the developer's code discovers something is not right." Jalkut suspects that the apps in question may not have implemented a receipt check, or that the check they are using has flaws in its implementation. He also points out that Apple's testing process only looks for "false positives," meaning that if a valid license/receipt is present and the app fails to launch, that's grounds for rejection; if one is absent and the app launches anyway, that's not since receipt checking is optional. [Developer Alex Curlyo points to his open-sourced routines for validating store receipts, in case Mac app developers need some help.] Fellow TUAW writer TJ Luoma was kind enough to share an app with me to test this. He archived an app purchased through the Mac App Store, dropped the app in Dropbox and sent me the link. I installed it, then restarted the Mac App Store. The store showed the app as being installed, and was able to use the app as if I had bought it myself. However, it did not show up in my purchased apps list. When I removed the app from the machine, the Mac App Store gave me the option of paying for a legal license instead of saying it had been purchased or previously installed in any manner. To be clear: TUAW does not endorse app piracy, and I immediately uninstalled the app we tested. However, it's in developers' interest to double-check and make sure they have receipt support enabled for their products in the Mac App Store. [And no, if you were wondering, Angry Birds is not the application we tested.]
Mac App Store hands-on
You may have heard that admist the craziness of CES, Apple decided to launch its Mac App Store on this fine January morning. We've gone ahead and updated our machines to 10.6.6, so we're officially App Store ready. Read on past the break for a walkthrough of the basics, as well as a smattering of some early apps featured front and center.
How the Mac App Store works, and get Twitter for Mac free
The new Mac App Store is online, and ready for you to use. It's an incredibly simple way to find, install, and manage your favorite software. First of all, to see the Mac App Store at all, you'll need to run your Software Updates (under the Apple menu) and get Mac OS X 10.6.6 System Update, or run the combo update you can download here. After you reboot, you'll see a new icon in your dock, right after the Finder icon. Click that to launch the app store. If you don't want it taking up dock space, you can also get to the Mac App Store through the Apple menu, right under Software Update. The app store looks and works almost exactly like the iPad App Store, featuring the same home page of new and popular apps. Most apps cost less than you may have seen them at retail, but some, like Things, are priced higher than we've seen them in bundles. In the Gallery accompanying this post, you can walk through getting the much-anticipated Twitter for Mac app. The release was teased yesterday and showed up on time early this morning. As expected, the app is free. Its predecessor -- known as Tweetie before its developer was acquired by Twitter -- hadn't been updated in quite a while, so folks looking for Tweetie 2 will want to check this out. Check out all of the steps to installation in the gallery below. We'll have an in-depth review of Twitter for Mac up soon. Enjoy! %Gallery-112983%
Mac App Store: initial impressions
Apple launched its Mac App Store a few hours early today and we have been downloading apps like crazy here at TUAW. For those who are still waiting to get the hands on the 10.6.6. update, you will be happy to know that the Mac App Store shares the same look and feel as the iTunes App store. It is a stand-alone application whose only apparent tie-in to iTunes is the Apple ID you use to purchase and download apps. Similar to the App Store on iOS and iTunes, the Mac App Store organizes applications to help you find your favorites and stumble upon new offerings. Currently, the Mac App Store has three app-specific menu bar items including Featured, Top Charts and Categories. The Featured apps section is further broken down into the familiar New and Noteworthy, What's Hot and Staff Favorites. As expected, the Top Charts section lists all the Top Free, Top Paid and Top Grossing apps as well as the top apps per category. The familiar categories section breaks down the apps into 21 broad categories such as Medical, Games, Productivity and more. Selecting an individual category will let you scroll through all the apps in that category or browse through the Top Paid, Top Free and Top Grossing apps for the category. Rounding out the five menu interface for the Mac App Store are Purchases and Updates. Purchases is a sweet new feature that is not present in the iOS App Store. Clicking on Purchases will list all your recent paid or free download. Each listing includes the name of the application, the date purchased and whether it is installed or not. Unfortunately, pricing information is not included in this list. Finally, the last menu item is Updates. Similar to iOS, this section will keep track of application updates and will presumably let you download and install new versions with a single click. Overall, the look and feel of the Mac App Store is very re-assuring and familiar for iOS users. It is responsive and installing new apps is drop dead easy; sometimes even too easy. Once you enter in your Apple ID, subsequent clicks on a "Buy" button will automatically complete your transaction. We only ran into a few minor inconveniences, the most troubling of which is the inability of the Mac App Store to pick up previously installed applications. Apparently, the Mac App Store does not exhaustively scan your computer for apps when it is first installed. Apple applications like iPhoto were picked up but some third-party apps were not. We assume this annoyance will go away once you filter all your app purchases through the Mac App Store. For a closer look at the Mac App Store Interface, check out the gallery below. %Gallery-112987%
Mac App Store generating error messages instead of app purchases? Here's the fix
Oh, this ain't cool. According to the roughly gazillion complaints we received this morning upon the launch of Apple's Mac App Store, users are seeing the ol' "unknown error occurred (100)" message when first launching the store after the upgrade. According to TUAW, it's a problem with the iTunes Terms and Conditions -- which some users aren't getting prompted to accept, hence the error message. What should you do if you get the error? Quit the store and reload it. If that doesn't work, folks are finding that rebooting and then launching the store again does the trick.
Mac 101: Finding App Store on your Mac
This morning it was all "Where's Waldo?" on my computer as I hunted and hunted for the new app store after spending far too much time updating my system. It turns out that I don't need to upgrade my glasses, just my recognition skills. The new App Store icon is automatically installed into your Dock under 10.6.6, just to the right or below the OS X finder icon, into the second slot on your Dock. App Store is an application, just like most of the other items in the top or left portion of your Finder Dock. Removing it from the Dock adds a little room back into your applications collection -- and you can do this without losing access to it from Finder. The secret is that App Store is built right into the Apple menu at the top-left of your finder window. Why take up precious Dock space when you can get to the app so easily? If you're looking to conserve space in your Dock (and, frankly, what Dock-aholic isn't), you can easily remove it and still find it when needed. To remove App Store, just drag it out from the dock into the finder. You'll be rewarded by a lovely visual poof and an accompanying sound effect. Of course, if you change your mind and decide that you want App Store back in your dock, just hop into your Applications folder and drag the icon from the folder window right back over into the dock.
Updated terms specify number of installs from the Mac App Store
While researching the reduced price behind Apple's Remote Desktop -- $79.99 on the Mac App Store versus $299.99 for up to 10 seats through Apple's website -- we in the TUAW newsroom found ourselves debating the number of allowed installs. I perused the individual license attached to the Apple Remote Desktop app on the Mac App Store, and it said the app can be installed on computers you own or control in accordance with with the Mac App Store Product Usage Rules. These rules (which weren't on Apple legal's site as of yet, but you do see them when doing your first purchase in the Mac App Store) specify that "You may download and use an application from the Mac App Store for personal, non-commercial use on any Apple-branded products running Mac OS X that you own or control." So that shiny copy of Remote Desktop you just downloaded? It goes to any personal Mac you own. Granted, most people aren't going to own a plethora of Macs, but it's still a better deal than $299.99 just to even use the product. Same goes for Aperture, which is $79.99 on the Mac App Store, but $199.99 through the website. Commercial enterprises will still need to buy individual licenses. It answers a concern about whether or not Apple will restrict the number of installs you can do on the Mac. Likewise, iOS apps downloaded through the iOS App Store can be installed on any Apple-branded products running iOS.
Buy individual iWork, iLife apps from the Mac App Store
Apple's iWork suite is a nice collection, but some users don't need all three apps. Fortunately, the Mac App Store lets you pick and choose between iWork and iLife apps. Starting today, you can buy and install only the apps you want for US$20 each. For iWork customers, that means Pages, Numbers and Keynote. Buy all three and spend $60. That's a savings of $40. Now some of you are probably saying "$40? But iWork '09 only cost $80? So if I can get them for $60, that's a savings of $20." Ah, but you are forgetting that the app you are buying can be used on all of your computers, meaning that you are really getting what used to be called the "Family Pack" which sold for $100. The Mac App Store also recognizes if you already own them, so you won't have to buy them again. Similarly, the iLife apps can be purchased individually. You'll find iPhoto or iMovie or GarageBand on sale for $15 each. That's a significant savings over the $80 for iLife Family Pack. There's one big caveat, however: you will not find iWeb or iDVD in the Mac App Store. Maybe they're coming later, but it seems more likely that Apple signified that they were cutting them lose when they were included in the boxed set of iLife but never mentioned during the announcement. Where is iWork '11? Several of us were surprised to see that iWork '11 is not on the Mac App Store. iWork '09 is, obviously, a few years old now and the Mac community has been anticipating a new release. the Mac App Store just seemed like it would be a good opportunity. Not yet, but hopefully soon. Just a reminder: there has never been Mac upgrade pricing on iWork or iLife, so if you buy Pages from iWork '09 today for $20 and iWork '11 is introduced next week, expect to pay full price for that upgrade. Caveat emptor. UPDATE: If you already own these apps but the Mac App Store doesn't recognize it, make sure they are up to date (iWork just had an update last night). After updating apps, restart App Store app and it should recognize they are installed.
Mac App Store reporting "Error 100"? Here's what to do
Many users, including a few of us here at TUAW Towers, have had the release of the Mac App Store this morning blighted by the message We could not complete your App Store request. An unknown error occurred (100). The fix for this seems to be simple. The release of the Mac App Store has provoked yet another set of iTunes Terms and Conditions for us all to agree with (seriously, Apple, I think we can all agree we've surely agreed enough by now?), but the App Store seems to be flakey about reporting this to you. Quitting the Store and reloading it appears to be enough to bring it to life; you'll know when you get it right because you'll be walked through the usual T&Cs process. Other users are reporting success with restarting iTunes instead, or restarting their entire Mac, so that's also an option if the first approach doesn't work for you.
Mac App Store pricing of featured apps
Now that the Mac App Store is available, we've taken a look at pricing of some of the top apps (all links will open the Mac App Store). Here's a quick look at some apps we've been anticipating, including a very steep discount. Pixelmator 1.6.4, the image editing app billed as a light weight Photoshop alternative, is US$29.99.That's a huge discount over the price at the Pixelmator website, which is $59. As you see in the graphic above, there are other deals to be had. Aperture is selling for $79, which is a steep drop from is former price of $199, and Apple Remote Desktop has fallen to $79.99 for unknown seats. Meanwhile, Things from Cultured Code, the popular project management software, is selling for $49.99 (up four cents from Cultured Code's web price). Meanwhile, Delicious Library 2 from Delicious Monster is $39.99, the same as its web price. There are several free apps as well. Twitter for Mac (formerly Tweetie 2) is indeed in the store as we expected from yesterday's leak, and is free. In fact, it's currently listed as the top free app. Additionally, Evernote and one of my favorites, Alfred, are also available at no cost. We'll have much more on the Mac App Store as the day progresses. Stay tuned.
Mac App Store now online, Mac OS 10.6.6 available
As announced, Mac OS 10.6.6 was made available early today, which includes the Mac App Store. You'll find a link to the Store in your Dock once you update. Grab the OS update now by running Software Update on your Mac. According to Apple, this update lets you: "Discover Mac apps: Browse featured apps, top charts, and categories, or search for something specific. Read detailed app descriptions and user reviews, and flip through screen shots. Buy and install: Easily purchase apps with your iTunes account. Apps install in one step and are quickly available from the Dock. App updates: The Mac App Store keeps track of all your purchased apps and notifies you when free updates are available." Thus begins our Mac App Store coverage. Stay tuned to TUAW all day for in-depth analysis and exploration. [hat tip to Macworld]
Apple's Mac App Store goes live
Well it's official boys and girls -- Apple's Mac App Store is live as of this morning, and available to use and abuse via a Snow Leopard update (version 10.6.6 to be exact). The OS X application market takes the company's wildly successful iOS App Store to its logical conclusion, bringing an orderly, structured app buying experience to desktops and laptops across the globe. The Store will launch with over 1,000 titles, including Apple standards like the iLife suite broken out into separate parts (iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand) selling for $14.99 each, Pages, Keynote, and Numbers for $19.99 apiece, and the bank-breaking Aperture for $79.99. Of course there'll also be third-party apps present at launch, including Autodesk Sketchbook Pro, Pixelmator, Cheetah 3D, and Flight Control HD (yes, a port of the iPad version). The software itself will be a separate application that functions much like the App Store, providing update notifications and a universal installation process. That process, mind you, will be part of the requirements for getting your application into the store, along with Apple's famous content policies -- so we're sure we'll see some irate devs with painful rejection stories. Or maybe not. We know that the company is planning on getting lots of familiar developers into the Store, but we also know that some of what Apple is looking for may not gel with, say... Adobe's installation procedures (or worse). Regardless, right now the number of apps available is small, but you can expect it to grow fast now that every Mac user will get a crack at this software. We're going to be doing a much deeper dive on the experience and report back -- until then, if you're using it, let us know what you think in comments.
Twitter for Mac expected to launch with Mac App Store tomorrow
It's time to put away childish things (Tweetie) and step up to Apple's new Mac App Store. Twitter's coders have decided to inaugurate the App Store's arrival on Macs around the world tomorrow with a new version of their client for the platform. Such is the scuttlebutt coming from Razorianfly, who also managed to snatch up the screenshot above, though further details are predictably scarce. All we're told is that the new Twitter for Mac will have the option to perform real-time updates, native re-tweeting support, and a funky option described as "drag and drop" tweets. Well, there had to be some intrigue to this software update.
Realmac talks about the future of the Mac App Store and reduces pricing
In anticipation of tomorrow's opening of the Mac App Store, Realmac Software announced pricing for its line of Macintosh software that will appear in the store. In a blog post yesterday, Realmac wrote that it believes the Mac App Store will usher in more focused apps that will do one thing and one thing well. The days of "Swiss Army Knife" programs may be winding down. Realmac also believes upgrade pricing is a thing of the past with software vendors taking a cue from Apple; the company sells its iLife and iWork suites for a set price and provides minor upgrades until a new full version is released, when the consumer is then charged the full price for the new version. Lastly, Realmac believes that prices of apps in the Mac App Store will get cheaper since the iOS App Store created an auction market that drove down prices. Where prices will end up is anyone's guess. In light of this, Realmac made some pretty big changes. RapidWeaver, the website creation tool, is dropping in price both on the Mac App Store and on the Realmac site, from US$79 down to $39.99 for a limited time. It seems like Realmac is taking a flyer on this, since they are interested in seeing how prices shake out, and intend to adjust the price accordingly as time goes by.
