Mac App Store Very Promising But With Restrictions

The most surprising news coming out of today's media event was the revelation that Apple would be launching a Mac App Store for Mac OS X. From the short preview that was given, the Mac App Store appears to be structured similarly to the popular iOS App Store. App sales and upgrades are all managed through the App Store, itself. Like the iOS App Store, Apple splits revenues with the developers in the same 70/30 ratio.

Given the massive success of the iOS App Store, Mac developers are understandably interested, but may run into hurdles with Apple's approval process. Andrew Welch of AmbrosiaSW told Informationweek that many of his company's existing apps would not be allowed in:

"Ambrosia is certainly interested in the idea of a centralized Mac application store," he said in an e-mail. "However the restrictions imposed by Apple on the applications may make it impossible for a number of our applications to be submitted."

Presumably, these apps would include their system utilities such as WireTap, Snapz Pro X and Soundboard.

We've heard that Mac App Store Apps are restricted from installing kernel extensions (kexts) that are frequently used to provide system level functions in these utilities. Apps, as well, must be self contained and avoid use of undocumented APIs.

Developers, of course, aren't required to distribute Mac apps through Apple's App Store. Developers can still distribute their software on their own, but the centralized access and publicity of the App Store model has been well proven on iOS. The Mac App Store also raises additional questions whether or not the so-called "race to the bottom" in prices will be duplicated on the Mac software side as well, and whether or not it will encourage simpler, more casual apps.

Mac App Store to Offer Unbundled iLife and iWork Applications?

Several MacRumors readers have pointed out that Apple's promotional materials for its forthcoming Mac App Store show that the company may be planning to offer applications from its iLife and iWork suites on an individual basis. Supporting that notion is the demo offered by Apple's Craig Federighi during yesterday's media event in which he showed how a user could purchase and install Pages from the Mac App Store.


Based on Mac App Store screenshots posted on Apple's pages, it appears that the company is planning to offer portions of its iLife suite (iPhoto, GarageBand, and iMovie) for $14.99 each. It is unclear whether it will also offer iWeb and iDVD, the other two components of the suite that now retails for $49, as standalone purchases.

Apple similarly lists individual components of iWork (Pages, Keynote, and Numbers) for $19.99 each. Interestingly, this would result in a total price of $59.97 for the three applications purchased individually, below Apple's $79 price for the entire suite.

In addition, Steve Jobs noted during the media event that applications purchased through the Mac App Store would be licensed for use on all of a purchaser's personal Macs. This would appear to represent a middle ground between Apple's current single-user software packages, which allow for installation on only one machine at a time, and family packs, which permit installation on up to five computers but for multiple persons in a single household.

Apple already offers its iPad versions of Pages, Keynote and Numbers as standalone purchases on the iOS App Store, priced at $9.99 each with no bundled suite even available. The same may be true for the Mac App Store, as Apple's promotional screenshots offer no indication that iLife and iWork suites will be available for download in bundled form. Presumably Apple will continue to offer the bundled suites on physical media, but it is unclear how long this distribution method will continue to be supported by Apple once the Mac App Store begins to take hold.

Apple Announces New 13.3-Inch and 11.6-Inch MacBook Air Models with Flash Storage

At the close of Apple's Back to the Mac event today, Steve Jobs announced two new MacBook Air models feature 13.3-inch and 11.6-inch displays.

As rumored, the new MacBook Air models do not have traditional hard drives, featuring only flash storage. Both models have Core 2 Duo processors, 2 GB of RAM, and NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics cards. The new MacBook Air models have unibody chassis like the latest MacBook Pro models, full keyboards, stereo speakers, FaceTime cameras and glass multi-touch trackpads. Both models can have their RAM upgraded to 4GB from Apple's online store.

Battery life is claimed to be 7 hours for wireless web browsing on the 13.3-inch model and 5 hours on the 11.6-inch model, with a standby time of 30 days for both sizes

Both new MacBook Air models have high-resolution LED-backlit displays, with the 13.3 inch-model offering 1440 x 900 pixels and the 11.6-inch model carrying 1366 x 768 pixels.



Pricing begins at $999 for the 11.6-inch MacBook Air with 64 GB of storage and goes up to $1,599 for the 13.3-inch model with 256 GB of storage. Both MacBook Air models are available starting today.


MacBook Air Software Reinstall Drive
With the new MacBook Air lacking an internal optical drive, Apple has included a"Software Reinstall Drive" USB stick carrying a unique Apple design to be used to restore Mac OS X and iLife. iWork is also included on the drive if the machine has been custom-configured to include the software. As it did with the original MacBook Air, Apple is continuing to offer an external MacBook Air Superdrive, now priced at $79. The MacBook Air can also wirelessly take advantage of the optical drive on a nearby Mac or PC for software installation purposes.

Mac OS X Lion Set for Summer 2011 Debut, Mac App Store to Launch Within 90 Days

As expected, the next version of Mac OS X was previewed at today's Back to the Mac event, showing new features inspired by iOS on the iPad, such as multi-touch gestures, the App Store, app home screens, full-screen apps, auto-saving capabilities, and how apps resume when launched.

Noting that over 7 billion apps have already been downloaded from the App Store, Jobs announced that the Mac will also have its own Mac App Store. It will feature one-click downloads, free and paid apps, and the same 70/30 revenue split currently applied to apps in the iOS App Store. Apps sold will be licensed for use on all the personal Macs a user owns. The new Launchpad in Lion will be a home screen for all applications.

"Lion brings many of the best ideas from iPad back to the Mac, plus some fresh new ones like Mission Control that Mac users will really like," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "Lion has a ton of new features, and we hope the few we had time to preview today will give users a good idea of where we are headed."

The Mac App Store will look similar to the App Store on the iPad, featuring app descriptions, screen shots, and user reviews. The Launch Pad will display all applications on virtual pages, much like the home screen pages on iOS devices, including the ability to organize applications into folders.

In Lion, applications can be viewed in full-screen mode and navigated using multi-touch gestures to switch between open applications. The Dashboard feature will be accessible on a virtual page to the left of the current screen in the same way the search screen is accessible in iOS. A new Expose feature called Mission Control will show all windows for all open apps.

Lion will be released in Summer 2011. The Mac App Store will open in 90 days and developers can submit apps for inclusion beginning in November.