In former August , The Omni Group , Divine of many popular Mac productiveness apps and a fixture of the Apple scene from the former days of OS X , announced a toolthat would scour a user ’s hard campaign looking for copies of the company ’s software package purchased from the Mac App Store .
This software package , dub OmniKeyMaster , would then grow Mac App Store receipt into Omni ’s own licence , thus giving users access to the company ’s upgrade pricing option — whichare not normally availablethrough Apple ’s sales channel .
Alas , it now seems that the folk from Cupertino have , at least for now , put a muffler on Omni ’s goals . In a web log postpublished on Wednesday , Omni CEO Ken Case announced that OmniKeyMaster has been hold over due to complaint from Apple .
Golden gates
Predictably , the news of OmniKeyMaster ’s dying has been met with a mix of concern and ire by the blogosphere , mostly ( but , surprisingly , not whole ) aimed at Apple . Cupertino ’s restriction impose on developers who wish to sell through the App Store has caused all sorts of turmoil in the app ontogeny world in late year , and long - sentence computer software makers have been forced to either adapt or face the consequence of foregoing a large market for their products .
My flavor are a bit more mixed . It ’s always hard to analyze something when you only hear half the history , as is almost always the case with anything related to Apple . And , while it ’s well-fixed to assign any identification number of malicious intents to the company , the suggestion that it is n’t sports fan of a dick like OmniKeyMaster really is n’t a surprise , given that one of the app ’s effects would for certain be to take client aside from what the tech giant considers the right , modern way of purchasing and propagate software .
Nor is it heavy to see Omni ’s need for wanting to try and hedge the App Store ’s lack of paid upgrades , a practice that has been a staple of software gross sales for many decades . Omni ’s tool did n’t really do anything villainous — it was alone an opt - in experience . Rather than an underhand attempt at steal client away from Apple , it seems to me that Omni was but trying to strike a balance between the need to generate revenues and keeping its customer glad .
A conflict for the ages
Frankly , I do n’t cerebrate that either Apple ’s or Omni ’s motives are the really interesting fib here . Instead , what offend my curiosity is the battle that the App Store has make between Cupertino and the software program developer community .
Historically , Apple has attempt to shift the rest of the personal computing market , making customers localise a agiotage on hardware while expecting software to be flashy and plentiful . This plays well to the company ’s strengths , which are make beautiful and powerful product that command a agio price and are unmanageable for its competitor to duplicate . By using a little portion of the money it makes by betray ironware to subsidize its software package growing , Apple has placed a substantial amount of pressure on the rest of the PC manufacture , where hardware is commoditized and many troupe have bank on software to bring in the lion ’s share of the net profit .
Thus , the price of practically every one of Apple ’s software ware , from OS X to professional tools likeLogic , has minify dramatically over the years , and the App Store has put a meaning downwards pressure on the pricing of third - company apps for both the company ’s background and mobile operating system .
From a drug user ’s view , this is a compelling reason to buy into Apple ’s ecosystem : a slightly higher initial investiture gets you peachy hardware and a veritable gem treasure trove of software system at very reasonable prices . Better yet , the entire purchase process is simple , requires little effort , and does away with all the complexness of upgrade pricing ( like , say , stab your old license files out of whatever hole they managed to creep into ) .
Developers, developers, developers
From a developer ’s stop of view , transitioning to this new model can take considerable effort — particularly if , like Omni , you have been around for many eld and cater to a considerable user base . The issue is not inevitably pricing or greed — if anything , Omni could but do by with upgrade pricing totally , shrug its corporate shoulder , and charge Apple for the change .
Rather , the issue is that Apple has not offer third - party developer any viable compromise that would let them to transition from the traditional upgrade model , in which newcomer pay a mellow damage and then savor lower - monetary value upgrades , to a new world in which everybody pays the same ( potentially broken ) price for major release , and minor updates are free .
Thus , developer are stick catering to two distinct markets : one that expects upgrade pricing , and one that does n’t . attempt to fulfill the needs of both is bound to get significant conflict until either the App Store fades into the mist of time or upgrade pricing is no longer the norm outdoors … neither of which is likely to happen anytime soon .
In aprevious judgment articleforMacworld , I argued that , as consumers , we are better off without upgrade pricing . I still think that ’s the case , and I think that , in the long run , a simple sale model would profit developers as well .
In the interim , however , Apple needs to abuse up to the denture and conduct developers into this novel model through a compounding of client training and meliorate sales event tools , instead of plainly force them to take on the arbitrary reality it wants to impose . Otherwise , some of the most prolific app developers will end up being drive away from the App Store — a scenario that would benefit no - one .
