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On OmniKeyMaster’s Shutdown

Two weeks ago, The Omni Group announced an app called OmniKeyMaster aimed at letting customers migrate from Mac App Store licenses to standalone ones that supported upgrade pricing:

OmniKeyMaster is a simple app that finds App Store copies of Omni apps installed on your Mac, then generates equivalent licenses from our store – for free. This gives Mac App Store customers access to discounted pricing when upgrading from the Standard edition to Professional, or when upgrading from one major version to the next. Another benefit: since they don’t have to wait in an approval queue, our direct releases sometimes get earlier access to new features and bug fixes. OmniKeyMaster lets App Store customers access those builds, as well.

Today, The Omni Group had to remove the app, presumably after pressure from Apple:

My apologies: I’m afraid we will not be able to offer upgrade pricing to our Mac App Store customers after all. So long as we continue to sell our apps through the Mac App Store, we are not allowed to distribute updates through other channels to apps which were purchased from the App Store.

This is strange, because a number of similar tools (made by other independent developers) already exist on the Internet and they have been letting customers generate standalone licenses for several months. Perhaps Apple just didn’t like that a name such as The Omni Group had found a way to make the process so easy? Was The Omni Group’s tool built in such a way that it broke some Apple rules? Did The Omni Group think OmniKeyMaster would be okay because other solutions existed? Is Apple going after similar solutions as well?

Stephen Hackett argues that The Omni Group should have foreseen this, but that the Mac App Store is, overall, good for most third-party developers:

While The Omni Group is probably big enough to walk away from the Mac App Store, a lot of developers are enjoying a level of success in the Store that they couldn’t enjoy without it. Apple shouldn’t use that to strong-arm developers from trying to workaround the system. That puts both Apple and third-party developers in a pretty crappy spot.

I see both points. The Mac App Store is good for some developers and end customers, but it could be improved in so many ways. Is it a surprise that, after an initial rush to sell apps on the Mac App Store, more and more developers of apps above the $2.99 threshold (read: not games and utilities) have gone back to selling both App Store and “regular” versions?

The Omni Group wanted to do the right thing and offer upgrade pricing for customers who bought an app on the App Store. Apple doesn’t like the idea and leads by example with a new version of Logic Pro sold as a new app, without upgrade pricing. If my assumption is right and Apple is behind OmniKeyMaster’s premature demise – how could they not be? – that’s really sad.

Apple shouldn’t put pressure on developers who tried the Mac App Store model and didn’t like some parts of it. Instead of burying their head in the sand and pretending that developers who want upgrade pricing don’t exist, they should work with those developers to resolve their issues. The App Store launched in January 2011 and these aren’t new problems. If Apple doesn’t really care about upgrade pricing, it seems curious – to me, utterly wrong – that they’re going after a clever tool like OmniKeyMaster.

And if you think that it’s in Apple’s right to shut down OmniKeyMaster1, then I guess it won’t be a surprise if more developers will keep offering standalone versions of their apps in the future, possibly even eschewing the Mac App Store if necessary.

Most people don’t have time to care about these issues, because they like the convenience of the Mac App Store. But I do, and therefore, whenever possible, I try to buy Mac apps from a developer’s website. It’s worth the extra effort.

  1. In the way that OmniKeyMaster worked – as a separate app that wasn’t built into Omni’s App Store apps – I don’t think The Omni Group was violating Apple’s 7.1, 7.2, and 7.15 Mac App Store guidelines in any way. But, based on this tweet by Ken Case, it sounds like Apple has changed its mind. ↩︎

Nintendo Vs. Apple Pundits

Yesterday, Nintendo announced a new portable console to play 3DS games that doesn’t actually support the 3DS’ 3D effect, a price cut for the Wii U, and various release dates for its upcoming holiday line-up. Unsurprisingly, several Apple-focused writers and bloggers suggested – again – that Nintendo is doomed; that they should start making games for iOS; and that Apple should just outright buy Nintendo.

I believe this notion – that in order to survive, Nintendo has to start making games for the App Store – shows a profound misunderstanding of how Nintendo works, operates, and, generally, plans its long-term future. I have discussed the topic with Myke last night on The Prompt.

Lukas Mathis has published an excellent post that aptly sums up what is wrong with the new “default narrative” about Nintendo:

Mac users should be familiar with the argument against this reasoning. Fantastic games like Super Mario 3DS Land can only exist because Nintendo makes both the hardware and the software. That game simply could not exist on an iPhone.

But there’s an additional problem with this argument: the premise is completely wrong. Nintendo is actually not doing poorly in the portable market. iPhones have not destroyed the market for portable gaming devices. The 3DS is, in fact, doing very well.

Nintendo and Apple may share some similarities (namely, tight integration of hardware and software), but their execution is profoundly different. Following Nintendo’s history and patterns through the years and just looking at the company’s numbers reveals a different approach and strategy.

Again, from Mathis’ piece:

The hypothesis that Nintendo needs to abandon the hardware market because the iPhone destroyed the market for portable gaming just isn’t consistent with reality.

The idea that Nintendo should make games for iOS is fascinating, easy to grasp and follow, but flawed. Nintendo doesn’t work like Apple. And, more importantly, Nintendo can’t – and doesn’t want to – be Apple. Nintendo is a mix of a toy company and a game company: consoles exist to support Nintendo’s crown jewels – the games and first-party franchises.

Nobody is denying that the Wii U is doing poorly: the console needs more quality first and third-party games, a better marketing message (same for the upcoming 2DS), and a clearer position in the market. But the overall numbers paint a different picture than what some Apple pundits are claiming: the Wii U is only slightly behind the point where the GameCube was at the same point in the console’s lifespan – and Nintendo did manage to turn a profit on the GameCube. The Wii remains the top-selling console of the current generation. The first 130 weeks of sales of the 3DS – as Mathis also notes – are comparable to those of the Nintendo DS – the second (soon first?) best-selling console of all time. Again, to understand this all you need to do is look at Nintendo’s numbers.

Mobile “casual” games are selling millions of copies (in many cases, in-app purchases) today, and Nintendo’s portable game sales are healthy, too. Here’s just one data point: Animal Crossing sold 1.54 million copies in the last quarter (a month ago, it was up to 4.5 million copies sold since its original release). Assuming that Nintendo makes around $30 in average revenue on first-party games, that would make for $46 million in revenue, in a single quarter, on a single game. Want more examples? As of March 2013, Luigi’s Mansion sold 1.22 million copies; Super Mario 3D Land moved 8.19 million copies; Monster Hunter 3 – a third-party, four-year old game – sold 2.10 million copies; also as of March 2013, Mario Kart 7 sold 8.08 million copies. Here’s what Nintendo’s upcoming line-up looks like, and add Pokémon X & Y to that (the series’ DS games, Black & White 1/2, sold 23.05 copies combined as of January-March 2013).

The 2DS is controversial and it may seem to lack any sort of practical sense, but it’s actually basic Nintendo 101 (do these other revisions ring a bell?). Except that, this time, the 2DS is aimed at addressing concerns of 3D games for children and the whole point is to sell the 2DS to kids for the holiday season, possibly alongside a copy of Pokémon.

Nintendo’s strength right now is that, once again, they can revolve around the fulcrum of portable hardware and game sales to sustain their operation, turn a profit, and buy more time to fix the mess that was the Wii U launch. Saying that Nintendo should shut everything down, go home, and start making games for iOS is an easy but flawed solution that just isn’t supported by the facts.

Here’s to Another Five Years

Apple wasn’t a brand that my friends and I conversed about in high school, our infatuation being PCs that weren’t Dell and graphics cards and the latest processors and Counter Strike. Apple was a part of my life insofar that they were the guys who made the cool MP3 players. I had an iPod video, and later an iPod touch, but I knew nothing of Steve Jobs. Macs were also unknown to me, but later I would realize that I used an iMac G3 with the weird puck mouse a few times in middle school. In my junior and senior years one of my classmates had the first iPhone, but it was just an iPod with a phone[1].

It wasn’t until after I graduated that Apple became a thing. No one knew it at the time, but 2008 was the last year that Apple would offer the polycarbonate MacBook in black. I remember having this sort of sudden fascination with it: how simple[2] it was, how different it was. This would be my college laptop, despite being in a price range that was out of budget and running an operating system that I wasn’t familiar with.

When the sales tax holiday came around, I made the decision to go all-in. I purchased the fully loaded MacBook in black, complete with an incredible 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo processor[3], 4 GBs of memory, and 250 GBs of storage. Being my first laptop, I also purchased an AirPort Extreme so I could have Wi-Fi in the house. The Apple Store was accommodating between me and my overprotective bank, letting me use their phone behind the counter since my Nextel Motorola had no reception.

While the purchase itself was an experience, it wasn’t until I got home that I fully began to appreciate what I had in my hands. Out of the box the laptop was charged and ready to use. There was a prompt to sign up for MobileMe, but otherwise the laptop had no stickers or bloatware. Everything about it was perfect[4].

My MacBook, which I would come to call the BlackBook, had an unbelievable impact on how I thought about computers. It didn’t have the most powerful guts, but it had a great keyboard and trackpad, and the display was pretty good. I thought the MagSafe Power Adapter was brilliant, the magnetic connector certainly saving my bacon plenty of times in the classroom as the cord was sometimes yanked by a wild knee. The sleep indicator light became a reassuring delightful detail. All of those little details really added up.

The BlackBook would be the computer that soldiered on. A hard drive died, a replacement solid state drive died[5], and I upgraded the memory to an unrecommended six gigabytes, keeping it current. I replaced the battery in its third year and I’m probably due for another replacement. The fan started making noises in its fourth year but it never ceased to function so I tolerated it. It didn’t run Mountain Lion, but it did run Lion and that was good enough until Mavericks[6] was announced.

Thinking back, the black model was a good choice. Unlike the white MacBooks, cracks that developed in the surrounding bezel didn’t show as well. The black never did end up looking dirty, although fingerprints were constantly a problem. The oils from my wrists have stained the plastic making the black appear blacker and slick. It stood out from the crowd and it continues to look impressively modern. The keyboard, the trackpad, and the quality of the laptop itself far exceeded my expectations. The keys still feel just as good as they did when I first bought it. The trackpad’s button no longer has that new-click-feel, but it still works just as it always has.

I’ve repaired a lot of laptops of all shapes and sizes for spare cash in college. In 2013, no one else does two finger scrolling well. Apple was getting it right in 2008.

It was because of the BlackBook that I would eventually find myself watching Apple Keynotes in the back of the classroom while the professor was lecturing, and it was because of the BlackBook that I started creating my own WordPress site which eventually led to this one. Little did I know that I would end up using the laptop for an extended four years in college, and it was the machine I would continue to use for a year afterwards. Needless to say that it has been a significant part of my young adult life.

As much as I don’t want to give it up it’s finally showing its age. I will open up the case and blow the dust out and replace the fan. I’ll reapply thermal compound to the processor and reassemble the heat sink so that the laptop runs cooler. It still has life in it.

But it’s time to say goodbye. Five years is a long time to own a computer, and it’s impressive how well the BlackBook withstood the test of time. Apple is moving forward and I’m ready to embrace the latest they have to offer. Needless to say that Apple has made me a fan for life.

Today I’m using a new Mac, the latest MacBook Air, and it’s even more wonderful than the first. It has backlit keys that adjust to ambient lighting and new function keys I’m not used to and an even better display. There’s no button on the trackpad and my headphones finally work with the combination headphone + microphone port. It has USB3 and Thunderbolt, significantly faster interfaces than USB2 and FireWire. And the battery life is amazing[7]; I can use my laptop for two or three days without having to charge it. It’s never gotten hot, and I haven’t heard the fan even after watching hours of streaming video from my favorite websites. Being my first aluminum Mac, I can’t help but appreciate what a marvel of engineering this is.

Here’s to another five years.

  1. But it was just an iPod with a phone. Oh my god how naive! ↩︎
  2. I dismissed the Powerbook because I thought the keyboard looked weird and because the lid wasn’t magnetic. Because latches were so passé in 2008. The other alternatives were PCs that were running Windows Vista and underpowered netbooks. ↩︎
  3. Apple then released the aluminum MacBook in October that had an Nvidia chipset instead of the basic Intel chipset. Thus I learned a hard lesson in Apple release cycles. ↩︎
  4. The computer I had throughout high school was a Compaq desktop that my uncle had picked out and my grandmother then purchased when she visited in the summer of 2004. It was also quite the beast, having a 2.5 GHz Celeron D processor, one gigabyte of memory, and 40 GBs of storage. This was when ribbon cables were still the norm. It’s fitting that a Compaq was my first computer as Tim Cook is now the CEO of Apple. What a coincidence. ↩︎
  5. The MacBook had a first revision Serial ATA interface for the hard drive, so I couldn’t take full advantage of a SSD. However, the read and write speeds are still so much faster than a mechanical drive that it was like breathing new life into the machine. And to think today’s MacBook Airs have PCIe-based flash storage. ↩︎
  6. OS X Mavericks fixes all of the things that didn’t work quite right in Lion. ↩︎
  7. I swear that the battery on this MacBook Air lasts longer than my iPad. I can’t wait for this to be the standard. ↩︎

Reinventing iOS Automation: Editorial Review

Editorial for iPad

Editorial for iPad

Update: I have turned this review into an interactive book with additional & exclusive content. You can find it on iTunes, on sale for a limited time. More information is available here.

Ole Zorn knows how to push the boundaries of iOS. His latest app, Editorial for iPad, redefines the market of text editors for iOS, and, in many ways, sets a new standard for iOS automation and desktop-class apps. Editorial makes me want to work from my iPad.

Before I get to the details, allow me to offer some backstory to properly contextualize Editorial and the process that led me to its launch today. I have been testing Editorial for the past eight months (since late November 2012, when I received the first beta build), and I’ve seen the app go through numerous iterations and changes. At one point I wasn’t even sure Editorial would come out anymore. Editorial has become the essential part of my iOS workflow, and it only seems fair to have a proper introduction.

Read more

365 Days

Today, when I remembered that exactly one year ago I was hospitalized for 22 days for a series of treatments to save my life, I tweeted about it. And then I opened Day One.

In the app’s Calendar view, I changed the year to “2012” and, sure enough, the “August 1, 2012” entry was there, showing photos of my hospital room; my girlfriend sending a selfie from home; and a note that I wrote about the doctors being “nice”. Bits of life. A combination of old thoughts and visual memories that I still have, in some form, in my brain, but that here, in this app – right now – I can hold and directly look at. It is, indeed, far more powerful than memory alone.

It sounds so trivial because we’re used to it. It’s diary app! Of course it lets you browse old entries in a calendar, and of course it’s got search, and of course it accepts photos as attachments, and, okay, the fact that you can see old weather information is neat – but yes, it’s because of the GPS. Common technology terms for yet another app. But does it have a URL scheme? We often lose track of the magic of software.

Sometimes, on days like today, I like to appreciate the simple things of my job. The fact that somebody out there has made an app that lets me cringe at my mistakes and cherish old moments. The fact that in this very moment I can take these old photos, and send them to my parents with a comment that says, “365 days ago…how things change”.

Isn’t that amazing?

The Next Five Years of App Store

Five

Five

A great man once said that we should look up at the stars, be curious, and keep asking questions. With the App Store now a five-year-old business, I would like – allow me to paraphrase that great man for a much more trivial endeavor – to look ahead and trying to imagine what the next five years of the App Store could look like. I already wrote my in-depth App Store retrospective last year, and I touched upon the changes introduced with iOS 6 back in September 2012. Now, it’s time to think about what’s next. The past can be functional to contextualizing the future, but eventually somebody has to think of that future. This is my humble, brief attempt.

The App Store will soon hit the impressive milestone of 1 million apps available for iPhone and iPad. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to know Apple is figuring out a way to time the announcement of 1 million apps with the release of iOS 7 (and possibly new iPhone hardware) this Fall. The App Store’s soon-to-be-millionaire catalogue pales in comparison to the iTunes Store’s music offerings, but it’s still impressive when considering that the modern concept of app was born only five years ago, whereas music goes, euphemistically, “a long way” back in human history.

I don’t think that the App Store’s growing catalog will ultimately change the nature of the Store itself: if you look back at the past 10 years of iTunes, you’ll see that, in spite of new releases and additions, the iTunes Store’s core mechanics haven’t changed much. Customers go to iTunes, they buy music, and they enjoy that content on their devices. With the App Store, I think we’ll keep seeing a front page, categories, charts, and a download/purchase mechanism that will go unchanged for the foreseeable future. Apple doesn’t need to alter the simplicity of the App Store model, but they must enhance it and modernize it.

I discussed many of my ideas for a better App Store in my piece from February, and I’ll revisit them today with a knowledge of the announcements Apple made with iOS 7. Read more

The Potential of iOS 7 Game Controllers

Chris Plante:

If Apple finds a way to standardize traditional controls, every iOS device will become a transportable console. In a year, both iPhones and iPads will approach the processing power of the current-generation devices. Companies will have the ability to port controller-based games for the mobile devices in millions of pockets — an install base far greater than they’ve ever had before.

Today, using Airplay and an Apple TV, players can stream their games from their iOS device to their high-definition television. With controller support, players will be able to play more traditional, non-touch games.

I agree with Chris’ take: the new game controller APIs for developers have great potential, but, ultimately, it’s up to Apple to believe in this opportunity. What’s indisputable is that later this year, when controllers will be released by third-parties, games supporting them will already work with the existing Apple TV’s AirPlay streaming features. It’ll be interesting to see if Apple will publicly acknowledge this new scenario for gamers and Apple TV owners (as Tim Cook often notes, Apple doesn’t advertise the Apple TV aside from a product page on Apple.com).

We’ve already discussed how the potential of dual-screen AirPlay gaming is largely untapped, and I suspect the addition of physical controllers will allow iOS game developers to explore even more possibilities. Essentially, controllers that will attach to iPhones will create a DS-like experience – with the “top screen” being the Apple TV.

Today’s hardware, as recent ports show, isn’t yet capable of handling the same amount of power and definition of modern console games. The App Store needs improvements (especially for curation and discovery), but Apple has the advantage of having a solid platform where free-to-play is an established model and where everyone can develop games (with great new game-related APIs coming in iOS 7) as long as they are registered developers. With 575 million iTunes Store accounts with credit cards on file, Apple also has the largest user base – customers already buying software from the App Store. And, let’s not forget the iPod touch, Apple’s cheapest way into App Store gaming, which recently received an even cheaper option.

On the other hand, in the current state of App Store economics, it’s difficult to imagine how Apple could lure major console publishers to release AAA titles under $30 and that aren’t low-res ports, companion apps, or dumbed-down versions of console/PC games. Does Apple care about having the next Destiny on iOS first? The new Call of Duty? Will future iOS hardware be capable of running those kinds of games? Or is Apple just fine with attacking the market from the low end, taking more time to see how game developers will react to new iOS software and hardware in the next five years?

Will Apple ever develop a culture and appreciation for gaming as a medium, not just an App Store category? While others (namely Microsoft) are trying to add more media and entertainment layers on top of existing game infrastructures, Apple is in the opposite situation – running the largest media store and selling devices that are increasingly used as gaming machines, but that still lack the catalog and support of dedicated home consoles.

As far as third-party developers are concerned, things have changed since 2008. Five years ago, imagining a console hit like Metal Gear Solid 4 on iOS would have been absurd; today, we have a port (albeit low-res) of XCOM eight months after the original release. Compare this example to Metal Gear Solid Touch, “based on” Metal Gear Solid 4 and released nine months after the original game, in 2009. What’s the App Store going to be like in 2018? Can we imagine, two or three years from now, simultaneous and equal releases of AAA games across consoles and iOS? And if so, how will the App Store’s numbers play to Apple’s advantage against Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, and Valve?

Apple is testing the waters (having to buy separate iOS devices, Apple TV, and third-party game controllers isn’t a simple message) and they seem extremely cautious with their Apple TV strategy, but it does look like some pieces of the gaming puzzle are slowly coming together. We’re seeing more full ports of console games nowadays, alongside, obviously, the brand new iOS gaming experiences that have shaped the modern industry. iOS 7 game controllers will likely make developers more comfortable with the idea of “serious” games on iOS (although Apple wants controllers to be optional…for now), and I’m curious to see which parts of Apple’s grand vision for TV will relate to games, the App Store, and iOS.

The iOS 7 Summer

When I launched MacStories in April 2009 I wanted to focus on – as the name implies – Mac apps and the stories of the people who made them and used them. In the summer of 2009, I bought my first iPhone[1], the 3GS. As I started buying iPhone apps[2] and increasingly using the iPhone as a work device, my focus quickly shifted from “a Mac-only site” to “a Mac and iPhone site” for news, reviews, and opinion.

This summer represents the biggest change for my work since July 2009: in just a few months, I’ll be writing articles about iPhone and iPad apps that are based on an operating system that’s radically different from the one that I got to know four years ago, when I bought a 3GS at my local 3 Store and demoed Copy & Paste to my friends. Read more

The Power of Apps

Power

Power

Amidst talk of inconsistent gradients in the first beta of iOS 7 and Jony Ive’s taste for neon colors, Apple would like to remind us how the world is being changed by technology. Specifically, how real people – actual human beings, not faceless corporations – can make an impact and change someone else’s life with apps.

In a 10-minute video uploaded earlier today on their YouTube channel, Apple has essentially produced a follow-up to last year’s developer video. This year, Apple has decided to showcase apps that are enabling people with prosthetic feet to control their movements from an iPhone; that allow doctors in Africa to instantly diagnose symptoms on people who have never seen hospitals or received proper healthcare; apps that allow a parent to listen to his kid, who was never able to speak. And in the process, Apple focuses on the other side of the coin – the people who make apps. Read more