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[Calach Pfeffer]

I mean, MY GOD!  APP STORES!?

Having recently purchased an Android smartphone, I have become somewhat familiar with the concept of an app store.  And then I read an article by some Apple fanboy touting the newest and greatest thing, a desktop Apps store overlorded by Steve Jobs.  And I was like, nuh-uh.  The first thing I sought out and found when I discovered that app stores are, like, you know, airraid bunkers with stocks of software applications hidden inside, undistributed elsewhere because, like, who knows, if an app was just lying around anywhere, it'd be destroyed when the bombs fell, right?!--was a warez site.  Not entirely because of the free stuff aspect, but mostly just because of the sheer stupidity of sitting next to a fast computer plugged into a fast internet connection and trying to download tiny bits of software BY PHONE was sheerly stupid.  Sure, the phone will do everything the computer will, but given that what I wanted mostly was information that had to be sorted from inside reams of useless stuff... etc and so on... the computer was a poopload more efficient.  And now I learn that the newest greatest thing in computing is desktop app stores.  What, we don't have torrent sites?  Desktop apps stores are an interim measure for keeping making money out of you while the cloud moves in overhead.

And the cloud... if ever there was a anti-piracy device, that's it.  If the apps are all in the cloud, then there's nothing to pirate except access to the cloud.

Fight the app stores!  Fight them while you still can!  It's the last fight for freedom left on the internet.

[Calach Pfeffer]

There is some ethical dilemma here, of course, namely that of thieving from software developers.  App stores guarantee developers see some money.  And torrenting and warez in general guarantee a large chunk of change that the developers don't see.  The alternative business model is that massive multimedia companies move into the internet service provision market--you pay for internet access to that company's region of cyberspace and anything you find there is "free", and the company pays developers to be content providers.  That, as far as I can tell, is something like what the cloud will be.  The internet becomes another utility, like water and electricity or cable tv.  The entire thing becomes one giant app store.  Which I suppose is the wave of the future and can't really be stopped.  It even kind of makes sense.

I think my basic complaint about app stores is they discourage knowing what is the best bit of software to use.  It's hard to find information in app stores.  One has to go to the actual internet to find detailed comparison and relatively expertish opinion, or at least opinion makers making opinion.

Meh, I dunno.  They strike me wrong and me and my shotgun are retreating to the hills to consider our options.

[Stil]

I think my basic complaint about app stores is they discourage knowing what is the best bit of software to use.  It's hard to find information in app stores.  One has to go to the actual internet to find detailed comparison and relatively expertish opinion, or at least opinion makers making opinion.

True, but app stores are fairly new, right now it's difficult to separate the quality from the crap but this will improve. Curated app stores can give the consumer a sense of trust that the apps are not full of viruses etc. and the ease of purchase fosters more purchases. Most people do not use warez sites or even torrent.

It's been years since I paid for an application, book, movie or music except for apps for my phone. I could get them for free but because the store has them available for what I consider a reasonable cost, I buy them.

Maybe it's not such a bad idea.

Besides, there's probably an app for that.

[latefordinner]

I don't need an app to generate bad ideas, I do that on my own

[Calach Pfeffer]

App stores, pfft.  Developers are Mom&Pop corner stores, it's only right they be corralled by monolithic entities.  They were letting the kids run riot, shoplifting and such, and now that Mom is ailing and Pop's had his knee operation, the son has come home to sell with a McDonald's franchise deal.

Curated app stores are an interim measure.  What should really happen is all these independent developers sign up with one of several big media distributors.  Apple will be one.  Microsoft apparently won't, I keep reading M$ has matured as a company and isn't going anywhere new anymore.  And yay for Android and Google, the open source greasers.

You know what open source means?  It means the arguments about cracked software being theft are, even if ever so infinitesimally, suspect.  And what's more, if the developers sign up with monster media companies who restrict distribution to household and client devices that only work with proprietary parts of the sky, then the whole thieving argument turns back to where it should be, developers versus corporations.  I'm so tired of how normal people have been fooled into thinking grabbing an apple off a neighbour's tree is as significant as reinventing an entire playing field and setting contract terms for thousands if not millions of employees.  Hell, setting prices even.  How did the corporations stop being the bad guys in this story and the multitudes of disorganized, unaligned users start?

Naturally, one is looking ahead to a world where media does not exist in discrete packages.  MP3z, jpegs and avi's will be pointlessly old-hat in the cloud space.  You'll have to try maintaining your old PCs if you want to play with them.  In a genuinely wired world, it's all docs in space.


So how's it going to fall apart?  It must.  No vision of idealised futures ever come true.  they get filled with pragmatic grit.  Like cell phones.  "Mobile communications" began as brick-like devices, and are still no closer to being wrist or collar-bone implants.  So.... the wired world.... what's going to make it look more like a real world?  App stores, probably.

[Calach Pfeffer]

I mean, seriously, freakin goddamn giggle, right?  A gigantic search engine in the sky.  So when they make a phone operating system which allows for a layer of customization, what do they do?  Do they say it's all open source and find whatever program you like using our gigantic search "tool" that searches the entire internet (or at least as much of it as was recently indexed)?  Do they?  No, they make a little tiny app store.  Seriously, what's up with that?  I blame Steve Jobs.