Comments on: Apple Mac App Store to Sell iWork & iLife 11 Applications Separately

By: KM

KM — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 13:40:00 +0000

Just got a new MacBook Air yesterday. No free iWork here. :(

By: Michael B.

Michael B. — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 22:26:53 +0000

This is really good news, as I was interested in buying iWork ’09, but reluctant because of the price. Hopefully now, I can buy the only app in that bundle that I really wanted, Numbers, for far less than all three would have cost me.

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 01:18:44 +0000

To echo the commentary on the Mac App Store that has been resonating throughout the media and blogosphere, this is the beginning of a long-overdue rethink of the application sales model. While the shareware and freeware market has enjoyed central ‘marketing’ portals such as Tucows for many years, we are now seeing ‘premium’ apps being centralized in one marketplace that permits ratings and reviews. In the past, ratings were available through trade magazines and review websites, but their fragmentation and disassociation from the point of sale made it cumbersome to connect reviews to products.

It will be interesting to see how many mainstream software publishers jump onto the App Store. I am thinking particularly of developers of complex programs such as FileMaker, or (dare I say it) Adobe Photoshop. I imagine it will be a frosty day down under when Adobe relents to sell its wares for $19.99 on the App store.

As a final comment on the iWork pricing, Microsoft still sells its Office suite components individually for the ridiculous price of $139.99 each. If the pricing indicated above is correct, buying Keynote for $20 will be the best software value seen in quite some time.

By: George

George — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 19:39:35 +0000

What you fail to mention is that Mac Apps purchased from the Apple Store can be loaded on all of my personal Mac’s. So this becomes a much larger value, especially when Mac hardware lasts as long as it does and I pass my older ones down to my wife and kids.

By: Gianni

Gianni — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 19:32:44 +0000

A costly $19.99? Maybe if compared to free and $0.99 phone apps, but these are desktop applications and this pricepoint is closer to shareware pricing than to major software supplier pricing.

A la carte pricing is a great idea (perhaps this came from the original idea of selling ‘good’ songs individually rather than forcing you to buy the whole CD and the remaining mediocre or plain lousy songs included!)