Mozilla Director Says Apple Trying to "Bypass the Web" | Hacker News Reader

Mozilla Director Says Apple Trying to "Bypass the Web"

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29 pointslotusleaf198732 comments

@silviocabral I was actually talking about iLife, not the Mac App Store, when I tweeted that. -- http://twitter.com/beltzner/status/28045413547

I'm getting a little tired of this new-new-pretend-journalism wherein the blogger tries to build their story out of somebody's content-free twattage. Especially when they misinterpret it.

It seems like limiting yourself to 140 characters leaves yourself open to misinterpretation.

" ... leaves yourself open to misinterpretation."

Which, for some, is a golden opportunity.

I still don't get what he means, how is iLife anti-web?

Well, that sure was an easy way for Mozilla's director to get a press hit.

In reality, the OS X app store is nothing more than a turbocharged version of Apple's own OS X software directory site. If you don't want to bend your app to qualify for it, just set up your own site. It's not reasonable to say Apple has to promote arbitrary applications.

For security and ease of use' sake it really is useful to provide a standardized interface for deploying applications through Apple's own update channels. I don't see why Apple can't manage feature parity with most of the major Linux distributions. Something like universe in Ubuntu would greatly benefit OS X users.

That is very different from asking Apple to promote apps - just host them, police malicious apps, and take a small cut of profits for the service. Admittedly, that's a bit different from a package manager, but it's clear, consistent, and really the best option for Mac UX.

Anybody can build this function on OS X, not just Apple. If it's that valuable, make it and get people to sign up.

Reasonable people can argue about the downsides of the iOS app stores, but I don't see how reasonable people could think that Apple should give an inch on it's Apple-branded OS X app store. The platform already has extremely good unrestricted third party development support.

When it comes to security, people should not re-invent the wheel. An integrated installation and update method makes a lot of sense, and Apple negatively impacts the security of their ecosystem by using criteria beyond malicious intent to bar third-party vendors from the integrated system.

They also reduce the quality of third-party software, as even blessed software developers will still have to put time into planning for pushing their own updates should they fail to win Apple's blessing.

Let's face it, the current way of installing applications in OS X is extremely confusing for newcomers to the platform. Apple should be lauded for trying something that is proven on iOS devices and getting it to work on OS X.

Additionally, the Mac App Store is opt-in and there is no indication that it will be the only way to install binaries. Let's not get ahead of ourselves in the conspiracy theories.

Confusing? Users either run a package installer, basically identical to installation wizards on Windows, or plop a *.app in the Applications folder.

Under what circumstances is either of those options "extremely confusing"?

The trouble with your question is that you've left out any mention of the .dmg that the user actually downloaded.

Don't get me wrong, I like disk images as much as the next nerd, but it has been my observation that there are way too many ways for the process of getting from .dmg to in-dock-ready-to-rock to go awry. People can and do figure it out, but the process is still far from optimal.

"Internet Enabled" disk images were an attempt to deal with this, but not every application ships as one, not every browser supports them, and plenty of people have the auto-open option turned off in Safari either because they think it's obnoxious or insecure. (And even if it works perfectly--even if the .dmg turns directly into an .app--the .app ends up in ~/Downloads/. Where for some it will forever remain.)

So you're left, at least some of the time, with this file icon with a weird silvery box thing on it. If you're lucky ("you" being both CEO of n00b, Inc. and Mayor of n00btown) the download page of the application (or if you figured out how to mount the .dmg, within the .dmg itself) you just downloaded has instructions on where to go from here. (Instructions which you, Hacker News reader, have seen a million times without ever really noticing that they are a symptom of a problem.)

But let's suppose there are no instructions. But you can figure this out. You're Mayor of N00btown, after all. So you double-click the .dmg and here's a new window, and yay, there's the app icon. ::click click::. Yay! Bouncing icon in the Dock! It works! And it will probably continue to work just fine...until you shut down or restart (which could be six months from now--given how busy and productive you all are at n00b, Inc. you can't afford to waste time every week on "Software Updates") at which point your disk images unmount and suddenly some of your programs just don't work anymore! So you download them again...

The thing is, none of this (the many ways users can fail with installation) is so disastrous or commonplace that it constitutes an Obvious Problem that Must Be Addressed. Even in the above scenario (which is only a little contrived) the applications still actually work. The user is not confused, but there is still a pathology at play. The user does not go complain to their nerd until things actually fail, and the nerd typically puts a band-aid on it and asks the user to stop doing the wrong thing, while the root problem persists.

My point being that even if the ".app inside a .dmg" approach to installation isn't "extremely confusing" (and I would agree, even after the above, that it is not) it still has an unnecessary capacity for undesirable side effects (including confusion) that you don't see with an app store or repository approach.

> Under what circumstances is either of those options "extremely confusing"?

When you're on the phone explaining this to someone.

There's too many things that can go wrong:

1. User may launch the app from .dmg, even after they've copied it. It's an icon, it works! …but later image won't unmount, app will "disappear" after reboot or will take ages to launch.

2. User needs to drag the app to Applications folder. Not Dock. Dragging to dock will seem to work, but will cause problems like #1.

3. You have to explain that dragging of disk image icon (icon that needs to be found on cluttered desktop) to trash won't delete anything. And then you have to explain that the .dmg which wasn't deleted can be deleted.

And of course user should drag to trash both icon representations of the .dmg, but not any file from within .dmg! They all need to end up in trash, except some of the icons can be dragged to trash, and some not. And order matters.

At the same time disk images are essential for power users, they are just as confusing for typical users.

Here are some things that can lead to a sub-optimal user experience:

1) User forgets or does not know the administrator password to install into /Applications

2) Loses license key to activate paid application

3) Installs application into ~/Applications instead of /Applications and thus when another user logs in, is unable to launch it

4) Fails to unmount and delete disk image when installation is complete and thus has ~/Downloads (the default download directory) full of them

I still don't know where this objection comes from. I have been asked by non-techie friends many, many times for help with their computers. None of my friends, PC or Mac, have ever had to ask how to install an application.

I consider the process(es) to be extremely self-explanatory. Apparently there are others out there who don't feel this way, and have encountered evidence of people being confused by it. I accept this, I just don't get it.

None of my friends, PC or Mac, have ever had to ask how to install an application.

I can say the same thing (that no one has asked for help to install an app) but then again my PC friends have fifty browsers toolbars and five AV software packages installed and my Mac friends are running apps directly from disk images. An app store isn't for me, but it definitely fits a need.

When people have been saying that the App Store model will happen on OS X, and that OS X and iOS are merging, this is an obvious step in that direction.

This is Trusted Computing happening, albeit on a smaller scale; and Apple can do what Microsoft couldn't ... get people excited about it (same as with DRM).

While it might be a little FUD-ish, I don't think it's completely unfounded.

Banning Flash from iOS devices could be seen as banning the "App"-space competition at the door. Apple talks a lot about "the open web" but consistently pushes Apps.

For example, my iPhone's Safari is absolutely clueless to the file input tag, while it could easily access the "Camera Roll" to allow a user to upload a photo. Yet, Apps can access the file system as necessary - giving Apps the clear advantage.

I don't necessarily think that Apple is trying to "bypass the web", but they are definitely attempting to fork it. Successfully, even.

Web as content, web as distributed apps.

It's not really a surprise that Mozilla and Google view everything web-related so solipsistically: that's all they care about.

Apple, Microsoft and the Linux universe all have other interests beyond the web. Mozilla views these other interests as heresy: web is future! web is all-powerful! web rules all! and as such deems everything else "bad."

Apple talks a lot about "the open web" but consistently pushes Apps.

But when Apple was pushing the open web, developers were pushing apps.

Reference? I'm a developer. I never pushed Apps, although I am not against them, either.

http://www.oreillynet.com/mac/blog/2007/06/the_iphone_sdk_in...

I was of the understanding that Flash is only banned from iOS until Adobe can prove that it runs cleanly and efficiently.

Director Struggles for Relevancy as Browser Stagnates, While Competitor from Apple Gains; Ignorant of Irony

Webkit is the new Firefox. Apple doesn’t hate the web.

Webkit isn't a browser.

No, it's a hundred browsers. So?

So "Webkit is the new Firefox" doesn't make any sense. Nobody downloads Webkit.

Citrus trees are the new apples.

From a bigger picture I can see the issues that are getting people nervous however I really couldn't see Apple cutting off their nose by blocking the usual App installations.

From a usability point of view it makes so much sense.

Currently a user has to: 1) Go to a website (or search for it) 2) Enter credit card details (are they trustworthy?) 3) Download the dmg file 4) Open the dmg file 5) Drag the app to the apps folder

Or they can 1) Open iTunes 2) Search for an app 3) Click download

Not to mention app updates which are handled differently in every app. iTunes will make this trivial for you and keep your apps up-to-date.

On a different note how long before iTunes just becomes iStore it's not really a music player any more is it!

iTunes will make this trivial for you and keep your apps up-to-date.

That's not what's happened in the iPhone world. Developers with apps on iPhone and Android have written that their iPhone version is never up-to-date, because the App Store approval process takes so long.

I think the biggest problem is just finding a relevant application that you want. I think an App store will help with visibility and awareness of smaller applications that would otherwise be unheard of. The only way now is to really either know of the app and search it on google or search on google mac + "keyword of what you want the app to do" sometimes you have to go through page after page of google results reading random forum threads and never find anything remotely useful. Apple realizes this.

Agree. Discovery is an issue.

Whenever Macheist rolls around, the real upside for me is discovering useful apps I otherwise would not have heard of.

Has this person every complained about GameStop, Wal-Mart, Best Buy, or other retail outlets selling shrinkwrap software?

I doubt it. They've been 'bypassing the web' since before there was a web (well, not GameStop), but I guess it's only a problem if Apple does it.

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