Tag Archives: Macintosh

Why is iTunes Absent from the Mac App Store

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Apple released the Mac App Store (MAS) back in January of 2011. Jobs and Co. rolled it  in the update to Mac OS X 10.6.6 and it wasn’t long before companies were clamoring to release their software on the new platform.

Apple's Mac App Store

There were some unfortunate hiccups with the new way of purchasing applications for the desktop Apple operating system. For instance, if you had already purchased a piece of software that is on the MAS, somewhere else, you will not get access to updates through this system. Even if you have a serial number from the purchase, you are kept out.

This is because Apple takes a cut of all purchases made through the MAS and have no real need to serve another storefront’s customers. Some developers worked around this by providing heavily discounted versions of their software initially to ease the cost of users transitioning to the new distribution service.

Of course there were some that not only didn’t offer this option, they even decided to stop supporting their applications’ updates unless they purchased them from the app store. Practices like this were quickly condemned by users for basically forcing them to pay twice for the same software.

I already posted about Apple’s great success on the MAS, check it out here. They manage to keep up around 50-90% of the top paid download on the MAS, out of the thousands of applications available there. On top of that, over 1,000,000 downloads of Mac OS X Lion went through the MAS within the first twenty-four hours!

A thought popped into my head today though. After pushing so hard to make the MAS a success, why hasn’t Apple put its most popular app into the MAS? The only way to get FinalCut Pro X or Mac OS X Lion is through the MAS and as of yesterday, Apple has begun to pull all boxed copies of their software from Apple stores.

Yet, for some reason, iTunes is not available on the MAS.

iTunes is Missing from the Mac App Store

Anyone dare to suggest why? I can’t think of a really solid reason for this. In fact, I’m surprised Apple hasn’t rolled out its developer portal to the MAS. Many developers* like me use the same Apple ID for both the MAS and our dev accounts.

Imagine how great this seamless integration could be for development teams.

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Apple is Killing it in the Mac App Store

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Of the top ten highest grossing applications in Apple’s Mac App Store, nine are made by Apple. Looks like the App Store for non-mobile was a great idea after all. Also, I predict that with the release of Lion, Apple will hold all ten, top ten grossing apps. Brilliant.

The New, New iMac

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You remember my old iMac right?  The nearly out of AppleCare warranty guy who had all that trouble?

In short, here’s what we did, well what these two guys did…

The MacXperts...

The MacXperts...

  1. Replace the LCD panel (there were bugs crawling in it!)
  2. Replace the Video Card (couldn’t use Photoshop CS4)
  3. Replace the RAM (still couldn’t use Photoshop CS4)
  4. Replace the Motherboard (still still couldn’t use Photoshop CS4)
  5. Replace the Hard drive (still still still couldn’t use Photoshop CS4)
  6. Uncheck a box in Photoshop preferences (fixed Photoshop CS4!!!)
  7. FireWire 800 port doesn’t work… For real?!?!?!?!?!

My poor iMac, so pretty yet so used…

My Beloved iMac

My Beloved iMac

I made a call to Apple, only to request some sort of compensation.  Turns out, I haven’t had my computer for over five months!  All I wanted was a 5 month, asked for a four month, extension to my AppleCare, seeing as for the last five months I didn’t even have a working computer.

The response from the Apple representative, after reading my blog post here about the situation, went as follows…

Oh wow, do you mind if I put you on hold for three to five minutes?…

Unfortunately we cannot extend the AppleCare for another four months, however, do you mind holding while I research another option?…

How about we send you a brand new, equivalent iMac instead?

Well, obviously I said, YES!

Apple then, overnighted me, a new iMac, top of the line sorta thing, for real, this thing totally murders the iMac it is replacing.  The next day, or so, my new iMac arrives.

My New, Beautiful iMac

My New, Beautiful iMac

I got her all set up, it was a beautiful thing actually.  Between SugarSync, MobileMe and TimeMachine, this guy was up and running in MINUTES!  I was so excited and ready for all the new power when… all of a sudden… Things got a little…. foggy?

Foggy iMac?

Foggy iMac?

I thought, maybe my Lasik is going bad, maybe I have something in my eyes… no, actually, it was the screen, literally getting fogged up!

Fogged up iMac

Fogged up iMac

For real?  My brand new, from Apple, overnighted iMac was essentially dead on arrival?

Luckily, I was still dealing with the AMAZING AppleCare customer support.  They overnighted me, AGAIN, another iMac.  So far, so good.  This iMac is beautiful, fast and just about as perfect as anything I’ve ever owned has come to be.

@clettenberg is not giving me even a HARDER time about having an iMac, ie) such n amazing computer. 😛

Let’s hope THIS iMac will last.  I sure did LOVE my old iMac and the truth is, it was only a check box in Photoshop that was causing all the trouble.  The fact that Apple replaced my computer after the other trouble, read my blog and actually followed up with me?  Absolutely incredible.  It’s why I will continue to buy Apple products, even when Dell, HP, etc are cheaper.  The end result?  Apple is an impossibly measurable value.

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iTunes 7.7.1 Destoys Library

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Being the Apple fan boy that I am, when iTunes 7.7.1 came out yesterday, I hopped right on it.  Supposedly it fixed some bugs and stability issues.  I installed it through Software Update, went smoothly, usual, blah blah.

Then it started to sync my iPhone 3G.  It reinstalled every application, even those I had requested to not be installed onto the iPhone.

Then it said there were updates for all 24 applications.  I had them download and then install.

First off, let’s complain that iTunes keeps every version of every application, it never just deletes the old buggy ones.  So you end up with 1, 2, 3, 8+ versions of applications.

Oh and it loses them, or at least iTunes 7.7.1 did.  Do you see a problem here?

One hour later, still installing and then it froze.  I restarted the computer, then started the sync again.

Warning, 11 files could not be synced because they could not be found.

Warning, 100 files could not be synced because they could not be found.

Meanwhile, only 600mb+ songs synced out of the previous, um, 12gb of music.

Did a check…  Apparently some 10-90% of my music was moved to my Time Machine, as far as the library was concered.

10-90% because it would only show up if I tried to play or sync them and the vast majority of my synced songs didn’t sync…  So thinking that might extend throughout the Library… yeah…

Not only iTunes 7.7.1 “move” files from my 1tb MyBook external and into my other 1tb MyBook external which is my Time Machine, and not just to there, to inside of email account archives.  WHAT THE F*CK?!

So guess what I get to do?  I get to reload my entire iTunes Library.  Anyone that knows me probably knows that I have quite the iTunes Library of music, movies, television shows, applications, podcasts, games, audiobooks and then some; we are talking over 700gb of data.

Now I have no stats on my music, no play counts, skip counts, ratings…

Now I cannot sync to AppleTV or to my iPods or iPhones because I can’t do smart playlists.  I cannot say pick the newest 5gb, I can’t say choose the Top 1,000 Played, I can’t say pick the Top 5gb Top Rated…

I had stats on over 35,000 songs and over 1,400 television shows and 80 movies…

So now what?  Now I call Apple, first thing in the morning and bitch bitch bitch.

Never have I hated Apple, but this is really getting me close to that point.

Moreover, I have more stuff to bitch about.  iTunes refuses to Sync my Microsoft Exchange accounts from Mail to my iPhone 3G.  It also doesn’t store my iPhone Apps on the proper drive, they go to my Macintosh HD not my iTunes drive.

So much of this could be prevented by iTunes storing song ratings and play counts within the files just as MediaJukebox did.

It’s official, I’m pissed off.

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