Why don't we get an App store?

[cgutjahr]

Aminet STILL doesn't have screenshots

Correct. And this won't change anytime soon if everybody who dislikes something about Aminet just runs to the next forum, complains about it and announces his own competing service because Aminet STILL sucks so much.

Having ideas is not the problem, finding the time to implement them is. As it is, we're happy we can keep Aminet running (more or less), everything else is just an afterthought for now.

People with no partnership, no social life, no hobbies and lots of leet PHP skillz please apply for a job at aminet@aminet.net.

Back to topic:

About the last thing the Amiga needs is an "app store". Instead of encouraging more commercialisation - which in our case just means one more round of milking the few remaining enthusiasts - we should encourage more open source development.

If you really want to do something about the way software is distributed on the Amiga, then try to come up with a sensible, Amiga specific concept for a package management system. That is what we need, not yet another website that is asking for my money because I'm expected to "support the Amiga".

[ElPolloDiabl]

I was thinking something that would be a one stop shop with reviews and demos. If I did it I wouldn't do it to make a profit instead it would be to recapture some old users.

If you want free stuff go to aminet, if you want more polished stuff have an Amiga App store.

[bloodline]

The problem is twofold, Amiga lacks programmers and a good ide.  I can build an complete iPhone/iPad app in the time that it takes me to just get all the library calls right in an Amiga app.  iPhone/IPad development is as close as you can get to "instant gratification" in the software world currently.  It's really in development that the old girl starts to show her age.  

Apple got it right on both ends, the app store is brilliant and so are the XCode tools.

Well it took me two months to get to grips with XCode/Objective-C/Cocoa... But yeah, Apple's development platform is lightyears ahead of the competition... And the the Amiga's OS is like some weird dinosaur when you compare it with iPhoneOS

[Trev]

Someday, we'll all come to terms with the fact that AmigaOS isn't Mac OS, and that Hyperion (or your Amiga custodian of choice) doesn't have a brand mananger with the vision and loyalty attributed to Steve Jobs.

[Karlos]

Well it took me two months to get to grips with XCode/Objective-C/Cocoa... But yeah, Apple's development platform is lightyears ahead of the competition...

Except for Objective-C which is an outright abortion. The only things it has going for it are late binding and runtime classloading.

Syntactically, it is the worst mash of disparate syntaxes I have ever seen.

[phoenixkonsole]

Hello again : )
I'm busy http://home.arcor.de/phoenixkonsole/screenshot1.png

have a look here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ic7bnxrmZj4

and you can imagine the idea.

No drm needed. Trust is everything ; )

Next news when there is something to show... but i will follow your thread maybe you have good ideas too : )

Its possible to personalize apps per customer.

Much ich happening in Amiga-land especially if you count AROS in : ) like Amicoins

[billt]

How about a one stop shop for Amiga software? It might encourage people to write software if they can sell it for a few bucks.

I don't consider there to be enough Amiga stores to exist to not feel like I have an app store. I just have to wait for shipping.

Most of what there is to get anymore is from os4depot anyway.

If you want to pay for it, pay at amigabounty.net and then hope it shows up on os4depot someday.

[Cammy]

Correct. And this won't change anytime soon if everybody who dislikes something about Aminet just runs to the next forum, complains about it and announces his own competing service because Aminet STILL sucks so much.

Please don't go getting yourself worked up over nothing. I never said Aminet sucks, I never ran to a forum to complain about it. I simply stated a fact which contributes to my reasoning for a newer site with a different approach to Aminet, not a replacement for it.

We need Aminet to keep running forever. But Aminet doesn't have to remain the only centralised location for downloading new games and applications if people would prefer a modern, visual front-end with screenshots, user reviews/feedback/ratings, and the ability to click on a "BUY NOW/REGISTER NOW" button directly from the website/client application so the user doesn't have to hunt down the personal web page of the author of the software they're using and figure out their individual method of payment.

I am all for a new application, preferably with a MUI GUI, that can connect to a database of available/approved applications and games, download and install them with one click, and offer options for registering or paying for the software directly from the same service using PayPal or Credit Card.

A service like this should be free to use and never charge anyone for downloading free software, I don't know where anyone got the impression that us dedicated Amigans would ever want to milk the community like that. Maybe you think we're Apple lovers? I'll gladly live the rest of my life in miserable poverty as long as I can help keep the Amiga spirit alive in some way, and if that includes modernising the way we download and install new software then I'm all for it!

I used to love the way AmiBench consisted of a website and an Amiga application that both worked on the same database. I'm sure it can be done for software downloads and information.

I really hope this new Marketplace application being developed on Aros will be the perfect solution for us all once it's finished. I'd gladly share the ideas I've had over the last few years about the subject.

Instead of people coming in here and telling us why we should NOT do this, how about we limit ourselves to just coming up with ideas on how we CAN get this done? Do we WANT the Amiga to continue, and for developers to be encouraged to join the platform? Then we need something like this. It's 2010 already!

Please stop being so negative and try helping out for once, people!

[bloodline]

Except for Objective-C which is an outright abortion. The only things it has going for it are late binding and runtime classloading.

Syntactically, it is the worst mash of disparate syntaxes I have ever seen.

4 months ago, I would have stood by your side and said the same! But now I get what the objective C designers were trying to do, and it is the closest to the orginal OOP model of any of the modern languages... I will admit that it suffers due to it's history as a preprocessor, but it has a maturity that C++ can only dream about as it plasures itself to Cure songs in a darkened room...

The NextStep core foundation classses are brilliant too... I totally know where you are coming from, first reaction was disgust, but honestly, Objective C is much better thought out than any other "{}" language...

Something that threw me to begin with is how you build apps around callbacks... I'm used to the amiga way, where you wait for an event, and then process it... With OSX you override a method that will be called if an event occurs... Weird at first, but SO much better long term

[kolla]

@Cammy
OK, so you cannot upload screenshots for now at least, but I recall having seen a screenshot or two there at some point. I typically access aminet using ADT, and not so much using web browsers. Maybe what you want is an update of MUIAdt?

As for an amiga app store - the cost of putting it up and maintaining it would never be paid back from the apps sold, and I very much doubt devs would be interested in exclusives, and without a lock-in - what would be the point?

[Cammy]

Kolla, you say that as if you know for sure, but you're just making it up. You don't know if an Amiga "app store" would be a failure, but you seem like you don't want us to try.

This is a very common attitude here. "You can't do this" "Don't even bother trying" "I know everything, and I say it's a bad idea"

What are you trying to accomplish by preventing us from forming ideas that could help us develop a new software distribution and advertising method for Amiga platforms? Why does it have to cost so much to set up such a system? How many developers have you asked who have said they wouldn't be interested in a better way for their product to reach its target audience?

We are seeing new users signing up on Amiga forums every week, either coming back to the computer system they love, or trying it out for the first time. Many are finding out about Amiga through YouTube where they see Amigas running software they never assumed they could run. Lots of people are starting to prefer using pre-installed Workbench packs like AmigaSys, ClassicWB and AmiKit. You can't see the potential that including this "app store" in these packs could have?

The applications included in the store don't all have to be new and current. We could include good software that is already available, essential shareware that's been around for a while and still requires registration to get the most out of (MUI, WHDLoad), shareware that's still in development and isn't hosted on Aminet (SabreMSN, AmiGift), commercial software and games whose authors are searching for an Amiga-based distribution method (Babylonian Twins), or software that hasn't been developed for a little while, but is still not available on Aminet (AmiNetRadio, Dynamite). Hosting software like this might stir up new interest in it and maybe even convince the authors to come back and update their programs, or open source them. I'm pretty sure a lot of Amiga users aren't as aware about how much good, recent software really is out there, because there's just no easy way for them to see what's available. Browsing Aminet's recent page only shows what's been released in the last couple of weeks, but after that it goes unnoticed unless someone goes searching for it.

I think Ubuntu's Software Center is an alright example of an online marketplace/app store, although I would prefer to have user ratings and reviews, and of course the ability to purchase or register software directly through the program if it's required.

I hope more people can help contribute positively to this thread instead of trying to drag it down and prevent the Amiga platform from progressing and evolving.

[Arkhan]

Kolla, you say that as if you know for sure, but you're just making it up. You don't know if an Amiga "app store" would be a failure, but you seem like you don't want us to try.

This is a very common attitude here. "You can't do this" "Don't even bother trying" "I know everything, and I say it's a bad idea"

as soon as I get my working Amiga in order,  I will be figuring out wtfs going on and back the Amiga development!  Dont know how long it will take me since im also doing MSX and PCE stuff... but im going to do it anyways



and as for Apple/X-code..... eh, X-code is crap, and objective-c definitely is an abortion .   Thats the best term ever.


Im gonna have to go out on a limb here and say Visual Studio w/ C# for the Xbox 360 is actually alot cooler than the Ipad/iPhone as far as ease of development.



the only way anything in the community can succeed is if the community supports it, lol

[persia]

Have you ever used XCode tools?  Do you even know what you are talking about?  I've been programming for 30 years, PDP Assembler, Fortran, several Basics, a little Cobol (hated it), Pascal, C, C++, C#, ASP, PHP, a little DotNet.  And I have to say that from a theoretical and practical stance Apple's Obj C and it extensive tool kit is the best I've seen.  

There's actually a lot you can do with no Obj C code at all.  But look at the the whole package, OS X takes full advantage of Obj C's strengths and carefully avoids it's weaknesses.  

Steve Jobs knew what he was doing with NeXTStep.  Forget Carbon, that is cr@p,but cr@p with a purpose, to allow time for native Cocoa apps to develop.  Now that native Cocoa is here, Carbon simply burns off and disappears.

DotNet and C# are Microsoft's attempts at creating their own XCode and Obj C.  There are far less elegant as a package, but still far more than you could dream of on an Amiga.  I don't like dotNet, it's not elegant to me, but I respect the amount of work Microsoft has but into it.

Basically it take 10 times as much work on the Amiga platform to produce an app barely half as good for an audience that is infinitesimal.  Those aren't my type of odds.

as soon as I get my working Amiga in order,  I will be figuring out wtfs going on and back the Amiga development!  Dont know how long it will take me since im also doing MSX and PCE stuff... but im going to do it anyways



and as for Apple/X-code..... eh, X-code is crap, and objective-c definitely is an abortion .   Thats the best term ever.


Im gonna have to go out on a limb here and say Visual Studio w/ C# for the Xbox 360 is actually alot cooler than the Ipad/iPhone as far as ease of development.



the only way anything in the community can succeed is if the community supports it, lol

[Arkhan]

wow are we really going to pull the "OMG EXPERIENCE"  elitist know it all card out?  That never solves anything and makes the guilty party look like a chach..

yes, I have programmed the iPod touch/iPhone with X-Code.  Prior to that, I used X-Code + Allegro to write 2D games on the mac.  I don't really care for objective C very much, and think X-Code as an environment, sucks.  sue me.  I prefer Visual Studio, or no studio at all (notepad + compiler/debugger).   Just because youuuuuuu love X-Code, doesn't mean everyone who doesn't is wrong or inexperienced..  You shouldn't rag on people for their environment preferences.   Nothing wrong with ragging on the actual environments though.

You may like to think that you're the only experienced programmer here with a credible opinion, but uhhh, *news flash*, you aren't the only one.

It also seems like all you keep doing is shooting down the Amiga while flaunting Apple development.  Why?   I would certainly hope that development packages for a platform that is what, over 10 years newer, is more usable.  Duh?

If you think Apple dev is the greatest thing ever and think anything Amiga related is going to fail , good for you.  Don't be part of the revolution! :roflmao:

[persia]

@Arkhan

I did actually say that I respected Microsoft's efforts, but since you've programmed in XCode you realise it's a bit of an overstatement to say it's not well written or perfectly logical in it's own world view, as is DotNet and C# in it's.  Much as I dislike C# I would never say it was an abortion, as you did with Obj C.  The beauty of both these systems is that you don't have reinvent the wheel, the  pieces are already there.  

As for any Amiga revolution, I'll join it when there's a reason, not just because of the name.  I've said it many times, Amiga took me places in 1985 that few dreamed of, when Amiga can take me to places that few can dream of in the present day, I'll join the revolution, until then I'll be happy with my iPhone, iPad and Mac....

[ElPolloDiabl]

I remember when Gateway said we're not doing anymore Amiga development we're going Linux. I was a fencesitter on the idea. Except for Deluxe Paint there wasn't any function that couldn't be replaced acceptably by a PC. This was when you could only afford one system.

Nowadays you don't have to invest all your resources into one system. People with a laptop go and buy a netbook because they want something smaller. People with a games rig go and spend another $500 on a console.

Because we're now vying for control of someones 2nd, 3rd or more likely 3rd or 4th system the market is lot more promising.

If you're bitter about Amiga possibly because of time & money invested I suggest you take some time off. It lets you reassess what you like about Amiga.