Stephen:
But I really don’t see Apple pulling the trigger on closing app installation on the Mac. The outcry from developers like Microsoft and Adobe would be deafening. These companies are not going to use an App Store to publish their major software titles. Without Office and Creative Suite, the Mac would be dead in the water to a lot of people.
This is of course the scenario everybody in the Apple sphere is terrified of: Apple making the App Store the only way to install software on a Mac. While I don’t think Apple is going to go this route anytime soon, I don’t agree with Stephen’s reasoning.
MS Office and the Adobe Creative suite may be used by a considerable amount of people, but Pages and Numbers are a pretty good replacement for Word and Excel, at least for probably 95% of people. I don’t see Apple losing many customers over that.
Adobe’s Creative Suite is a different story. There would really be nothing to replace Photoshop or Illustrator with, and losing the ability to use these apps would undoubtedly force a lot of creative professionals to move away from the Mac. But what percentage of Apple’s revenue currently comes from these customers? Creative professionals used to be the bread and butter of Apple, but they’ve clearly moved past that. Apple first and foremost caters to consumers now.
The other scenario would be that Apple bought Adobe, rebranded the Creative Suite as their own and simply killed Flash. Even if that sounds crazy, I think it would make a lot of sense and Apple certainly have the cash for it.
In any case, I think if Apple does the math (and maybe they’ve already done it), they might come to the conclusion that getting 30% of all Mac software sales would be worth losing some customers. I’m not saying they’re planning to go this route, but I wouldn’t rule it out either. With Apple, you never really know.
P.S.: If this scenario ever happens, it wouldn’t be a “National Nightmare”, it would be international.
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