I know everybody in the Mac nerd community has written about upgrades in the App Stores. Here’s my take. I think eventually we will see some, at least on Mac. At some point Apple will release a major new version of one of their software products. Here are some things I’m wondering about that lead me to believe it may be seen in the next couple years.
When Mountain Lion is released, will it replace Lion in the App Store? Will people be notified that there is an update available for this thing they bought in the Mac App Store, OS X?
What about a new version of Final Cut Pro? Will it just be a new product available at $299.99? Will Final Cut Pro X still be available? Will people who stick with FCP X still get updates through the App Store? What about users staying on OS X Lion? Currently Lion still updates through Software Update.app, so we might not find the answer to that question until 10.9.
Does keeping an old major version of an app live—so it can receive updates—but not for sale really work, as mentioned in Shawn Blanc’s tweet?
Does cheap intial launch pricing for a major new version work as hacky upgrade pricing? In the iOS app store, upgrade pricing might not even matter as prices are generally so low to start with, but in the Mac App Store there are some hefty peices of software that deserve to have an upgrade path.
Interesting times this App Store thing has brought about.
