"App Stores" (Short Take)

App stores are the ultimate custom pricing experience. Thousands of choices at many different price points. Given this it's not surprising that everybody has one now. It's kind of interesting that nobody came up with the idea sooner. I suspect some of it has to do with the electronic distribution model. Software companies were very uncomfortable with that approach for a long time due to piracy. If you make the applications readily available and cheap enough piracy is much less of an issue.

Thinking about it, pirate sites were essentially app stores before there were app stores.

It's kind of ironic that Microsoft is fighting Apple over their trademarking of "App Store" since Microsoft trademarked "Windows" many years ago. How is "Windows" any less generic than "App Store"?

Apple probably could have improved their odds of winning this battle by calling their App store the "Ap Store", or heck, why not the "AP PLacE". Hmm, maybe the answer to my second suggestion is self evident.

Image by willc2 via Flickr

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• Microsoft Windows 7 & Customized Pricing (emkey1.blogspot.com)
• Battle Over Apple's 'App Store' Trademark Expands Into Europe (paidcontent.org)
• Apple Refutes Amazon's Claim That App Store Is Generic (cultofmac.com)