I love the Android / Amazon model - hit the store on a desktop browser, select a device to send the content to, hit buy, and relax knowing that the app or content will be downloaded to said device within seconds. I'm genuinely surprised Apple haven't done this.
Apple has done this. "iTunes in the Cloud" causes purchases made on any device (Mac, iPod, iPhone, iPad) to be downloaded automatically on all devices which automatic downloads have been enabled on. Purchases that are automatically downloaded include music, apps, and books. http://www.apple.com/icloud/features/
iCloud definitely seems like the Right Way, going even further than the Android model. Doesn't this make the method the article talks about redundant - or is the author not using iCloud?
[edit] Oh wait, does that mean iCloud works from any device but not from a browser? That seems like an odd omission.
iTunes purchases can currently only be made from inside of iTunes.app, not in the browser. Apple does offer the ability to link to apps or music in the browser, and a track list, description, screenshots, etc will be displayed inside of your browser. iTunes can be launched to make the purchase.
Any Apple manufactured device, which constitutes about 30% of all devices I own and use. It's probably why I rarely download new apps on my iPad, if I can't trigger a download from any web browser I'm not going to even bother looking unless I need/want something specific.
That's not what he was implying... he wants to trigger a download from a non-Apple device (say, Chrome on a Linux PC) and have it download (or readily available to download) on his iPad.
Or what I want - to be able to purchase an iPad app from my iPhone. Even if I can't download it on the device I'm currently on, I should be able to make the purchase.
iOS5/iCloud works in this use case, actually. You download an app anywhere, including desktop iTunes, and your devices automatically download it too. It is a bit of a bandwidth waste and it asks for your password, but it's smooth enough.
You can download every iPhone app on the iPad too, unless it requires GPS/camera/compass (not sure). The only missing use case is downloading iPad apps when on the iPhone. They cannot even be found in the mobile App Store's search. :(
The appealing option, people in this thread are espousing, would be the ability to identify the app while browsing on a desktop web browser (preferably desktop OS ambivalent).
Personally, I would prefer iCloud run from an app (or several daemons?) on the TimeCapsule supporting multiple devices, and Apple just provided encrypted, off-site back-ups from the TimeCapsule (thus, making TimeCapsule the "center" of my cloud). If Apple could handle my dynamic IP address issues, and my firewall/NAT issues, I could just use my always connected, 250GB-bandwidth/ month (and 1mbps-delivering/ <80ms latency) home connection to ensure security and robustness, I'd be more inclined to buy their hardware. As it stands, I've bought an ipod Touch, only; simply because I'm too cheap to buy a phone from a big-telco (instead: metroPCS, Leap Wireless, and MVNOs like Republic Wireless or StraightTalk are things I advise people to look into).
There is something a lot more clever about this than you realise. By offering you the convenience of sending it to you via email they are collecting your address. Great way to gather conversion information and market to people who have never downloaded their app.
>By offering you the convenience of sending it to you via email they are collecting your address. "
That's a great point, and the more I think about it while also considering about the noted sponsor for the post, SwellPath, whose stated purpose is to, "[...] merge measurement and performance-led marketing to make digital campaigns actionable and accountable," the more I wonder at how careless people are with their email addresses and other personal information.
Convenience is quite seductive, and even utilizing Occam's Razor I can't fathom a respectable position for one to espouse the ideas same as this post.
Disclaimer: I could easily be accused of tinfoil-hat-syndrome, so I apologize if I offend(ed) you.
I'm trying to think of someone I know who owns an iOS device, is literate enough to uninstall iTunes, but not literate enough to find the “mail” feature of their browser.
I usually use https://gethopper.com/you for things like this since Apple's "solution" isn't the most ideal. I prefer opening it on my iPhone via Hopper and downloading the app there instead of opening iTunes which I rarely have open.
If you have a decent URL, I find that it's usually more of a hassle to open my code-scanning app and taking a picture than it is to just type the URL into my phone's browser.
The QR should be a link to the app in whatever store. One click to the app's install page is quicker than every other app store interface out there.
If there is a QR everywhere where someone is going "hey, i tried this and it was pretty good for X and Y," there could be a lot more synergy between magazines and billboards and the internet than it is now where everybody thinks it's just some weird Korean thing. Even Microsoft detects this and creates their own home-grown remake in case having an American, IP-encumbered icon was the barrier to adoption, which it apparently wasn't. It's a bummer, man.
Just keep this in mind the next time you see some article about how it's impossible to make money making apps. What this post is asking developers to do for their apps is the utter minimum of basic marketing. It's not even Marketing 101; it's stuff you could figure out way before that. And many app developers don't even do it.
