Amazon How to Download Purchased Software for Mac Updated

Heather Giallegaince – abril 17, 2022

Amazon How to Download Purchased Software for Mac

Yesterday, Amazon launched a software store for Mac applications that, using the online retailer's usual interface to browse and buy products, allows users to buy apps and download them on their computers without waiting for a boxed copy to arrive. In what information technology sounded like Amazon'south response to the Mac App Shop, which as of today counts thousands of apps bachelor from all kinds of developers, we noted Amazon'due south new store launched to roughly 250 titles, and didn't allow independent developers to submit their apps for release, as the visitor evidently only worked with existing large sellers (similar Adobe and Microsoft) to make their applications available digitally.

Whilst the initial impression was that Amazon's store couldn't compete with the ease of apply of the Mac App Store but competition is always good (especially when it comes to software deals), Dan Frakes at Macworld took the Mac Download Store for a spin, and information technology turns out the download and installation procedure might be worse than expected. First off, Amazon lets you save a directly link for later in your software library, but what you lot get when you decide to get a new app onto your desktop is not a .dmg file or an .app – Amazon gives you an boosted "app downloader" to download the actual app on your Mac:

This is where the process gets quite a flake less user-friendly than ownership through the Mac App Shop. The first thing you really download is a small deejay image (2.1MB in size, in my case) containing an application-specific [Software Proper noun] Downloader plan. Open this disk paradigm, if your browser doesn't mount the image automatically, and double-click the Amazon Software Downloader.app inside. Subsequently a few seconds, the Downloader program begins downloading the purchased software—not to your Downloads binder, or even to your Applications folder, but to a new folder on your Desktop.

There'due south more. When trying to install Photoshop Elements with Amazon's downloader, Frakes ended upward with a new .dmg and he had to figure out by himself what to do with information technology:

double-clicked the Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 item, expecting information technology to launch an installer, but it turns out that was just a folder with a custom icon. Inside that was Install.app (along with several folders named deploy, packages, and payloads). Double-clicking Install.app launched the Photoshop Elements installer, which prompted me to enter my 24-grapheme license key, to sign up for an Adobe ID, and to cull which components of Photoshop Elements I wanted to install.

Obviously, it's possible that Adobe chose a convoluted process and other apps will come up with an easier installation method. Still, the fact that a separate downloader needs to run in order to go the stuff you bought online seems to be the norm. Personally, I wasn't really expecting Amazon'south new Mac store to offering the same experience of the Mac App Shop (which, small bugs aside, truly is the all-time way to observe, install and recover Mac apps), only reading Dan'due south commodity makes me wonder how many average and "geek" users volition choose this over Apple's own store or even a boxed copy just for some small discounts or the fact that y'all can pay with your existing Amazon business relationship. Brand sure to read the entire post to know more about the post-installation and, more importantly, how Amazon handles licenses and software keys on multiple computers.

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