How about a Java app store?

Thought Process

The Apple Mac store is a very interesting development. Apple is trying to bring the iPhone like experience to the Mac - the traditional "desktop".

One of my iOS apps has a desktop component and it got me thinking that if I had to make the desktop component available in the Mac App store it would need to be re-coded in Objective C and Cocoa and then again in .NET for Windows. Based on the downloads, my audience for the desktop app is about evenly split between the two platforms - OSX and Windows. That makes it impossible for me to ignore either of the platforms.

Right now the app is an Eclipse-based RCP app, which solves my issue of coding for multiple platforms - OSX and Windows. I write the code once and just create two native builds. Being a stripped down RCP app with minimal plugins and inspite of being a Java app, I think it performs quite well on the desktop.

My next thought was that it would have been great if there was an consumer focussed "App-store" for Java apps that brought the same experience the iOS devices bring to mobile. Java does take the pain out of coding the app logic twice. While there are some compatibility issues, it cannot be as bad as writing code twice and trying to ensure coherency in the logic between two lines of code.

What is required?

A thin operating layer on the desktop that simply provided access to the lower filesystem, provided a security sandbox and allowed for extensions.

Here are some of the characteristics that I can think of -

• An "App Store" app to find apps natively from within the desktop and do a one-click install.
• Standard features in App Stores - ability to rate and review, feature, popular, ….
• Ability to view all running apps, switch between them, kill them, …
• Support for different kinds of apps types - widgets, full-blown apps, …
• Preferably a unified app store instead of the user having to search multiple sources (i.e. preferably the iPhone experience vs Android experience)
• Integrated eCommerce to sell apps and their features - An idea would be to integrate the plugin store with providers like PayPal, who have already solved this issue. Making a user go to multiple sites to make payments would not be a good experience. This is something Apple does well with iTunes - they make it easy to buy and install something immediately. Amazon does this well for various sellers on the web.
• Other good features would be - in-App purchasing APIs, recurring payments, app sandboxing.
• Developer guidelines with a focus on user experience and good looking apps.

How to set this up?

Make it Eclipse-based or Eclipse-like or OSGI-based

Eclipse already has a few good things going for it

- A solid plugin model. Plugins would be similar to Apps

- A fairly decent update mechanism

- There is already an Eclipse Marketplace. However, it is too IDE and developer focussed (it prompts to login with my "Bugzilla" ID :))

However, other than the IDE, Eclipse does not have a killer app that users will want to download and install on their desktops. The IDE is certainly not a killer app for consumers. Thus, Eclipse will need a killer app that will put the App control layer and marketplace apps on a users desktop.

Use JRE to distribute this Eclipse-based control layer and marketplace app

Integrate this operating app and the marketplace store app inside the JRE itself. With every download of JRE, users also get the ability to extend their JRE experience with plugins. However, the UI component will need to be SWT-based and not Swing based. Eclipse, in my opinion owes a lot of its success to SWT and JFace. There were free IDEs before Eclipse but reason I (and probably a lot of people) switched to it was due to its native look n feel and performance.

Who could make this happen?

Probably Oracle in cooperation with other Java supporters such as IBM, Google, Eclipse ...

In Summary

- Great to have a Java-based consumer focussed app store platform

- Borrow features from mobile devices such as sandboxing, integrated eCommerce.

- Eclipse-like plugin model except absolutely no IDE components

- Integrated with the JRE download