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A quick thought:

An engineering decision has been made by Omni to give AppStore-purchased copies of products such as OmniFocus a different bundle identifier from vanilla copies.

There are doubtless cogent engineering arguments for taking this route, but I notice that other companies seem, on the whole, to have avoided it.

Perhaps one reason is that the 'network externalities' of a variant bundle identifier offer less value to the user than those of an established bundle identifier.

This is because copies purchased through the Mac App Store are orphaned out of some of the free exchange of scripts and technical tips between users: there are a number of scripts on this board, and generally in the wild, which appstore copies can not run, and technical tips which work for vanilla copies but not for Appstore copies ...

(See the Mac App Store FAQ on this board for details ...)

Such scripts and tips could of course be modified, but the modification, and the initial disappointment of a failure to run, are both costs, and both diminish the value of Appstore copies in relation to vanilla copies ...

For a simple discussion of the economics of 'network externalities', or 'network effects' see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect

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Last edited by RobTrew; 2011-07-01 at 10:17 PM.. Reason: Added a reference to technical tips - not just scripts