14 DAY TRIAL // A source within Apple’s software engineering team has revealed to the media that “unethical” customers obtaining unauthorized copies of Aperture and iWork apps are not a big problem.
That doesn’t mean you should go out and pirate Apple’s software, of course. The company’s insider stresses that this is a sign you’ve been raised badly, but it won’t do anything to stop you either.
This employee, reached out by Mactrast, explains in great detail the reason why Apple isn’t fighting piracy, especially in this case where it is only fair towards real owners of said apps to make it easy for them to grab the latest versions from the Mac App Store.
Below is this employee’s argument in full. You’ll notice Apple doesn’t beat around the bush when it comes to hard paying customers.
It says a lot about a company that prides itself on offering a premium experience. The takeaway is probably that if you worry about piracy, you don’t trust your customers, therefore you don’t respect them (and vice versa).
“It’s no coincidence that Apple’s support site doesn’t have downloads for the new Aperture, iWork, and iLife updates. They aren’t in our Software Update system either – and there’s a good reason for that. With Mavericks, we have changed the way we distribute updates for legacy versions of our apps.
Rather than maintain separate updates for these in addition to the Mac App Store versions of each app, Apple has decided to eliminate their legacy software update system for apps entirely. Instead, when Mavericks discovers legacy apps installed on your Mac, it provisions them as a Mac App Store purchase using your Apple ID. It saves us a lot of time, effort, and bandwidth. After the provision is complete, it will appear in your Mac App Store history as though you have purchased the Mac App Store version of the app.
While we are aware that this enables piracy of our apps for unethical users, Apple has never taken a strong stance or action against piracy in the past. We like to believe that our users are honest, even if that belief is in vain.”