
App Store for Mac OS X to come? - philf
http://rixstep.com/1/20100424,00.shtml
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buster
I wonder how many of the people that are upset here, own an iPhone. My guess
would be, a lot. Why do people think it's ok on the iPhone (which i assume
they think, because they bought it in the first place), but are upset when
such things would come to OS X?

I think, this blog entry is not based on real information, but i think it
would be in the spirit of Steve Jobs. So, i'd not be as surprised as most
people, i guess.

All hail to more censorship, closed systems and external control!

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reitzensteinm
I think an App Store for OS X would be an excellent idea. One of the main
reasons I used to port my games to OS X was that promotion on Apple's website
would bring in $20k+, well worth the cost of a port. An App Store would only
increase the incentive develop for OS X.

A _mandatory_ App Store, like this article suggests? Like younata said, that
would be insane.

~~~
AndrejM
A mandatory app store for OSX would be a slap in the face for Valve's Steam
platform. I'm not so sure Apple would be ok with Valve being the major
supplier of games on the OSX in the near future (which could very well
happen).

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Zak
I'd actually like to see desktop app stores become popular. We've had them in
the Linux world for years, though there's no mechanism for payment. Ninite
gets us partway there on Windows, but it's still crude compared to apt.

I can't imagine any desktop OS vendor locking down the system though.

~~~
olefoo
Actually Ubuntu already has features for installing third-party packages that
could be easily monetised (currently packages have to handle their own
licensing sales) the problem there is that it would run into some cultural
opposition.

In fact looking at <http://www.ubuntu.com/partners/ISV> it appears as though
it's already possible for commercial software to be distributed and updated
through Software Update; the only thing that's missing is to add a payment
method so that sales could be done that way as well.

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jsz0
It's not all that far fetched in one form or another. If we started to see a
significant amount of malware for OSX I bet Apple would strongly consider it.
I look at the issue with Mcaffee last week, and the Microsoft BSOD inducing
update on infected machines earlier this year, as an untenable situation.
Computers can't just stop working randomly or become exploited this easily. I
would hope we could find a better solution but if open platforms continue to
be plagued by these problems it's almost inevitable we'll see a shift towards
locked down platforms in the future. We've already seen Microsoft move in this
direction carefully with WHQL certified drivers. Who knows? In 5-10 years
Linux might be the only open platform left. It's only going to take one major
catastrophe to put the pressure on Microsoft, Apple, etc to lock down. Add in
some government saber rattling and fear over "cyber warfare" and it's a done
deal.

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teve_torbes
iPad/iPhone/iPod touch are mainly content consumption devices, that is why
Apple locks them down. So even the most technologically ignorant person can
use them worry free and not end up with all the issues like they've had with
Windows and even sometimes OSX machines.

OSX machines are REAL computers that let you do whatever you want. And OSX is
mature, you won't be seeing many changes to it besides those that trickle up
from kernel optimizations that occur on the iPhoneOS platform (Apple has moved
many devs over from OSX to iPhoneOS).

An app store may be in the cards for OSX, but app lock out (locking out
anything except app store apps) is not going to happen. If Apple did something
like this, it would kill a large portion of their creative, scientific and
development market. It will just be an easy application distribution system
for those who want to a more convenient way to buy software (and for
developers who are willing to give Apple a cut for this convenience).

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mnemonicfx
As long as they don't lock things just like the iPhone, and I'm sure it's
quite impossible. Because we can run official developer tools on the Mac.

Mac is the only device left that we could tinker without paying contracts,
etc.

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Supermighty
_No software will be able to run on Mac OS X 10.7 without being approved and
signed by Apple, Inc._

Remember when we used to own our computers?

Time to sell my Apple stock and donate the money to a Linux distro.

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bitsoffreedom
Well, it might work for them if the admission rules were less strict than in
the mobile App Store.

And the mobile App Store turned out to be very profitable.

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younata
Apple realizes that if that were to happen, osx would die. It's probably FUD
purported by the anti-apple campaign.

~~~
pilif
I really hope so. Over the years I got to really like the combination of
really nice hardware, friendly GUI, staying-out-of the way system combined
with a real Unix in the backend. I wouldn't know what to go to if Apple really
were this crazy.

Linux comes to mind, but then I would still have to move away from the slick
hardware (that just works as opposed to a lot of not-quite-working PC hardware
I came accross over time).

Please, Apple, don't go there.

~~~
_delirium
> Linux comes to mind, but then I would still have to move away from the slick
> hardware

Linux works pretty well on most Macs, so you could have both. ;-) The main
problem is that most Linux GUIs aren't designed for a one-button mouse. You
can avoid that somewhat if you map some sort of keystroke to right-click (for
some reason, f12 is common), or use a more text-heavy environment.

Yeah, I realize it'd be weird to buy a MacBook just to run xmonad on it, but
they really are nice physical machines, as far as laptops go.

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drivebyacct
The funny part are the comments already posted that actually take this
satirical article seriously.

