I'm not suggesting it would be an evil master plan. I could easily see Steve Jobs deciding that the Mac experience would be much simpler and better if Apple reviewed all software that went on the Mac, exactly the same way he's decided that for the iPhone and iPad.
Well, consider this: it doesn't even need to be explicitly enforced to have a detrimental effect. By sheer force of market value app developers will stop developing apps that won't make it into Apple's store and will self-censor and self-restrict what they make to satisfy Steve Jobs personal preferences. A sort of "chilling effect" that will freeze out much of the non-Apple-approved development on the Mac.
As for integrity - personally I think they've done many things that lacked integrity. The language ban was very low and put many small companies that were developing cross compilers right out of business. That's a huge ethical issue even if you think it was justified for whatever reasons Jobs claimed it was necessary.
What does this have to do with integrity? It wouldn't be evil if Steve Jobs / Apple decided to make OSX more iOS like. We may not like it, but it's not evil.
Today OSX users are very fortunate that they don't have to deal with viruses or spyware, but the good times will change eventually and Apple will lose the marketing advantage of being able to brag about being worry-free. If they felt that their market would be interested in some kind of Apple version of Microsoft Bob then why wouldn't they pursue that?
You clearly seem to be a fan of Apple's products, help me understand how speculating on the possibility of Apple converging its operating systems is even remotely FUD?
Speak the truth on hacker news and get voted down. Here's the truth: Facebook: promised your data was private so you could open up with friends, then made data public by default, allows friends to leak your data. now spreading data all over the web.
Google says "do no evil" yet arbitrarily punishes websites with ranking, cancels people's adwords and adsense accounts, and employes (apparently) zero customer service and has no interest in resolving any issues people might have.
Microsoft- do I really need to go over the history of microsoft's lapses in integrity?
Dell-- was making all of its profit via kickbacks from intel and failed to report it to investors, denying investors an honest accounting of how its business was really cratering.
Apple brands itself as "different" and progressive, using '60s counterculture icons, then turns into the most prudish schoolmarm imaginable and bans any app that could offend anyone — including a Pulitzer-winning political satirist, and any book-reading app that doesn't explicitly block you from reading the Kama Sutra. I swear I am not making that second example up.
Apple proceeds to promise developers that adult-oriented apps will be accepted once parental controls are in, accepts a bunch of them at that time, then retroactively removes all of them from the store with no recourse for the developers. Apple also arbitrarily rejects apps (much more viciously than Google rejects Web pages — Google around and you'll read horror stories), and kept Google Voice in approval limbo for more than a year.
You could also remember that they have published their guidelines now, so while they still block a lot of stuff, at least we now know exactly what that is. Actually, I've seen a lot less "horror stories" since then.
Not saying it's fixed, but I do think it's a lot better.
I think the adult oriented stuff is a US problem. I see adult apps in Europe and it asks me if I'm over 17 (the local required age I guess) if I download it (it is strange that the one I always get asked on is actually a news app but we show bare breasts over here...).
