>> Apple would damage their businesses if they allowed the iPad app run on the Mac without the developer approving it. I hope it becomes the norm soon, but we're in an early stage of the transition.
What about the end user who paid good money to own a computer and run whatever he wants on it?
> What about the end user who paid good money to own a computer and run whatever he wants on it?
You paid good money to Apple. You didn't pay good money to the app developer.
iOS app prices are ridiculously low because of the crap store "race to the bottom", which fortunately didn't affect the Mac as much. This is one big reason why Things for iOS is so cheap: the market demands it, not because it's magically cheaper for a dev to make an iOS app. If you take away the Mac-level prices for Mac apps, developers like Cultured Code might go out of business, and then you won't get either version of the app.
If Mac app prices start to go as low as iOS app prices, you're going to see almost all developers completely abandon writing native Mac apps, and then Macs might as well just run iOS instead. To forestall that possibility, Mac devs might abandon their much cheaper (or even free) iOS versions to avoid getting undercut by their own products.
Paying money to Apple for a Mac doesn't automatically license you to use third-party apps. That's not how it works legally.
Those don’t bear any similarity to this situation. Region codes allow effectively the same DVDs to be sold at different prices in different markets. iOS and Mac apps are different products altogether; it takes twice as much effort to design the UI for mouse vs touch, write code to use both AppKit and UIKit APIs, etc.
If a developer didn’t write the application with the intention of supporting your expensive computer, then I think they have the right to block it from working on it if it can be done.
What about the end user who paid good money to own a computer and run whatever he wants on it?