Apple has done this. "iTunes in the Cloud" causes purchases made on any device (Mac, iPod, iPhone, iPad) to be downloaded automatically on all devices which automatic downloads have been enabled on. Purchases that are automatically downloaded include music, apps, and books. http://www.apple.com/icloud/features/
iCloud definitely seems like the Right Way, going even further than the Android model. Doesn't this make the method the article talks about redundant - or is the author not using iCloud?
[edit] Oh wait, does that mean iCloud works from any device but not from a browser? That seems like an odd omission.
iTunes purchases can currently only be made from inside of iTunes.app, not in the browser. Apple does offer the ability to link to apps or music in the browser, and a track list, description, screenshots, etc will be displayed inside of your browser. iTunes can be launched to make the purchase.
Any Apple manufactured device, which constitutes about 30% of all devices I own and use. It's probably why I rarely download new apps on my iPad, if I can't trigger a download from any web browser I'm not going to even bother looking unless I need/want something specific.
That's not what he was implying... he wants to trigger a download from a non-Apple device (say, Chrome on a Linux PC) and have it download (or readily available to download) on his iPad.
Or what I want - to be able to purchase an iPad app from my iPhone. Even if I can't download it on the device I'm currently on, I should be able to make the purchase.
