Preventing users from running code not obtained through the Mac App Store would change the Mac fundamentally from a personal computer to something like a console.
Apple making that move would alienate every software dev and anyone who's ever bought a boxed retail app that's unavailable on the App Store, just to start.
Clearly, Apple likes markets they can control completely, but I think that if the time comes Apple will simply stop selling and supporting Macs rather than attempt to fundamentally change what a Mac is. And if it does happen, it'll happen very slowly.
I think that if the time comes Apple will simply stop selling and supporting Macs rather than attempt to fundamentally change what a Mac is.
I'd say that would still count. A prediction I'm more than 50% confident of: by the end of 2016, Apple will not sell any consumer-targeted products that run unapproved apps.
And, Apple already has a platform exclusively for curated apps: iOS. The whole notion of a "Mac App Store" revolves around curated apps on an otherwise open platform. A locked-down MacOS is really, from the perspective of consumers (the only thing that actually matters), just iOS.
Apple will not prevent ad-hoc app distribution on the Mac; doing so would prevent Adobe from releasing Creative Suite on the Mac because of their non-App Store-compatible licensing.
Won't happen. Or if it does, easy: time to leave the Mac.
Re:Mac App Store denial
by lukeschlather on Tuesday December 14, 2010 @10:23AM
(#2004427)
For most people a $600+ dollar purchase with highly depreciating value is not something you can just walk away from.
Given that this will certainly not happen in the next 2+ years, I think you would have gotten some value from the device by that time.
Yes.
But do you think developers will always have that option?