This would get you about half of his "buy non-sandboxed apps directly" advantages (More/Faster Updates, Less Risk, More Money), while still offering the user the advantages of the sandbox (e.g., I can see that a graphics program I downloaded only uses the entitlement "com.apple.security.files.user-selected.read-write" and thus can't open network connections behind my back).
Apple is working hard to provide a secure and still fully functional system. Some things will break, undoubtedly. Some apps will be abandoned, either because of legitimate technical limitations Apple refuses to address, or because of political stances taken by the apps' developer. Things aren't perfect right now, and Apple still needs to continue refining and enhancing the OS X sandbox.
Is it as clear-cut as Rentzsch makes it out to be, though? Absolutely not. In fact, I think he takes a very biased stance in this article. For the vast majority of users, sandboxing is an enormous step forward for the safety and security of their data and system. For that reason alone, I encourage everyone to purchase apps via the App Store. It's a safe and trusted distribution vector that is now helping improve OS X's platform security. That's an enormous benefit to almost all consumers.
(And I say all of this as a developer who's having to wrangle with the sandbox right now.)
https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/Misce...
Assuming that they'll be available indefinitely strikes me as a willful mistake.
You clearly haven't heard about this new 'iOS'...
iOS, for all of it's failings and deficiencies, still offers one of the finest – if not the finest – development and distribution platforms in the world.
Yes, it's not open. Yes, it's restrictive. Yes, it's censored.
But, perhaps, those qualities are some qualities that make it the most successful software sales vector we've ever seen.
I agree it's not perfect. But to say it's not developer friendly is quite disingenuous. The iOS development toolchain is actually quite powerful and flexible (though still faulty), the distribution mechanism is broad and simple (though restrictive and censoring), and I can't think of a single other platform, including the web, that has been as developer friendly. At least for developers who wish to make an income. (Something about which I admit, without any bit of judgement, some developers aren't concerned.)
How friendly is a company that uses secret APIs to compete with you? How friendly is a company that rips off your software and then kicks you out of their app store? Gimme a break...
There is a command-line tool to list an app's entitlements, but it's not at all easy to use, or even find. I haven't found a way to determine the entitlements of an App Store app without installing it (and hence, paying for it, if it's not free). I expect that basically no users will ever look at this. It's a bit like the device in Dr. Strangelove: the whole point is that you're supposed to tell people!
In a perfect world, Apple wouldn't approve an app for the App Store which did something nasty (like upload the user's address book to a spammer), but it's impossible for them to catch everything even if they never made a mistake. Besides, every entitlement has legitimate uses.
Security is helped by transparency. It would be great if users could see what sandboxed apps are allowed to do. They can't, and at worst this makes users feel safer without actually being safer.
This article seems heavily biased towards the app developer's interests. Is it really better/safer for everyday customers to use non-sandboxed apps?