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Beware the Garden of Steven
theodp writes "With its forthcoming Lion Mac OS and new Apple-curated Mac Apps Store, Apple will be locking down top tier applications on the Mac similar to the way apps are locked down on the iPad and iPhone. Only by submitting their apps to Apple's store and giving up 30% of their receipts will developers get to take advantage of two new OS features. The first is Apple's new 'Launchpad,' a tool for easily opening application; the second is the ability to update apps to new versions with one click. It will be a lot easier to use apps bought from the Mac App Store than ones downloaded in the wild. It didn't have to be that way, says Valleywag's Ryan Tate: 'Apple could have enabled its Launchpad and auto-update features for all applications, sold through the Apple Store or not. For example, an open system for updating applications has been in use for years on Ubuntu... Ubuntu's 'Apt' (Advanced Packaging Tool) lets users install, update, and remove software of their choosing with a single command. There's a central list of apps curated by Ubuntu's maintainers, but users are free to add and install from other lists... But Apple seems to have made a very clear choice not to take the open route.' Longtime Apple developer Dave Winer was also concerned, tweeting during Apple's presentation 'Is this the end of the Mac as an open platform?' The news also prompted developer Anil Dash to call for an open alternative to the Mac App Store."
Developers had 15 years to try and make something. The only thing that has come close is Steam, and that was on Windows until a few months ago. Now Apple is making it easy to find, purchase and update applications it is suddenly a necessity. The funny thing is if such a thing already existed Apple would have promoted it.
I find myself skeptical of the launchpad claim. I suspect that someone if confusing code-signing here. since 10.4 apple has been ramping up the strictness of code signing for apps. as of 10.6 unsigned apps can no longer open ports on the firewall without explicit user permission and all unsigned apps spew warnings to the system.log when launched. This is actually mildly annoying if you are writing and testing compiled binaries for your own intranet since it means that you need to distribute a key to all the people on your intranet if you want the apps to not spew silent warnings to the system log. (e.g. commands that you want to run millions of times get slowed down by such spewing). But you can self sign things so this does not impede anything and is merely a minor nuiscance and I put up with it because of the obvious benefits to my own security for having signed apps.
I suspect what is going on for launchpad is that unsigned apps won't work in launchpad. Thus you have to have them signed by some one with a trusted cert for them to work out of the box. It may be that, and I don't know, that you could have the installer self-sign the app at install time as a work around.
ANyhow thats what I suspect. This is a sedeffect of the highly desirable code-signing and not just a requirement to pay apple to use an OS feature.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
If Apple is restricting operating system features to whitelisted applications, then it is, by definition, no longer an open platform. There are degrees of openness, of course, but given Apple's approach to the iPhone, my guess is that the Mac will eventually become a similar prison.
The logical problem to your conclusion is the 'if' and 'only' parts. So far, it appears that Apple is launching an additional distribution channel for applications, and there is no evidence that Apple will restrict applications to only this channel. Like today you can get music from iTunes, CDs, Amazon, etc. you will be able to get applications from retail, downloads, etc.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
I am expecting this to happen at the latest with 10.8
Windows will follow suit in just one version!
The Zune store - which SLAVISHLY copies the entire iTunes / App store business and technology model - will be extendaed past Win Phone 7, right down to the desktop.
Pray that Intel gets here first. Then at least, you will have a federated ecosystem of public, corporate and commercial app stores, with flexible policy boundaries.
Otherwise, you are 4 years away from Palladium. Your PC is just like XBox 360!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Actually, yeah .. Winsus can be extended for third party apps
I'm genuinely curious now. I've never seen a non-MS application get any updates via Windows Update. Can you give some examples? Better yet, link to e.g. MSDN article/reference on how to add support for that to one's own app?