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With Mountain Lion's iCloud Integration, Apple Strengthens the Garden Wall
snydeq writes "With WWDC around the corner, iOS 6 rumors are taking center stage, but the real action for developers may be around iCloud. Forthcoming OS X Mountain Lion will integrate iCloud into the formal file system, making iCloud usage much easier and thus more common, and thanks to iCloud Documents, which lets apps open and save documents directly in iCloud, developers will be able to better tap iOS-to-OSX document syncing in their apps, a la iWork. But there is a downside to this opportunity: 'For developers, it further enmeshes you in the Apple ecosystem, almost in the way that America Online did in its heyday. Case in point: OS X apps can use the iCloud Documents APIs only if they are sold through the Mac App Store.'"
I don't know y'all, feels more like Kudzu to me.....
Three Squirrels
This signals the beginning of the end for something.
the your documents on Google Docs or Office 365 (aside from the apps residing on the host CPU instead of a web app).
Any way you slice it, this is unethical. Restricting usage of an API to developers who sell through your platform (and thus give you 30%), giving your own private cloud service filesystem level integration... Imagine if Microsoft made either of these moves.
Don't lay this on Tim Cook. This was Steve Jobs's plan; Tim is just carrying on with it.
Here's my prediction: The version of OS X that comes after Mountain Lion will only let you install applications/software from the App Store. Again, Steve's plan; not Tim's.
-- This sig is only a test. If this were a real sig it would say something witty. --
Apple doesn't want you to have a computer, they want you to have Apple devices where you buy stuff from Apple. They want you to sit around and consume the content they sell. They've been heading that direction for awhile now, this is just a continuation of it. It isn't likely to be too many more years before they lock it down entirely, and Macs are just large stations for accessing the Apple Store/iTunes.
Apple is all about the locked-in ecosystem where everything is their way, everything runs through them, and they get a cut of everything. This is just another step down that road.
They want it to Just Work. They want to buy it, plug it in, go pointy-clicky and have it work. People have an expectation that computers and technological devices (tablets, phones, etc) work without screwing around with them.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
But not this. They are providing a free network support service to vendors that sell through their store. Seems obvious, ethical, and fair. Dropbox is better and simpler anyway because all apps can use it with no API; however Dropbox SELLS its service and gives it away for free as a loss leader.
Isn't this pretty much exactly how Skydrive works, and isn't that being integrated into Windows 8? Nobody has been complaining about that...
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
"Don't lay this on Tim Cook. This was Steve Jobs's plan; Tim is just carrying on with it."
It doesn't matter whose idea it was. It is still a bad idea. They are making exactly the same mistakes that Microsoft did, for the same reasons Microsoft made them, and from which Microsoft has not, to this day, recovered.
Cook or Jobs, either one should know better. I could see this coming from a mile away, and they have had plenty of warning. If Apple keeps this up, the results will not be good for them.
YOU are geeks / nerds / techies / whatever label you prefer. Apple does not even count you as part of their customer base.
Apple is selling the coolest tech for largest market segment. You buy an apple device and it JUST FUCKING WORKS out of the box. and like it or not that is what people want. They don't want to have to do what you love to do and they HATE doing.
They want a device that just does what they need to do, and like it or not apple devices do just that.
Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
Any way you slice it, this is unethical. Restricting usage of an API to developers who sell through your platform (and thus give you 30%), giving your own private cloud service filesystem level integration... Imagine if Microsoft made either of these moves.
Its about having apps screened and approved not about sales. Free apps (gratis) from the App Store can use iCloud for storage too.
you simply won't be able to run X11 apps on Mac OS X any more
None of the articles in the results from your linked Google search actually seem to agree with that statement.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
You should read what you quote:
"With Mountain Lion, Apple seems to eliminating its dedicated support for the X11 application, instead redirecting users to the open source XQuartz project, which it will continue to support."
I know - don't feed the trolls. But this is utter BS. "While limited" - how? On my MacBook Pro, I can run the suite of Office tools; I can compile and run common X11 apps; I can even connect serial devices and do bit-level twiddling if I want. I can open a shell and run bash or ksh scripts until the cows come home. I can edit HD video and multi-track audio. So, how am I limited by using Mac OS?
And then implying that all nerds must be SM freaks - referring to the configuration contortions that Linux users often have to go through to get just about anything to work? - is just ridiculous. Because, surely, any self-respecting nerd would rather fuck around trying to get drivers to work for some video card or printer rather than just do some actual work. Seriously? Ok, maybe things are better, now, with Linux; I wouldn't know - I stopped banging my head on the table some years ago, and bought a Mac. Now? I just focus on what I need to do rather than what configuration file I need to play with to get X11 up and running.
Maybe you just don't understand that some of us have more important things to do than mine, refine and then cast the materials needed for every metal and plastic piece of the mobo, then solder them by hand, one eye blindfolded, left handed, if you're normally right handed, to be considered a "true nerd." Maybe an abacus would make you feel more manly. Knock yourself out. I'll just put my formula into a spreadsheet, get my results to my boss, and then move on to the next assignment.
In other words: I can get down and dirty with a Mac, if I need to. Most of the time, I don't need to. I'm cool with that. You keep punching those bit codes into your Altair, though; we're all real impressed.
Here's my prediction, you are dead wrong. "The version of OS X that comes after Mountain Lion will only let you install applications/software from the App Store." More paranoia than reality. After spending better than a decade growing their OS and finally challenging Microsoft on the desktop front they shoot themselves in the foot by forcing all sales through the app store? They'd loose half their customers overnight. First off no one would upgrade to to Mountain Lion and most would hold off buying new equipment. Third party vendors would be shutout so the backlash would be epic. It may be a wet dream over at Apple but no one is that monumentally stupid. The number of pissed off customers would dwarf the Vista revolt. Why lock the barn door while more are trying to squeeze in? There's simply no rational reason to do it and there are major downsides. Sure they will keep trying to make it or attractive to use the app store but shutting out other vendors would be shooting themselves in the foot with a nuke. They'd also be putting an antitrust target on their chests so any gain would be offset by customer backlash and the next ten years in court.
"you simply won't be able to run X11 apps on Mac OS X any more"
This is patently false. Apple is no longer supporting X11, but they are recommending that people install an open source X11 for OS X called XQuartz. So, you will be able to run X11 apps in Mountain Lion.
http://www.macrumors.com/2012/02/17/apple-removes-x11-in-os-x-mountain-lion-shifts-support-to-open-source-xquartz/
http://xquartz.macosforge.org/trac/wiki
-- This sig is only a test. If this were a real sig it would say something witty. --
You can integrate any app with Google Docs - it doesn't need to be sold only on Android Marketplace.
(no idea about Office 365)
You have to use iCloud if you want to compete apps which have iPad versions that can open their documents from the cloud.
In other words, it's classic tie-in - using their dominance on the tablet market to get developers in line on the desktop. To remind, from June 1 onward, all apps sold in the Mac App Store have to be sandboxed - in other words, it becomes a full-fledged walled garden, just like iOS.
It would be really difficult to reliably block terminal access
Why would it be difficult? They can do it in exact same way they did it on iOS, which, after all, is also Darwin-based.
I meant difficult not as in "difficult to implement" but difficult to fit into their whole OS ecosystem. Apple would have to shut down their server flavor, they would have to ditch terminal completely, they'd disable PHP, Apache, X11. They would have to make their OS incompatible with any programming environments as Python, Perl, revision control systems... Finder probably would have to go away (or just be re-implemented so that it can't go into unprotected territories). Their root handling would have to be reimplemented (too easy to hack), etc. It CAN be done but it I doubt they would just ditch it all just in one second (that's why I wrote about 5-6 years which gives about 2 OS X versions; still too small but I'm being cautious). But I may be biased, I have personal interest to believe what I say. ;) Linux GUIs are buggy and I wouldn't like to have to go back.
And? They already killed Mac OS X Server and removed X11 support, I somehow doubt Apple really cares about anyone that uses Mac OS X because it's UNIX.
You're posting nonsense. MacOS X Server is well and a live. They killed the XServe hardware which sold only about 300,000 units a year from what I heard. They are selling the Mac Mini Server, and MacOS X Server will run just fine on any Mac Pro. X11 support is available, and Apple tells you were to get it.