A little story made the rounds on the Internet recently which seems to imply that come Mac OS 10.7 only applications that have been approved by Apple and distributed through their app store (for OS X) would be allowed to run on the computer, so no more downloading shady software from parts of the Internet just because you want. Apple won’t let you.
As it goes with stories like these the moment it “broke” the slagging started with people on the one side saying “Evil Apple” while others were more relaxed and essentially said: “Apple would never do that”, and a few even thought of this as a good idea.
So what are the odds that Apple would do something like this? From Apple’s perspective this actually makes sense, they are already controlling the iPhone and iPod environment via the app store. Sure, you can jailbreak your iPhone and then use any kind of app on it that you want, even install a completely new OS on it, but for the majority of people what Apple approves is what they will eat.
But iPhones and iPods (and iPads now) are one thing, a Computer is something else, aren’t we all just deeply excited to write our own programs, fiddle with code and have full control over every minute part of the computer? If you say yes you fall probably in the 1% of the population that actually does this. The rest will still be shaking their heads right now.
Still though, people aren’t quite used to the idea that they have to go through their Computer vendor to get software, but if Apple would want to do this, how would they go about it?
Firstly, they have already trained a lot of people to accept the app store as the arbiter of software to find. In turn for many smaller developer it has turned into a successful distribution method, so why not expand it?
Secondly, Apple could open an Appstore for OS X, once it is open they could make it “difficult” for apps that haven’t come from the App store by simply making it annoying. Right now if you download an application from the net and start it up for the first time OS X warns you that this application was downloaded from the Internet on a given date and that OS X isn’t sure you should really run this. Now imagine they would do this everytime you start an app, added with a note that trusted applications can be found in the app store?
Three, once people are used of using the appstore to find their apps instead of the internet, force them to go there. The majority won’t care as they are already used to it anyway and the few geeks that will be pissed off can be ignored.
So what about the public backlash if Apple would be doing this? I predict slim to none. The people who care about open systems are a minority. The average computer user “eats” what he is given, they don’t scour the internet for applications or try to custom build their own. If Apple shows them a big enough carrot in the form of the appstore combined with some nice fear mongering with regard to the dangers of the internet they can get people to buy into it.
Will they do it? Who knows, Steve Jobs maybe. But if you look at the way Apple has been developing it’s products it just seems to make some kind of sense. There was a huge outcry when the iPod came with unexchangable batteries, there was a huge outcry when Apple insisted on only letting applications on the iPhone that came via the appstore and again when they did the battery thing with the new Laptops (me being one of the by the way). Has it hurt Apple? Not in the least, they are selling more devices than they ever have before and they will continue to do so.
The one thing all the Gees and Free Software advocates forget is something very simple: Most people already treat their computers like appliances, if Apple can give them that feeling on the computer while still letting them do what they want they will like it.
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