Remember when the iPad first came out, and there was all this talk of it escentially being the future of personal computers? Ever since then, and even before then, I’ve maintained a theory that a lot of what you’d see on the iPhone would find its way onto the Mac before too long. In my massive review of the iPad, I voiced some disagreement with Apple’s philosophy about what you should and shouldn’t be permitted to do with or install on their devices. In short, I’ve never been a fan of Apple’s app store, and in fact have sworn off buying an iPhone, iPad or iWhatever largely because of that. Well, plus the fact they’ve developed an alergy to the built-in keyboard but that’s neither here nor there. And, sure enough, the next version of Mac OS, to be released sometime in the summer of 2011, is said to include it’s very own app store. More details have been released throughout the day, which pretty much amount to the same thing you see on the iPhone/Pad making it into the next itteration of Mac OS.
Roughly translated, starting in the next version of Mac OS, you may be required to jailbreak your Mac before you can do anything with it that Apple doesn’t directly approve of–like, for instance, that whole fiasco re: Google Voice not being welcome on the iPhone for a few forevers. Or the relatively minor little issue of Apple deciding flash doesn’t belong on its platform.
Starting with the next version of Mac OS, you’ll more than likely be seeing the same restrictions placed on it that you do on your iPad. You may have bought the hardware, but you’ll still need Apple’s permission to do anything with it. In short, I called it. You escentially rent the iPad, and you’ll soon be renting your Mac to go with it. Welcome to the future, folks.
5 responses to “I called it. You’ll soon be renting your Mac, too.”
Really? So providing a curated App Store means they’ll also *remove* the existing ability to install software that isn’t provided via that store?? That’s quite a stretch.
This isn’t the same situation as the iPhone/iPad, in which customers knew they were buying in to both a curated AND a locked-down store, and in which there has never been any other way to install apps. Do you honestly believe Apple would be willing to alienate their millions of existing Mac customers?
In fact, if you read the pc-mag link you included in your article you’ll see that Steve Jobs refers to the Mac App Store as the “best place to discover apps”. “Best” not “only.”
Steve Jobs may well be a control freak, but he’s not an idiot.
Given Apple’s tendancy to classify installing an app when and how you want, if it just so happens that when and how you want may be outside of the app store, as voiding your warranty, no, I personally don’t think it’s much of a stretch at all. You’re right, though–Jobs is a control freak, not an idiot. So expect in another version or two after that for them to come up with another way to say “not recommended”.
An update, for Myron Byron’s sake. I’m apparently not the only one who doesn’t see it as too much of a stretch. This link from CrunchGear.
I think your dead wrong…It makes some sense to do that for a mobile phone. It does not for Apple to do taht to computers. Also given the fact that Apple is usually not known for taking away functionality, I think we will not be seeing this.
Oh, I definitely wouldn’t mind being wrong. But if that mentality isn’t eventually hardcoded into the OS, I still say look for some other way for Apple to say “not recommended”. As was pointed out in the CrunchGear link I posted yesterday (see the comment above yours), it’d be very easy and not at all surprising for Apple to say this is the *official* way to obtain your apps. They wouldn’t even need to bring up the way folks currently do so. And if they’re getting a cut of whatever developers will charge for those apps, there’s no reason for them to do so. Which escentially amounts to the same thing.