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Mac OS X "Mountain Lion" and "Gatekeeper"
So the next version of OS X, "Mountain Lion," due out this summer introduces a new feature, Gatekeeper, which limits what apps you're allowed to install on your machine. By default, it only allows you to install apps acquired from the Mac App Store and apps that have been digitally signed, though you can disable it and allow it to install anything you want. Of course, this is almost certainly a transition strategy to a future where the only apps purchased from the App Store are allowed.
Shame really... I loved the Macs I've owned for the past 10 years or so because they had the best balance of Unix underneath with big time (relatively) commercial support on top and a really nice GUI to boot (at least compared to what was available at the time I got my first Mac). Now it's pretty much certain that my next main computer will not be a Mac and while I'll have the most basic MacBook Pro for iOS development purposes (I plan to write iOS apps to make a few bucks on the side), one of the first things I'm going to do is set it up to dual boot Windows.
Shame really... I loved the Macs I've owned for the past 10 years or so because they had the best balance of Unix underneath with big time (relatively) commercial support on top and a really nice GUI to boot (at least compared to what was available at the time I got my first Mac). Now it's pretty much certain that my next main computer will not be a Mac and while I'll have the most basic MacBook Pro for iOS development purposes (I plan to write iOS apps to make a few bucks on the side), one of the first things I'm going to do is set it up to dual boot Windows.
Comments
I find it funny that they are going to make OSX be app store only by default, but let advanced users turn on the ability to install whatever else. That's exactly what I've been asking for on iOS for all this time! If they left it this way and had iOS and OSX meet in the middle, everything would be great.
Let's say you currently make some OSX software that is not approved in the Apple store. Oh, now normal users have to do tricky stuff to be able to install your app. You're out of business.
Nerds as users are still ok, for now. They will know how to turn it off and install their open source goodies. That is until OSX 11 where iOS and OSX are the same thing, and it's App store only. Then I will lol at all the developers who stupidly kept buying Macs despite years of warning.
http://boingboing.net/2010/04/15/apple-blocks-pulitze.html
Also, VLC. Also, emulators are not illegal in any way, only the ROMs of games and BIOSes are copyrighted. An NES emulator is perfectly legal. A bittorrent client is also perfectly legal, but some of the files you download with it might not be. Also every piece of software that is licensed under the GPL will not be allowed.
In the future if that checkbox disappears, you will not be able to use Apple computers to do real work unless you are using Apple tools to make Apple things, like using XCode to make an iPhone app. Every actual developer will have to use Windows/Linux/BSD.
Hopefully that will lead to enough people moving to Linux to fix the currently dire Linux desktop situation.
Also yeah that's a pretty fucked up policy to have (no ridiculing public figures), but bt clients and emus are grey areas pretty much every company tries to distance themselves from. IIRC Google removed emus and bt clients from their official app store (of course they can still be installed from apks). I definitely see how allowing one company to control development guidelines can lead to big limitations in what your computer is basically "allowed" to do, but once again at the same time I'd argue it's the path to quality and usability among the rapidly broadening and diversifying computer using market.
My future plan would probably be to replace my iMac with a Windows/Linux desktop and my Windows laptop with a MacBook Pro (the cheapest model) set to multiboot Windows/Linux and OS X. That way I still will have a decent Mac around to develop iOS stuff, but also have an OS on it that I can install whatever the hell I want on it without hoop jumping.
Mountain Lion is a car that is so incredibly safe. The chances of this car getting in an accident are almost 0. If it does get in an accident, the chances of anyone being hurt are almost zero. Of course, it refuses to start if you don't have your seatbelts on. Also, you can still drive it to a bad place and get killed, but you won't be killed because of driving.
But the same car will refuse to do certain things. It won't go offroad. It won't go on a race track. You can't tow anything with it. You can only take it to the dealer mechanic, and not your own. You can't make third party mods or change the rims.
That's ok, because there is a special switch. If you hit the special hidden switch, the car will now go offroad or on the race track. It will start without your seatbelts on. It will let you replace the alternator with one you bought at AutoZone. But next model year, they remove the special switch.
Imagine a special mountain climbing rope. No matter how much you suck, this rope will guarantee that you will get 100' up the mountain with complete safety. That's amazing. All the people who can't climb at all will love this rope and it is the best ever. But this rope also guarantees that no matter what you can not climb higher than 200' up the mountain. That gives people some room to grow, but it also makes this rope completely useless for anyone who is actually serious about mountain climbing. At Mt. Everest that rope would be toilet paper.
Once OSX removes that switch, and I can practically guarantee they will within a few years, Macs will be as useful as toilet paper to anyone who wants to use a computer for serious work. They will be media consumption devices that are good for people who have no clue what they are doing, but simultaneously prevent those people from growing.
Like TF2. Low skill cap.
Look at services like Hulu and products like Boxee. Hulu lets you watch certain content on phones or "media devices", but restricts other content only to "PCs." Now, as I have a real computer plugged into my TV, this restriction means nothing and is little more than an archaic business model that preys on the technical inabilities of its customers.
Boxee has an "app" that lets me watch College Humor videos and youtube videos. The former does not let me watch anything but CH Originals, and the latter has different content from what I see with the same search on a PC and doesn't let me close the overlay ads easily. It also has no ability for me to download a video locally. The Xbox 360 Youtube "app" has an even more limited selection of what can actually be watched.
So already, there are two worlds. An open one, where if I just use a regular PC with a web browser, plugged into a TV, I can see any content I want, legal or otherwise, that's out there, and a closed one, where "illegal" content isn't available, functionality is limited, and even otherwise legally available content is hidden.
The media industry really, really, REALLY wants a world where the only way to consume their content is through "apps" they control. They would give anything to take away the normal web browser I'm currently using.
Nerds will always find a way. But the "blessed apps only" walled garden is a direct road to a great reduction in the functionality endusers will have access to. You can see exactly what that future will look like by putting a Boxee device next to a regular PC and seeing what you can and can't see and do.
Keep the doors open so all may enter. Also, it saves us ninjas the work of having to be sneaky all the time.
If Gatekeeper doesn't get changed (Apple may make adjustments if there is too much backlash), I have a feeling we'll see an even bigger migration to web applications, which is increasingly becoming a thorn in Apple's side.
Even if you do want to make software for Apple platforms you have to pay $100 a year, minimum.
Also, I'm willing to bet Apple's app store has put more money into the hands of small companies and independent developers in the past few years than the entire history of Windows computing. In the future, developing for Apple products will be the only serious work there is.
Remember: the media companies have been pushing for something like this since the 90s. CBDTPA anyone? Even if Apple has no intention to ever do it, there are some reasons why the "slippery slope," while not an argument in total, is one piece of a larger argument.
1. Apple has precedent with the iPhone and iPad for this level of lockdown.
2. Apple has a direct business in brokering the sale of "Apps."
3. Apple has a direct interest in keeping media/content producers happy in order to maintain iTunes in the face of increasing competition (Amazon, Spotify, etc...).
4. Media/content producers have a direct and vocal desire for this level of lockdown, and have taken full advantage of every implementation hitherto.
I honestly think it will happen.
Not only will Apple remove it but hackers will absolutely find a way around it. I guarantee both the lockdown and the jailbreak.