Ever since the Mac came out Jobs' vision has been the computer as an appliance. At the Mac introduction in 1984: "The Mac is a desk appliance, the first since the telephone."

Like it or not (and I don't much), that's the direction Apple is heading with all of it's platforms. In Jobs' view, the less the user has to get under the hood the better. He's betting that's what consumers want. I think he's right.

Explain how this is compatible with Apple making efforts to get OS X Certified as Unix?
It is true that for most activities, users don't need to muck about with the System. You don't need an admin account for moving documents around, running apps, even writing AppleScripts, Services and Actions.

Apple certainly makes it UNNECESSARY to get involved in the Unix under-pinnings of the system, but I don't think they are going to prevent people from working with that.
The CLI is very powerful, but having to remember all the flags and whatnot is quite tedious, and if you can get the same result from a menu, then why not use that?

Computer languages are intermediaries between the machine and humans. Modern computers are so powerful that if I can get the same result by speaking "Computer, override!", rather than typing "clr_file -xdf $perms" or whatever, then I'll go for the most high-level method. And that's what Apple is all about.

I don't see high-level abstraction as a threat, but a boon.

7) Apple becomes the web host.

I don't know if the Mac App Store is going to put any third-party web hosts out of business immediately, but the cumulative effect of the mass migration to Apple's servers will surely be felt among web hosting vendors.

• Sites like Macupdate and Versiontracker will become shadows of their former selves.

• If Apple's servers go down, nobody gets access to any Mac apps until services are restored.

• If Apple decides to blacklist a user, that user will have few alternatives to turn to.

• Again, Apple will decide how users will pay for apps. If you can't, or don't want to, conform to those methods, you will be SOL.

• If you don't have the right IP address, you'll be denied, even if all other conditions are met: "We're very sorry, the application that is in your shopping cart is not available in your country. Please visit the App Store in your country (which either doesn't exist, or has only twelve apps)."

• If Apple's servers are maliciously attacked, all purchasing info and licenses could be wiped out in one fell swoop. This would be far less likely to happen in the current system where you have most apps spread out over dozens, or maybe even hundreds of servers.

I think that, sometime in the very near future, Apple intends to lock Mac users out of the file system, exactly like they have done on iOS.

Is iOS not also based on UNIX?

When you get to my age you start to see the value of a rule-driven outlook.
One of my better rules is if a person gives you multiple reasons for something they are usually concealing the real reason. The given reasons are simply justifications for their position.
Some people call this rule business wisdom; I would make no such claim.

I agree. The longer I can avoid cracking open the case (or diving into Terminal) the better.
The more effective the facade is at shielding me from the reality of computing the more I like it.
Although, I don't regard the device as mine, really, until I've actually "got under the hood". My G5 DP is mine, the Macbook and the iPod Touch aren't... yet.
Otherwise we might as well go back to bit-switches and LEDs. Oh, no... not again!

Hmm, there may be something in what you're saying.
Smultron seems to have been resurrected from retirement:

SourceForge 2009

As of 2009-07-06 0:00:00 UTC, this project is no longer under active development.

Smultron is a text editor written in Cocoa for Mac OS X Leopard 10.5 which is designed to be both easy to use and powerful.

At that point, another author took over from Peter Borg and released an app called "Fraise".


Yet today...
MacUpdate 2011

WHAT'S NEW
Version 3.8:
Smultron is only available via the Mac App Store. 'Download Now' will launch the app's page in the App Store (requires the Mac App Store to be installed on your Mac).

I prefer options... like not being forced to be online at all times for example. App Store is fine if it's an option.

To me, a good installer will tell you the names and locations of all files that were installed during that session, then save that list separately, in an easy to find location. That way, the user doesn't have to rely on maybe being offered an uninstaller which probably deletes only a few of the most visible files.

In renaultssoftware's case, it would have been nice if the installer itemized which files couldn't be installed.

Does the Mac App Store do anything like this? I'm asking because I don't know. I see no need to progress beyond 10.6.5 yet.

I feel the same way exactly.

So many software companies these days expect users to have 24 hour internet connections. Steam is just one example of a company with this mindset. I keep an archive of the most recent software .dmg files on my local drive just in case internet connectivity goes down, and it does go down. With Steam that's not possible, they refuse end-users access to those kinds of files. You must be connected to the 'net if you want to download, or update, or register a game. No internet connection? Too bad.

This is relevant to the Mac App Store because Steam may have been among the models that Apple looked at when they were designing it. Actually, this is such an important point that I'm going to make it number eight on my list.

8) Apple will expect users to keep an internet connection.

Good find Hal. If you run across anything else like that, please post back here. I imagine it will be a more common occurrence as time goes by, but for now, it's still kind of shocking.

http://gizmodo.com/5727080/mac-app-s...ked-for-piracy

Well the app store has been hacked

That is shoddy reporting. The store has not been hacked.

I see that VLC has been pulled from the iOS app store over the differences between the GPL and Apple terms of service. In other words the contract between author and user has been breached by the distributor. Not a good sign; especially when the closed design of the device prevents direct dealing between author and user.

At least with OSX we still have a choice...

Wow, that really made me stop and ponder the ramifications.
Do you think that VLC's developers will simply re-write the EULA for the iOS App Store?

The VLC developers are bound by the GPL. They can't change the terms just for the app store.

What this essentially means is no open source software on the iOS app store.

Oddly, I bought an application on the Mac app store today that is openly based on the GPL command line tool GPSbabel.

Okay, I should have said "…simply draft a new EULA…".
Perhaps they can't change the terms of the GPL, but can they not discard it altogether and make up something new?

I don't think so because their iOS VLC is based on the broader open source Video LAN Client project. They are bound by the GPL.

Like many I believe the App Store will be good for Users who have a simple end effective way to Add, Remove, and find software.

It has been somewhat of an issue that there was a strict dependency on developers to provide un-installers which many did not. And even those that did meant users had to keep track of the un-installers.

And It is not true to say that no Apps caused problems.

I see where you are coming from, and I agree that those are nice things to have, but for me, the few benefits to users are greatly outweighed by all of the negatives.

I have used Mac intensively for years now, and sporadically for many years before that. I still struggle with finding apps, but the struggle has nothing to do with where the apps are located. The trouble lies in defining what kind of app I really need, then proactively searching for one that fills that void. Consolidating every Mac app in the universe into a single store will not fix this issue, and generally speaking, when I define what sort of app I need, a simple search (engine) will lead me right to it.

I also sometimes enjoy getting app suggestions from places like Mac Gems, MacUpdate, or even those MacHeist bundles.