The iOS App Store does the same thing with changing the rules in the middle of the game, but it is not subject to potential irrelevance because it is the only place to get software for iOS devices. So the obvious solution for Apple is to make the Mac App Store the only place to get software for MacOS.
I'm actually a little surprised this didn't happen in 10.8.
Which would instantly kill the Mac as a development platform, and render all previously purchased software irrelevant. This just won't happen, though I can see a version of OS X that does this by default (perhaps on all "non-pro" models).
I think the only viable way to do this would be for Apple to make Macs obsolete. Like boiling a frog, if they upscaled the ipad to a desktop-lite device over the next few years, and eventually replaced their fully featured cousins with these devices, they would be able to accomplish it with far much less resistance.
(The iMac may have been a few years too early - they could have positioned the iMac as the trojan horse in this story).
It's all about where the mass market is. Just like the low-selling Mac Pro machines, Apple could quite happily keep OS X going for the professional minority that require a POSIX-like experience. The vast majority would use a slightly upgraded iOS, where all of that is hidden away.
OS 9 -> OS X was supported by the Classic runtime for years.
PPC to Intel was supported by Rosetta for years.
I suppose if the announced that this was the plan, and gave people years to migrate across, it might be something they'd do. But it would kill basically any technical use of the platform (development, scientific computing). I find it much more likely they'll evolve iOS "up" to support users for whom a closed appliance approach is helpful, whilst adding options to OS X to cater for those who want a more traditional computer but need a bit more help.
But they didn't - they made Rosetta and supported it a couple of years just to give the developers and the users time to update their apps/computers to Intel versions.
The day they do this is the day that I will partition my disk, install another OS and never look back. OSX is the only Apple product that is still attractive to me, but I fear that I will have to jump out sooner or later.
With the shift towards iOSness and sandboxing for Windows & OSX, I don't see myself using anything but Linux - or recommending anything but Linux - for the future.
* Taking something away from someone that they've always had (as would be the case with OS X) is very different to never giving them it (as has been the case with iOS).
* People are used to doing stuff that isn't possible with the current restrictions - with iOS they've only ever had those restrictions so they're not aware of what they might be missing out on.
* Developer goodwill would evaporate overnight. I'm not even sure it would be possible to develop on a Mac with this sort of restriction in place given the low level activity you often need to play around with.
* They'd need to develop a parallel mechanism for managing machines or lose what little they have of the Enterprise who are never going to use the app store.
They'd need to make a "developer version" of OS X, which would just be OS X with this hypothetical super-Gatekeeper shut off. Then the whole thing just gets silly.
I believe the PC will remain a PC. Take away its nature and you might as well just hand everyone an iPad.
I can see them changing the language around the various Gatekeeper options and adding additional "are you sure?" warnings to scare people off the allow everything option and unsigned / non-Mac App Store installations but I don't think it will go any further than that.
By default Mountain Lion can only run software from the App Store or by developers Apple has specifically certified. You can tune this restriction both up ("App Store only") and down ("any software can run").
There is no "special certification", it's just a matter of creating a developer account and generating a certificate.
Also, right-click -> open will bypass the verification under the assumption that if you know about that command, you probably somewhat know what you're doing.
By default, you can right click anything from anywhere and choose "Open". It will install/run, and you will never be asked about that program again. But you have to make a conscious decision to run it.
Gatekeeper was on for appstore and signed applications and I had to disable it to install something I downloaded (ironically because OS X told me to - X11).
Here's one thing I imagine: 10.9 by default won't allow apps outside the App Store, and you have to buy the 10.9 Server upgrade to have this privilege. They would bundle XCode with it or something to rebrand it as a "developer-friendly" add-on, and developers will be happy to pay, but all the consumers will be chained to the App Store.
The only thing that gives me comfort is that Apple itself has thousands of developers writing its own code, so they can only cripple their OS X so much. Otherwise what would they do, write all their software on Windows machines?
I thought the same thing as I was reading John Siracusa's review of Mountain Lion. My stomach sunk when I saw the default 'gatekeeper' options.
[ ] Mac App Store
[x] Mac App store and identified developers
[ ] Anywhere
Seems likely at some point down the road the third option will no longer exist. My next project is getting Linux to run on an old MBP. I still love their hardware, but OSX is getting fuckin' uppity. I realize that this is just an attribute on a binary that you can set and unset, but still, the direction this is going seems clear to me. The further iOSification of OSX is driving me back to Linux on the desktop.
What's wrong with Apple trying to control which binaries it will and won't let you run on its OS? Doesn't Apple always have your best interests at heart?
Since OS X is a better/simpler choice for many people and has WAY more quality supported apps than Linux has. If Linux became the superior choice for most people, a lot of those people would switch.
The built-in terminal is basically broken:
-page-up and page-down don't work unless you hold shift
-It uses CTRL-C instead of Command-C, unlike the rest of the OS.
-I still can't find hotkeys to jump to the beginning of end of line, or skip over entire words (home, end, ctrl-arrow in Linux and Windows)
Home and End are COMPLETELY USELESS on OS X. I have never, in decades of computing thought "Oh, I want to scroll to the top or bottom of this document with one keypress, but not even bring the cursor with me." Given how often during programming I want to select an entire line, this is broken.
The mouse acceleration is stupid. I know you can get used to it, but then try to play StarCraft or something on it, and you will be awful (or at least severely handicapped), because the mouse acceleration system just doesn't work for stuff like that. Also, Lion broke all the work arounds.
The XCode debugger doesn't let me inspect anything that even might be out of scope. Most of the inspections are useless anyway. You can't even see a list of what is in an NSArray (isa = Class, puh-lease).
Viewing hidden files in Finder is hard enough to not remember. Viewing hidden files on a remote server seems to be impossible (maybe it isn't, I don't care). Simply typing in the folder you want to go to is a huge project.
OS X is a poor network neighbor. It rarely detects my other machines, and when it does it's after waiting forever, and it still barely works.
And, oh yeah, it cost me as much as my other 3 computers combined and is the worst of the 4, spec-wise.
I'm surprised Ctrl-C is a problem for you, especially since you come from a nix background. I'm super ok with it, especially since Cmd-C is the copy command.
Mouse acceleration does suck. It's directly led to a big decrease in the number of amusing photoshops I make; on the plus side, I've started using the keyboard much more.
I haven't had any issues showing hidden files; I just always show them. Going to a specific folder is as simple as either Cmd-Shift-G or typing "open /Some/Folder/Name" in terminal.
You make a lot of good points. I hated OS X at first, but I got used to it; I could probably move to a nix machine, but there would definitely be a long and painful adjustment period, much as there was for you. And as far as the cost, I'm paying for the OS X design, not the hardware - something not everyone agrees with.
Agree with everything. Mouse acceleration curve is the deal breaker for me because I couldn't get it close to Windows feel. The pointer slowdown is too sharp at the end of your mouse move, the pointer itself gets jerky and jumpy when tracking over a small area.
I've tried various free and paid tools, but no joy (OS X Lion). Funny that I have no such problems with trackpad, but maybe that's attributed to myself appreciating the trackpad too much while using it because every other one I've tried sucked unbelievably.
I frequently want to scroll the display without moving the cursor. As for selecting lines, you do realize that Ctrl+A and Ctrl+E work everywhere in OS X, right? Generally whenever I select an entire line, I do so to erase, move, or duplicate it, and Cocoa's Emacs-style shortcuts are much nicer than Windows/CUA-style shortcuts for these operations (and difficult to support on systems where Ctrl is used for menu command accelerators).
Far more frequently, I want to delete from the current cursor position to the end of a line, and Ctrl+K is much nicer than Shift+End, Backspace.
iOS has never had a legitimate way to install code in userspace outside of the App store. OS X has a long and rich history of allowing people to run any code in userspace that they want.
This is one of those situations where you can't really close the barn door after the horse has already left.
What Apple may do is stop developing MacOS altogether and make a variant of iOS for desktop after OSX (or simply rebrand). And I don't think this would be a total shock for the users by the time. Largely because Metro app would be following the store model too.
They need these sort of things to cover their bases in case the real reason for firing you isn't something they'd want to explain to anyone outside the company.
(At least that was the case the one time I was fired.)
I don't know that it's possible to make such a comparison, since the people who are fighting for these intrusive government checks and databases ARE religious terrorists.
Ok, now I don't feel so bad about having worked on a system that was confounded by people having the letter ñ in their name. (Surprisingly, it had no problem with someone else whose middle initial is the number 8.)
It could very easily be real. I was in a Fantasy Football league on Yahoo a few years ago, and there was a player named Keith Null who played briefly after another player was injured. His name just showed up as Keith.
When AOL first started allowing screen names longer than 8 characters, I knew someone who registered the name "My Documents". That got some ... interesting emails from people trying to save their downloads.
I'm in the process of learning Backbone and just read about Meteor, so I might be completely wrong on this. But it seems like Backbone and Meteor are trying to solve different problems, and aren't mutually exclusive. Backbone is server-agnostic, and Meteor is somewhat client-agnostic, so you could use Meteor to do the data synchronization and automatic updating, while structuring your client app using Backbone.
These are good tips, nonetheless.