Steve Jobs snuffs App-Store-for-Mac rumor
That would be a 'nope'
Mac OS X users won't be limited to Apple-approved apps as are users of the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. So says no lesser light than Steve Jobs himself.
Last Friday, a rumor zipped across the interwebs that the next version of Mac OS X - which will be version 10.7 - would institute an App Storesque "gated community" in which only Apple-blessed software would run on Macs updated to that as-yet-unnamed follow-on to 10.6, aka Snow Leopard.
That rumor, first reported by the programmers' consortium Rixstep, was immediately debunked by a developer who pointed out to 9to5Mac that Rixstep's fears of restrictive code signatures were unfounded.
But rumors have legs, whether they're based on reality or not. So one developer decided to check with The Man himself, sending the recently oh-so-reponsive Jobs a personal email asking: "There's a rumor saying there will be a Mac App Store and no software without authorization from Apple will run on Mac OS X. Is that true?"
According to Redmond Pie, Jobs responded in characteristically concise fashion: "Nope."
The email header, as published by Redmond Pie, appears authentic, so it seems that Mac OS X users can now relax. ®
COMMENTS
Beleaguered Apple
Here's an interesting thought before the comedians come barging into the thread.
Suppose that, instead of a shiny new PowerBook G3, you'd bought $5700 worth of Apple stock in 1997.
How much would that stock be worth today? No, you're quite wrong. It's $1.32m.
(http://www.kyleconroy.com/apple-stock.php)
Yep, thought that would shut you up.
Okay...
Did anyone actually think Apple would do that? No, really? Apple have worked hard to make Mac OS X a great platform for porting open source software to, a great platform for writing code on.
How was this actually even going to work? How would software get written? On the iPhone/iPad you develop on Mac OS X, how was this going to work?!
It's retarded - are people actually this stupid?!
Depends...
On the Linux front: Ubuntu has something similar (though with free-as-in-beer binaries), where you can click and get. You can do the same in Fedora Core and RHEL by typing "sudo yum -y install {whatever you want/need}*" Other distros have similar bits.
Microsoft does have "Games Explorer" in Windows 7, where you get taken to the web and dropped off in a small marketplace to buy/download games and such. You can also buy upgrades to pricier versions of Windows (e.g. Pro -> Ultimate and the like) from some versions of Windows 7.
On the OSX front, most long-time users (disclosure - including me) just go to versiontracker.com and do our looking around there for free and paid-for (via demo) stuff.
Apple could make a killing off of putting up an App Store for Macs, but minus the walled garden approach... problem is, the tech 'press' doesn't seem interested in exploring this angle (not as dramatic, etc).
Mine's the one with pockets chock-full of burned CDs and DVDs...
* Dunno if Fedora or RHEL has a GUI utility for YUM, since I rarely run it with X turned on.
Wallpaper paste
"Don't worry, you'll probably be able to change the wallpaper."
Unlike Windows 7 needlessly crippled "Starter Edition"
Try not to attribute forum comments to manufacturers.
So your argument is that because a different company changed it's position quickly Apple will do the same?
Let's see.
G4 - when it launched (1999?) it was about 2.5 times faster than the equivalent Intel PIII. In the intervening time the market moved on. It's not like Apple switched the next year, it was almost 10 years.
3rd party apps - Apple didn't say "never", they said they didn't see the need for them. However, once the phone was out in the market, it became clear that there was both a demand *and* a need due to patchy network coverage/battery life. Oh look, they changed their position based on the evidence. How dare they!
Multi-tasking - Again, they didn't say "who needs that?" they said that they thought it would drain the battery too fast and (quite correctly) it can cause stability problems in the OS and other apps. They wanted to work out if they could do it in a way that avoided the pitfalls, which they claim to have done for OS4, we'll see in due course. It was the fanbois to said "Who needs it?" and I have to say for probably 90% or more users they're likely to be right.
Cut & paste - Again, Apple didn't think people really needed it, but they reacted to the market.
MMS - As far as I know they have never said anything about MMS apart from the initial "It isn't available" and the "here it is" when they made it available. Again, I suspect they didn't think anyone really needed it - I've only ever sent one MMS in my entire life and I've only ever received two that weren't marketing crap. Even my service provider appears to have quietly dropped "picture message" bundles from its offerings, which leads me to suspect that not many other people are using it either. It's entirely possible that the people who were most likely to use MMS now just upload their pictures to FaceBook (or whatever social network their friends are on).
Quite apart from anything else, trying to lock down OSX to an app store after it's been on the market for so long *and* already has a reasonably large software base is likely to be pretty much impossible, especially as anyone really huffed could just load another OS on the machine and walk away.
