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Comment by remi | Hacker News Reader

because unlike the iOS platform, you can trivially distribute unvetted programs yourself.

But do you think developers will always have that option?

Preventing users from running code not obtained through the Mac App Store would change the Mac fundamentally from a personal computer to something like a console.

Apple making that move would alienate every software dev and anyone who's ever bought a boxed retail app that's unavailable on the App Store, just to start.

Clearly, Apple likes markets they can control completely, but I think that if the time comes Apple will simply stop selling and supporting Macs rather than attempt to fundamentally change what a Mac is. And if it does happen, it'll happen very slowly.

I think that if the time comes Apple will simply stop selling and supporting Macs rather than attempt to fundamentally change what a Mac is.

I'd say that would still count. A prediction I'm more than 50% confident of: by the end of 2016, Apple will not sell any consumer-targeted products that run unapproved apps.

And, Apple already has a platform exclusively for curated apps: iOS. The whole notion of a "Mac App Store" revolves around curated apps on an otherwise open platform. A locked-down MacOS is really, from the perspective of consumers (the only thing that actually matters), just iOS.

Apple will not prevent ad-hoc app distribution on the Mac; doing so would prevent Adobe from releasing Creative Suite on the Mac because of their non-App Store-compatible licensing.

Won't happen. Or if it does, easy: time to leave the Mac.

For most people a $600+ dollar purchase with highly depreciating value is not something you can just walk away from.

Given that this will certainly not happen in the next 2+ years, I think you would have gotten some value from the device by that time.

Yes.

I.e do you decide on your business moves with 10 year plans about what MIGHT happen...

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