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Comment by axod | Hacker News Reader

I'm still surprised Apple went down the app-store road myself. A big strategic mistake IMHO.

Does anyone else just see it as a stop gap fad until we have free wifi all over the globe?

I doubt it. Steam does pretty well on PCs, and one could argue that the Ubuntu (or other Linux) ecosystem is a successful "centralized moderated software collection". If anything, I think we'll see a growth of App Store-like systems on other platforms. I'm a little surprised Microsoft and Apple haven't tried to roll something like this to their desktops yet.

Microsoft included Digital Locker with Vista allowing you to purchase applications from 3rd parties via Windows Marketplace, but it has since shutdown, presumably due to lack of popularity.

It looks like Sun is going to get into the game with an app store based around Java:

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/165219/sun_see...

http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/entry/will_java_be_the_world

Free WiFi is a pipe dream. It turns out that people don't want strangers to use their network -- if someone downloads child porn through your connection, for example, you're still going to catch some heat even though you have an open WAP. I just bought a Linksys router to run Linux on, and they've got a huge sticker covering the Ethernet ports reminding customers to secure their network lest "unauthorized users" get at it.

This is the same problem Tor exit nodes have, although I suppose Tor is more likely to contain crap -- one of my friends recently ran an exit node at a University, for research, with the OK of the IT dept, and still got a legal request for the machine.

>> "Free WiFi is a pipe dream"

Huh? It's already a ton of places :/

I was meaning once it's in all airplanes, buses, subway, trains, etc etc

despite that fact they have gone "lock in" on all their portable products so far with massive success.... ;)

There's a sucker born every minute.

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