[glassx]

Actually, the real question is: what would Apple gain from killing 90% of the app ecosystem?

There are some apps that can't be really sandboxed (Little Snitch, virtualization tools), some apps you can't sell on the AppStore (video/audio/photoshop plugins) and there's even Apple apps that aren't available there yet (Logic, Filemaker, ).

Also, Macs are the only way to write OS X and iOS apps, it would make the barrier to entry way too high for most people, shutting off potential developers. How would you write, say, your Rails backend to your iOS app, on your Mac, if it was locked down?

But yeah, I would jump ship to Linux immediately as well.

[Groxx]

Gain? 30% of all application sales, instead of 30% of 10%.

I don't think they'll lock it down to the app store either, but there are plenty of essentially-reasonable reasons why they could/would.

[ugh]

If you believe that Apple is making a lot of money with their App Stores, sure. But they don’t. Even with the absolutely massive iOS App Store. The Mac App Store is tiny in comparison.

It’s just not Apple’s business model.

[beedogs]

It's also brand new. When the Mac App store is 5 years old, like the iOS store, this discussion may seem quaint.

[rmc]

Exactly the Mac App Store is tiny. Make it the only way to install apps and it suddenly becomes more popular.

[glassx]

You and the other reply missed the part where even the iOS AppStore doesn't make as much money to warrant them running a whole ecosystem and shutting off musicians/producers/video editors/developers/hackers/enterprise users/people using Java stuff.

Apple has backed off on harsh decisions for much less than that. Remember Final Cut X? I bet the video editing community is much smaller than the developer community. Google, as an example, uses a lot of Apple laptops. They'd instantly stop buying them if that happened.

Until there's any sign of Apple wanting to close OS X, this is purely FUD.

[glassx]

Except they repeatedly said they're just above cut-even on the iOS AppStore. It's strongly doubtful that they'd do something like that purely for financial reasons.

I don't think they are that dumb, of course they know they would lose customers like us.

[microtonal]

Indeed! Look at a novice Mac user, and you understand why Apple built the MAS. No matter how easy software installation was, the process was still difficult for most users (how to handle a bundle, package, zip file). The MAS has streamlined both installation and paying for an application.

Also, it's what people who bought a Mac because of the iPhone/iPad halo effect expect.

[dman]

A 30% cut of the remaining 10%.