[pnathan]

It should be obvious, but to make it even clearer.

- Centralization of control. Apple has frequently jacked around with iOS programs being allowed/disallowed; why should we let some central authority control what we have on our computing devices?

- Centralization of malware. Monocultures are subject to waves of viruses.

- Limitations. The more interesting your app, the more places it needs to touch. A "fun" limitation I noticed this morning is that Mail.app's sandbox poses significant limitations to GPGMail. That's not good- hopefully I can continue to have encrypted email at will with Mail.app. Fortunately, the open source world provides encrypting email clients.

- Should Apple know what I have installed? App stores give them that knowledge. Is there a right that App stores take away?

Obviously, I have no great faith in Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, or the other centralization advocates. I don't see that I should.

[epo]

"It should be obvious", followed by a semi-paranoid rant just makes you sound like a wild-eyed conspiracy nut. "Monocultures are subject to waves of viruses." Whoo! Actual waves! That is scary. And buying from the App Store lets Apple know what you have bought. I never thought of that, that is really scary too. But the following non-sequitor just baffles me.

[eridius]

> Centralization of malware. Monocultures are subject to waves of viruses.

This is a completely nonsensical argument. Malware has absolutely nothing to do with the distribution mechanism of the program in question.

[josh2600]

I think he was driving at the idea that people who make malware tend to go for larger ecosystems.

The reality is that everything you do on a network involves some form of risk. You can mitigate these risks by performing tasks in a standardized way using only approved software, but a packaged Zero-Day that's tuned for your environment will generally succeed.

Getting a Kaspersky Payload isn't that hard to find any more; preventing hackers from knowing what anti-virus you're running is your responsibility.

In short, everything is about risk mitigation. Running the same software as everyone else exposes you to the same risk.

By the way, this point is tangential to the larger point at hand which is: Apple doesn't care about its developers.

[eridius]

I don't see how any of what you said is relevant. The distribution mechanism (Mac App Store) has absolutely nothing to do with everyone running the same software. And in fact the required sandboxing (one of the alleged problems with the Mac App Store) goes a long way to mitigate a lot of risks in remote exploits.

If the Mac App Store had a grand total of 5 apps then I could see where you're coming from, but it launched with over a thousand apps and it's had 1.5 years since then to acquire many more. There's no monoculture.

[ohhmaagawd]

Do you have any evidence for your claim that malware would be worse due to centralization?

Apple has a very good record on malware via both the mac and iOS app store, best I can tell.

I completely get why a dev would hate the app store, but form an average consumer standpoint - it seems brilliant. Unless you are scared of Apple finding out that you installed "Evernote" or "Twitter". OMG!