Right now AT&T has a huge influence over Apple. AT&T doesn’t like people using VOIP apps on iPhone. No problem, just tell Apple to disable such apps and not make them available in the store.

[Sorry, that's not true. VoIP has always been allowed on the iPhone, just not initially over AT&T's mobile network. AT&T has great influence over the iPhone market because it stepped forward to underwrite the ambitious goal of revolutionizing the data-centric smartphone.

The company worked with Apple to hold back some data-intensive apps that its network simply couldn't support. Since then, within about a year of the App Store being open, AT&T has opened up to VoIP apps using its mobile network. That was likely in response to public pressure, which is how things should work. None of this has any relevance to the Mac market, which is not subsidized by a third party network provider.]

You have a cheap alternative to Photoshop. Well, Adobe doesn’t like it, and since Apple would be making a cut of the profits on all sales (after all it makes sense since they provide distribution service) it is in their interest to listen to Adobe when they say you should not be allowed to distribute your app through the app store.

[We already have cheap alternatives to Photoshop. Apple already has reasons to cater to Adobe so that it does not abandon the Mac. Yet Apple competes with Adobe directly (LightRoom vs Aperture, Elements vs iPhoto), so your conspiracy theory about slippery slopes is just conjecture.

Also, in the App Store, Apple would seem to have reason to stomp out indie games to make way for its big partners like EA (which have churned out some crap games bested by small developers). That hasn't happened either.]

Another problem with this is barrier to entry. Right now if I want to make a “script” and charge $1 for it I can. But if I have to sign for developer program with Apple and pay a yearly $150 fee, I would think twice about signing up just to sell my $1 script.

[You miss the point that this does not require that all apps be signed. Apple could create sandboxes of content that run signed content from the store, while still running existing stuff. You can have DRM without requiring that all content be signed. Look at iTunes: it can play video from your camcorder as well as Disney movies you buy. There is not exclusive either/or problem. ]

This is just so wrong and such a bad idea and I”m speaking here as a user and software developer.

It really would be the beginning of the end of general computing on Apple hardware.

[Sounds scary, but so does any change. The problem with your outlook is that you are looking at something very different than I described. This isn't about locking down the Mac desktop to only run App Store software; it's about creating a business model to support specific types of software that currently have no vehicle to drive them anywhere.

How many useful Spotlight/Quick Look plugins can one find? Maybe a half dozen? With a business model, we could have a wide variety of cheap, high-quality plugins to fit very specific needs. Users could demand things that would never occur without the money to fund them. That's what this is all about - Dan ]

The MacOS is not a locked-down system, and there are way too many variables to be able to properly test many of the apps you mention.

That’s precisely why Apple will test this model with “content” like magazines and videos on the Apple Tablet. Content won’t affect stability as would a system preference or a plug-in.

Just one example: I got a digital camera several years ago, and it came with a codec for QuickTime to play its movies. Well, once it was installed, ALL of my quicktime related apps experienced reliability problems and crashes. CODECs are “supposed” to be isolated so they don’t affect each other in theory, but in reality it affected the stability of my computer. Figuring out what happened took a lot of time as well…

Apple does have the downloads section of its site. True, it could be designed better, but it does introduce people to applicable software. For most of my stuff, I found info on software products to fix my problems in a google search or through Macworld reviews.

There are plenty of well-known resources for Mac software reviews and uses. Up until now, Apple hasn’t been the vehicle for advertising third party software. The App Store may be a humongous success thanks to Apple’s notoriety and popularity of the iPhone. I think they viewed its promotion as a key to selling more iPhones/iPodTouches.

Would sales of such mini apps sell more macs? Let me phrase the question this way: Do people still believe that macs lack the capability or running software they need now and new stuff in the future?

Most of the younger demographic (under 30) probably don’t have that mentality, especially all of these college kids buying (or having their parents buy) mac notebooks. Not to mention emulators that let you run windows software while using Mac OS blow the lack-of-software detractor out of the water. For instance, when I told my wife, Mac-hater-for-life, that she could boot windows on a mac notebook, she was only a hair from going for the Macbook when it came time to replace her broken machine.

People who buy actual computing machines buy them with a pre-determined purpose in mind. True, Apple has managed to get people to branch out into a ‘digital lifestyle’ with its own suite of apps, but when it comes to family and business use, people normally know what they want at the selling point. The iPhone and iTouch with their apps come across as a novelty device and use of apps isn’t usually predetermined, aside from corporate apps and installments.

I don’t think Apple needs apps to sell more macs- the OS and notoriety of the hardware is enough for that, not to mention the further bloopers of windows os we’ve been seeing lately.

While an Apple mini software store would be useful for developers, I can’t see it becoming all that necessary to sell mac hardware, so I can’t see Apple seeing a large enough benefit to invest that kind of R&D budget.

“Historians have been puzzling ever since about what caused the Industrial Revolution.”

Thanks for that post. You gave me a lot to think about.

To my mind, the revolution began with the Romans and the advent of democratic values that leveraged the ingenuity of the common man rather than limiting education to the elite. Some of the largest technical contributions came from the Roman era (concrete, advanced metallurgy, chemistry, etc) but despite Rome’s fall, the concepts they fomented lived on. The practice of controlling and manipulating the masses lived on through the use of the Roman Catholic church, that for the first time placed a religious figure (the Pope) under direct state control. History has documented quite well how kings abused this newfound power. The Roman technical advances lived on as well (smithing, masonry, construction, sewage and water infrastructures,) and I believe the advent of the steam train in the 1800s would never have been possible if not for their previous discoveries. (Although I personally believe the telegraph was the massive technical leap that allowed Britain to rule the world by allowing them almost instant strategic communication).

The problem for any dictatorship is that the quest for more power ultimately means educating more people, and the more educated people are, the more they want to control their own destiny (democracies). The problem for the common man is becoming a powerful enough voice to overcome dictators, kings and regimes that prefer to use their power to keep them down.

As I see it, the key to industrial revolution is in the education of the masses, not the presence of specific technical advancements. Massive technical revolution is not feasible in an uneducated society. As we look around the world today, massive industrial revolutions are again under way in many countries. The countries that have been slowest to change have been the oldest, most well established societies, held back from change by oppressive social/religious/tribal regimes that conspire to deny education to much of their population. China, India, the Middle East, all have this in common. Once these social barriers begin to break, the revolution cannot be held back.

Now I’m no historian, but I know enough of the dark ages to know they kept power in part by keeping education segregated, that is, if you were born into a family of masons … well that’s all you would ever know and be. However, by the 19th century I’m aware they had a two tier education system whereby all children were selected for either academic or trade schools (of course the wealthy kids all went to academic schools). I don’t know, but suspect modest educational changes occurred sometime prior to, or just after Queen Victoria’s “ten year grieving” period, the moment in time it all changed.

Can I relate any of this to Apple?

Well, I’m glad to be living in this era, but as you noted, a new status quo (meritocracy) is growing that our children may someday war against. It will be one of corporations and puppet governments that conspire to overuse their power to once again limit the public. Some look at Apple’s control and see this harbinger coming, but Apple is only a miniscule player in a much larger trend spanning the entire globe.

As for me, I gotta love today’s freedom. If someday I don’t like Apple’s controls, I can stop buying Apple products.

I can only imagine a day when I open “Software Update” and I can install updaters for ALL my apps, utilities, pref panes, widgets and everything else. One simple interface to rule them all. Instead of the current mess using “Software Update” for the Apple stuff, every other utility reminding you about an update each time you launch it and don’t get me started on the #$%&^! Adobe updaters!

Maybe Apple can have a Bootcamp/VMWare/Parallels section and sell dark side apps too, without mentioning the word Windows at the store front.

Apple should have been miles ahead on this, I don’t understand why they haven’t upgraded ITunes to handle things for the Mac they way they have for the IPhone. There must be a reason that I can’t think of, or they would have done so. Wonder what it is?