Two and half, three years ago, people predicted this move for OS X after the locked down nature of the iPhone really took hold. There are people that swore up and down that signed applications would never come to OS X and that there would never be a walled ecosystem on a non-iOS Mac product. Now we know this to be blatantly false. Apple's biggest money comes from devices that have an exclusively walled ecosystem. It seems pretty clear that they want users using what they provide to them. I don't think it's incredibly inaccurate to say that they don't care that they're not supporting major competing applications.
Wait, what? Who claimed that signed applications won't come to OS X? Windows has had them for years. People said that OS X would never be limited to App Store purchases only and that's still the case. In fact, lots of people expected the default to be "App Store curated only, with an off switch. Instead, we got the comparatively surprising "Signed only with no checks on what's signed, with easy to use off switch" (i.e. app by app exemptions even for full lockdown mode).
Apple's money comes from selling a cohesive experience. That, on iOS, that's been helped by a "walled garden" approach does not indicate that the same approach will make OS X better. Some people have been crying wolf since iOS 1.0 about the demise of the open Mac platform. They were wrong about Snow Leopard, they were wrong about Lion, and they're wrong about Mountain Lion. It's beginning to sound like a certain boy and a certain wolf.
How can you say they're completely wrong? Every iteration brings in more iOS features, often with no way to opt-out or the option is buried away or hidden in a plist setting. Mission Control versus the old Expose? App persisting (both in memory and) state. Not showing hidden files in Finder. More iCloud integration at seemingly every turn in Mountain Lion.
It's clear that Apple is making OS X more and more and more like iOS. I think you're right the loud-mouth "DOOM" scare posts are a bit silly and I hope I'm not coming across that way. I just think that people are accepting this when they wouldn't have imagined OS X looking like it will soon with Mountain Lion a year or two.
Sigh, if you're going to downvote, please have the courtesy of telling me what was so inflammatory about my post. Especially if you're going to drive by downvote all of mine in a particular portion of the thread. I mean, good god, this post is simply a listing of observations and then an agreement with the parent that many people draw absurd conclusions.
Yay, a modern operating system practice finally in OS X. The OS should take advantage of what it can do, to balance apps loading faster and using less resources. For all I care, the ideal would be all apps to be always INSTANT ON.
Not showing hidden files in Finder.
Hidden files shouldn't be an end user's concern.
More iCloud integration at seemingly every turn in Mountain Lion.
Yeah, finally. We don't live with ONE computer anymore, we have several, plus several devices. We want them synced. We want them to backup online. We want a modern Cloud service from Apple.
I don't even see them as "problems"; at least not in some altruistic form for the platform necessarily. I just think that a curated, managed platform is something that Apple has been very, very, very successful with (and obviously because people are down with it), and it seems obvious to me that OS X is moving in that direction.
Like I said, I don't think it's fair to imply that they will shut out non-AppStore apps or what not, but it's clear that OS X is becoming part of the LARGER Apple ecosystem in a way that I really don't feel like it was in Leopard or Snow Leopard.
I mean, they're ALL doing it as the app/branding craze comes full circle. Ubuntu is pushing the USC, Windows is pushing Live for login/user management, Apple is integrating iCloud at a very core level in OS X. I guess part of my surprise is from how quickly Apple has thrown iCloud together and integrated it compared to how long Windows has been scrambling with Live and Windows.
Two and half, three years ago, people predicted this move for OS X after the locked down nature of the iPhone really took hold. There are people that swore up and down that signed applications would never come to OS X and that there would never be a walled ecosystem on a non-iOS Mac product.
Actually, nothing of the kind ever happened. Maybe some idiots did, but security experts have been nagging Apple to add signed apps all the time (Windows had them for ages), and people were also interested in a Mac App Store (not to mention developers, who saw it as another gold rush after the successful iPhone App Store).
Besides, from the very first OS X, say, 10.0.1 to 10.8, nothing has been taken away from user freedom. What exactly can't you do in 10.8 that you could in 10.0.1? They only ADDED stuff, i.e not you can also get stuff from the App Store, and in 10.8 you can also run secure, signed, apps.
Plus, why wouldn't OS X have a "walled garden"? Linux distros had one for ages, we call 'em "package repositories". Yeah, you can install stuff in other ways too in a Linux distro, but then again, so you can on OS X 10.8.
