disable sideloading and enforce a Mac App Store only policy on macOS
People have been repeating that for years, since the Mac App Store was announced. It’s not in Apple’s interest to do it. There is a ton of software, open source in particular, that Apple benefits tremendously by. It costs Apple nothing to maintain the status quo.
Going Mac App Store only would drive tons of developers off the platform and do absolutely nothing to increase sales on the Store anyway. It would be widely panned as a ham-fisted move.
Apple single-handedly killed off the Safari extensions ecosystem for extremely dubious reasons. It would be inaccurate to say that they have locked down macOS to Mac App Store-only apps, but even if you ignore the embedded platforms the concerns about locking down macOS are extremely founded even as Apple repeatedly says they aren't trying to do this.
Apple developers would stay on the platform, regardless.
The GNU/Linux developers that have been giving money to Apple for a shinny UNIX, might go to Windows with WSL, which I doubt unless we are speaking about the crowd that only cares about POSIX and keeps calling that "Linux".
The GNU/Linux developers that have been giving money to Apple for a shiny UNIX instead of sponsoring OEMs, now they finally learn how Apple has always been, including before the days of almost getting to close shop.
In this context it can be a "power" move to push away developers who are unwilling to agree to further closing of the platform. As a result Apple will have only "the faithful ones" and will avoid reactions like recent Unreal fiasco ( in this case the faithful one is Unity). And as I see its working perfectly, most of tech you-tubers are in the bag by default, most of the designers and creative users are lazy (and technically challenged), corporate users, semi pros and regular iPhone crowd are already locked in and don't care. The only thing is someone to start legislative reaction, but this is hard and Apple has all the money. So this is the new norm. Machiavellian move with global impact:)
Game developers are more than happy to deal with such platforms, and I confess it was more fun to target the Amiga, knowing what to count on, than the mess that the PC has been since forever.
That crowd can turn on to their Pandora, GPX, Arduino, Raspberry, whatever SOC is going trendy.
As for Unreal I wish they learn their lesson, or be honest and create a lawsuit against Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft.
I think an argument can be construed that (one of) Apple's interests is to control what and how users can do on Apple devices. iOS-like lockdown seems entirely in line with that.
> Going Mac App Store only would drive tons of developers off the platform and do absolutely nothing to increase sales on the Store anyway.
And others would fill in the gap. The Store sales would inevitably have to go up – it would become the only way to get software on the device. Not like every user would immediately drop the Mac. I can imagine a non-trivial fraction of users wouldn't even notice that something has changed.
It wouldn't happen right next year, or in one go, but the more I think, the more I am growing convinced that it's sneaking up.
> It would be widely panned as a ham-fisted move.
If it doesn't affect the bottom line, it doesn't really matter. They got away with 4 years of perhaps the worst laptop keyboard of the decade; are getting away with inflicting the TouchBar price tag on tens of thousands of users(1), making devices unserviceable, and even with the matter in question.
Given Apple's size and user base, I'm afraid that outside of straight-up illegal activity, there's little Apple can't get away with. Especially if the janky move is factored into small, cruddy steps.
(1) I realize it's a lame point, but it annoys me personally
People have been repeating that for years, since the Mac App Store was announced. It’s not in Apple’s interest to do it. There is a ton of software, open source in particular, that Apple benefits tremendously by. It costs Apple nothing to maintain the status quo.
Going Mac App Store only would drive tons of developers off the platform and do absolutely nothing to increase sales on the Store anyway. It would be widely panned as a ham-fisted move.