One worrisome rift
There remains one thing that is of concern to me. Despite these great strides forward, Apple is walking a dangerous line with regard to features that are only available to App Store distributed apps. The two most prominent examples are iCloud and Notification Center. Cabel asked Apple if, thanks to Gatekeeper and Developer ID, App Store-only features would be eventually be available to signed apps that were not distributed through the App Store. There was some shuffling of feet and a “we have nothing to announce at this time”. It didn’t sound particularly optimistic.
It would be a shame if this trend continues, as it creates an artificial gulf between App Store and non-App Store apps. For example, as things stand today, we won’t be able to offer iCloud syncing in, say, Coda 2, when you purchase it directly from us. Only App Store purchasers would get that feature. Making matters worse is Apple offers us no real facility to “cross-grade” you from a direct purchase to an App Store purchase, should you change your mind.
There’s no real engineering reason that I can think of for this. It seems marketing or money-driven, and I think it’s un-Apple-like to chase the money at the expense of user experience in that manner. We hope they change their minds about that particular facet.
This is a great article for understanding what the purpose of Gatekeeper is in Mac OS X ‘Mountain Lion’. However, I believe what Steve Frank (I assume its Frank) has picked up on here is very significant for the direction that Apple is taking with its desktop OS.
