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You're the Pundit: When will Mountain Lion launch?
When it comes to evaluating the next big thing, we turn to our secret weapon: the TUAW braintrust. We put the question to you and let you have your go at it. Today's topic is Mountain Lion. During the Q2 financials, Apple told us it would debut "late summer," but some sites insist we may see it earlier. Sure, everyone wants to get started using OS X 10.8 as soon as possible, but when do you really see it launching? You tell us. Place your vote in this poll and then join in the comments with all your analysis. %Poll-75282%
Bloomberg: Apple will debut new laptop lineup at WWDC
Bloomberg reports that Apple is preparing laptop upgrades with models that are thinner than the existing Pro units; the new machines are expected to run on Intel's Ivy Bridge processors. This follows on rumors from earlier today that a new MacBook Pro and iMac appeared on the Geekbench benchmarking tool. The machines, which Bloomberg says are to be announced during WWDC, are also expected to sport Retina or HiDPI displays and a flash memory subsystem to speed up boot times. All those details are in line with a post from 9to5 Mac earlier today. Bloomberg also says that Apple might announce Mountain Lion's release date during WWDC as well.
Apple inadvertently teases iCloud.com banner notifications, pings your browser iOS 5-style
Apple already made clear that it was expanding iOS 5-like notifications to the desktop with OS X Mountain Lion, but it now looks as though that's extending to your web browser, too. Some visitors to iCloud.com have reported seeing notifications show at the top of the page that were both based on iOS' look and which were clearly not ready for prime time -- not unless Default Title for English is a new iCloud feature, at least. There's no indication of how advanced notifications might become in Apple's web portal, or if they'll transition from development cocoon to public butterfly at all. In the meantime, though, keep an eye on the top of your browser and let us know if you see anything leap out in the near future.
Editorial: Apple isn't making a 'converged' laptop / tablet hybrid, but I still want one
Deflated. Disappointed. Let down. Unsurprised. All of those emotions ran through my being at one point or another following Apple CEO Tim Cook's comments regarding "converged" devices, but if anything, his denial has made me all the more hungry for this particular device. For months -- heck, maybe even years -- I've waited for Sir Jonathan Paul Ive and co. to finally nail the concept of a laptop / tablet hybrid. In many ways, Apple managed to get right on a smartphone in 2007 what I felt was wrong holding a BlackBerry. I still think the iPad's screen is about 2.7-inches too large for my own personal tastes, but the world at large has affirmed that it nailed that design, too. Oh, and the MacBook Air? C'mon -- we all know it's the thin-and-light you always wanted, and given that it'll run Windows with poise, it's arguably the sexiest Windows laptop currently on the market. The point? Apple has waited for companies to flounder about with certain designs before, all while perfecting its own take for a future release. Windows-based tablets were flooding out in the early noughties, and believe it or not, Toshiba was already giving the tablet / laptop hybrid thing a whirl in 2003 with the Portege 3500. Apple waited over half a decade to usher in the iPad, and the rest -- as they say -- is history. The iPhone followed a similar path; companies came before it and did their best to produced pleasing, long-lasting, highly usable smartphones, but the iPhone completely changed the trajectory of everything that came after. Love it or hate it, it's hard to imagine a 2012 with Windows Phone in it had Apple not pinned Windows Mobile in a corner back in '07. So, if Apple has shown an ability to thrive with designs that others have experimented with, why is the "converged" laptop / tablet a nonstarter?
OS X Mountain Lion Preview updated with Do Not Disturb feature
So, you're tapping your manifesto into a Macbook, but twitter, RSS and email alerts keep clamoring in your face. How to finish that latest screed with such distractions? In the "where has this been all my life?" category, a new update to OS X Mountain Lion Preview 3 has a Do Not Disturb option, which stonewalls all notifications and banners. The feature, which could be useful on plenty of other devices too, can be armed with a mouse click on the menu bar or a left swipe on a trackpad. Some other iOS-style tweaks debuted in Preview 3 include the Game Center, Notes, Airplay Mirroring and Reminders. Now, back to fomenting that revolution.
Apple's WWDC hitting San Francisco on June 11th
It's time to shift around that summer vacation. Apple today announced that it will be kicking off this year's World Wide Developers Conference on June 11th at San Francisco's Moscone West. The event is set to run through the 15th, focusing on developing for OS X Mountain Lion and iOS, by way of 100-plus technical sessions and hands-on labs, letting the developer community work directly with Cupertino staff -- and you can bet we'll be there as well. More info on the event -- including ticket purchasing details -- can be found in the press release after the break. Update: Aaand, it's sold out. After two hours, Apple is saying that no more tickets are available. Looks like you're going to have to enjoy some post-show videos instead.
Kaspersky Lab: Macs not invulnerable to malware
The writing is on the wall. Our time of innocence is gone. Researchers from Kaspersky Labs claim Mac market share has finally reached the critical point, and the platform is now an attractive target for online criminals. Kaspersky told Ars Technica and other press on Thursday that, "Mac users can expect "more drive-by downloads, more Mac OS X mass-malware, and more cross-platform exploit kits with Mac-specific exploits." It's not all doom and gloom. Infections in the wild are still sparse, and Apple may slow the spread of future threats with the introduction of Gatekeeper in Mac OS X Mountain Lion. Among other things, Gatekeeper will prevent users from "unknowingly downloading and installing malicious software." If you don't want to wait for Gatekeeper, there's also several good antivirus solutions like Avast and Sophos that are available now for Mac users to download.
Apple releases third preview build of OS X Mountain Lion for developers
Apple has pushed the third preview of OS X Mountain Lion to developers. A number of known issues are still present in the preview, including booting issues with FileVault enabled and installing Mountain Lion on a system running OS 10.7.2 or earlier with FireVault turned on could fail. Other known issues include involve sandboxing apps, iTunes, Mail, a delay in Back to My Mac, DVD Player, Time Machine, QuickTime and a number of problems with Game Center. Full release notes are available in Apple's Developer Center. The second developer's preview was released on March 16.
High-res Mountain Lion art could point to Retina Macs in 2012
Apple developers test-driving the latest Mountain Lion (10.8) release may have noticed some higher-res graphics erroneously popping up in "unexpected places," such as the double-size phone icon that appears alongside an audio chat invitation in Messages. One such dev reported his findings to Ars Technica, as you can see evidenced in the graphic above. This mild slip-up could imply that Apple plans to release Macs with high-density displays later this year, or, at the very least, that Mountain Lion will be Retina-ready. High-res support dates back to OS X Lion, which is reportedly equipped to play nice with HiDPI displays, should they eventually become available. Compatible icons are but a second piece of the puzzle, which could be completed to the tune of deliciously dense 2880 x 1800 (or higher) resolution 15-inch LCDs. Wouldn't you love to see that.
Mountain Lion Developer Preview 2's new features detailed
When Apple dropped the second developer preview of Mountain Lion on Friday it didn't see fit to include release notes, instead leaving it to us and the rest of the blogosphere to dig up the new features ourselves. The big ones are clearly Twitter alerts in the Notification Center and the introduction of tab syncing in Safari through iCloud. The latter of which should sooth iPhone fans that were jealous of Chrome for Android. Smaller enhancements were also turned on, including warnings when a program asks to access your contacts and location-based alarms in the Reminders app -- which can be shared with your iOS-based mobile device as well. We'll keep looking for more, but let us know you discover any new features in the comments.
Mountain Lion Developer Preview 2 hits Apple's Developer website, brings more roar to your Friday
Exactly one month ago, Apple pulled back the kimono revealing its next Mac OS release would be called Mountain Lion upon its debut this summer. It also let eager developers registered in the Mac Developer Program partake in the fun a little early. For the latter camp, Cupertino's back with a second helping today, aptly named Developer Preview 2. No word yet on what's changed in build 12A154q -- a scant twenty-six builds from the 12A128p original -- as the accompanying release notes have yet to be updated. But rest assured we'll circle back with anything of interest when they do.
Mountain Lion: It's called a developer preview for a reason
Every time a developer preview of a new version of Mac OS X or iOS arrives, we at TUAW wait for the onslaught of emails telling us about the favorite apps that did or did not work, peripherals that suddenly won't work, or machines that end up being totally borked. Jason O'Grady at ZDNet has written a wonderful cautionary tale about what might happen if you pull the tail of Apple's OS X Mountain Lion. O'Grady installed OS X Mountain Lion DP1 on a backup 11" MacBook Air and basically loved the new OS and how well it worked with most of his existing apps. He was impressed with the integration of iOS capabilities and the improved security. And then all hell broke loose. While working with eBay client iSale on the MBA, things started going bad -- the app crashed repeatedly. So O'Grady decided to try a reboot ... which didn't work. To make a long story short, he "elected to take the "nuke and pave" option. I ended up booting from my Lion flash drive, reformatting the SSD and re-installing the relatively stable Mac OS 10.7 (non-Mountain) Lion. Patching it up and calling it a day." O'Grady ends the post with a reminder that all of us who are anxious to try out developer previews need to have pounded into our brains every time Apple tempts us with a new and shiny OS release -- don't install developer previews on production machines, and always assume that the worst will happen. As O'Grady found out, sometimes that worst possible case does happen and in this situation, you'll be mauled by an angry Mountain Lion.
Switched On: Mountain Lion brings iOS apps, malware traps
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology. According to Wikipedia, the mountain lion, also known as the cougar, is distinguished by having the greatest range of any large wild terrestrial animal in the Western Hemisphere. Indeed, from what we've seen so far of Apple's forthcoming Mac operating system, its new features will likely find favor with a broader range of Apple users than Lion.
Finding small changes in Mountain Lion developer preview
You've probably heard about the biggest features of the new OS X, Mountain Lion, by now: Apple's implementing some popular iOS features like Notifications, Game Center, and Reminders on the desktop OS. But unless you've actually played with the OS for a little while (which would mean you're a developer with access to the beta), you might not know about all of the other little updates, smaller features that make a big difference overall, but haven't been talked about much just yet. Fortunately, GigaOm has found quite a few of these little features, and written them up for the rest of us to drool over. Turns out the resemblance to iOS won't stop at the list of apps installed on the device: Finder file transfers now show off an iOS-style progress bar, and toolbars are simpler and more tactile, borrowing a lot of the button looks from Apple's official iOS applications. There are just some new cool features as well, like Safari tabs simply splitting the distance on their bar instead of squeezed into one corner, and some new updates in System Preferences, including options for screen savers. It all sounds great, and a list like this shows that Apple isn't just interested in copying iOS' best features on OS X; it's still thinking about how to make the desktop system better on its own as well. Mountain Lion's due out sometime this summer, and as far as we're concerned, sooner the better.
Does Gatekeeper point the way to an App Store-only OS X?
Apple's announcement of Mountain Lion included many promised new features, including a stronger focus on the Mac App Store than ever before. Two significant new features, iCloud document syncing and Notification Center, are only accessible to App Store apps, and the new Gatekeeper security tool will include a setting to lock a Mac down so it can only run software purchased from the App Store. All this has (probably inevitably) got people wondering if this is the first step towards a version of OS X that will only run programs from the App Store -- a world where indie developers who cannot or will not use the App Store as their distribution platform will be frozen out altogether. I think that's an unlikely end state (making my headline fully Betteridge compliant), and so do some prominent indie developers, but I also think the issue is worth examining. A brief recap of the App Store When Apple added the App Store to iOS in 2008, it was a revolution in more ways than one. For the first time, we had a major general-purpose computing platform where software developers could not freely distribute their work to a wide audience; a platform where users could only purchase and download approved programs from a central, controlling authority. This wasn't a new idea -- gaming consoles have been using this "walled garden" model since the earliest Atari and Mattel consoles -- but it's the first time it had been applied to a device that some might consider a successor to the personal computer. So powerful and successful was this idea that we had to invent neologisms -- "jailbreak", "sideload" -- to describe processes that we had taken utterly for granted for the first thirty-five years of personal computing. Now, I'm not suggesting that the App Store is bad. Although it undeniably introduces new restrictions on how we use our expensive devices, the upside is a frictionless user experience for discovering, installing, upgrading, and uninstalling apps that had never been seen before outside of console gaming. Coupled with Apple's economically viable micropayments infrastructure, this spawned a sprawling "appconomy." Hundreds of millions of users spending billions of dollars on apps from millions of developers; a fluid, dynamic software market the like of which the world has never seen the like of which. Back to the Mac In early 2011, Apple brought some of these principles to the Mac with the release of the Mac App Store. Like its iOS ancestor, this also promoted app discovery and management -- but with one key difference: it's not the only game in town. OS X on the Mac still has its traditional ability to download and install software from... well, anywhere. The Mac App Store also brought some restrictions to what an App Store-purchased app could do, but nothing too onerous. At the same time, it offered access to Apple's payment processing engine, meaning indie devs could spend less time looking after financial transactions and more time cranking out great code (at the cost of the familiar 30% "rake" of Apple fees). Everybody wins. Many developers found that their users quickly moved to accept and then prefer the Mac App Store. Reports of great success with their early releases were plentiful. For example, graphics manipulation program Pixelmator grossed $1 million in 20 days after announcing it would be an App Store exclusive. The authors of the Sparrow email client were very happy with the App Store. Other success stories abounded. Confined to the sandpit For the best part of a year, everything was happy in App Store land... but as of March this year, Apple was going to require all App Store apps to run in a "sandbox" (although this deadline was recently extended to June). This means, amongst other limitations, that each app's access to the underlying system is sharply curtailed, to the point where an app can only read and write to approved directories within the user's home folder -- and it requires explicit permission to do even that. An app has to specify which "entitlements" it needs (specific system permissions and capabilities) to get its work done; Ars Technica's book-length Lion review by John Siracusa has a great sandboxing section examining how this is managed. This set of restrictions affects many existing apps for the worse. Craig Hockenberry of the Iconfactory reported that the company successfully ported xScope (after having problems with a bug relating to symlinks in home directories). He noted, however, that some apps would never be effective in a sandbox; the example was Panic's Transmit, an FTP client, which requires wide filesystem access and probably couldn't be meaningfully ported to the App Store under the sandboxing rules. Hockenberry also told me that two other pieces of popular Iconfactory software, CandyBar and IconBuilder, could never work with sandboxing. The former modifies system files and the latter is a Photoshop plug-in. Some developers, seeing the sandbox writing on the wall, are being forced into difficult decisions regarding their App Store offerings. Manton Reece of Riverfold Software has announced that his ClipStart video library tool will be withdrawn from the App Store altogether because of incompatibility with sandboxing. This is particularly troublesome for users who have already bought the App Store version of his app; Reece cannot easily identify them to give them an upgrade to a non-App Store version, nor can he offer them new versions of the app within the App Store's framework. To his enormous credit, Reece is willing to "honor Mac App Store receipt files" -- presumably via a tiresome manual process -- and provide extra serial numbers for customers migrating to new computers. For similar reasons, and with similar problems for users, Atlassian Software's SourceTree is also leaving the App Store. Even apps that don't seem to require system-wide file access can fall foul of sandboxing. Any sandboxed app can open any file anywhere on the system via the File > Open menu, because the sandbox presents the standard OS X dialog window to the user with special elevated permissions. But Gus Mueller of Flying Meat, father of the image editor Acorn, tweeted "just discovered you can't use AppleScript to tell (sandboxed) Acorn to open an image it hasn't opened already." All this has provoked some understandable bad feelings. As Red Sweater Software's Daniel Jakult forcefully put it, "Shame on you, Apple. Your developers shed blood, sweat, and tears to succeed on the Mac App Store. Now you drop them with misguided policy." Jakult elaborated on his position in a blog post where he outlined the changes he'd like to see made to sandboxing to make it more workable for everyone. Mountain Lion Mountain Lion, the next version of OS X, will add further fuel to the fire. It adds a new security system, Gatekeeper. On its highest setting this will only allow programs downloaded from the App Store to run. This isn't the default, however; on the out-of-the-box medium setting, the Mac will run apps from the App Store and those digitally signed by a process carried out between the dev and Apple. This process doesn't cost the devs anything (beyond their existing $99 annual developer membership fee) and doesn't restrict what the app can do. It is designed to offer a halfway house solution between the locked down App Store and the anything-goes wild blue Internet. After all, Apple might not have a malware problem today, but that could change in the future. Finally, Gatekeeper's lowest setting allows all apps to run unfettered -- just like all previous versions of OS X. It's possible that Apple planned this split approach all along -- although if so, it was rather mean-spirited to not start off requiring sandboxing for all App Store apps. Yanking the rug out under existing apps isn't good for developers or users. It seems more likely to me that these changes are the result of a genuine strategy shift within Apple, or possibly the sandboxing/entitlements infrastructure was simply not fully baked enough in 10.7 Lion to permit most apps to work with it effectively (including those using Apple's own AppleScript interapplication framework). Still, after a somewhat winding road, we're arriving at a good place with Mountain Lion. Users who don't adjust the default setting will be able to run apps from the App Store and elsewhere with a degree of malware protection, and devs can distribute apps that fit the App Store's slightly simplistic model there whilst also distributing signed apps via other channels. Great, right? Well, I still see a few problems with this. Mixed feelings about the App Store Firstly, as it stands, every third-party app on your Mac today won't run on Mountain Lion, as they are not digitally signed. This means if you upgrade you're going to be plagued with "this app is not trusted" messages (you can enable Gatekeeper on OS X 10.7 to get a taste of how annoying this is). If you have a lot of apps -- particularly older apps that might not ever receive digitally signed updated versions -- this might become the Mac equivalent of Vista's hated User Account Control prompt. If so, many existing users might end up turning Gatekeeper off altogether, rather defeating the point. The second problem is the ongoing FUD being generated around the Mac App Store as a result of the ongoing painful process of enforcing sandboxing. Apple has twice extended the deadline to switch it on -- it was originally last November. In the mean time, I and other Mac users I've spoken to have found ourselves holding off on App Store purchases, or actively sought out non-App Store versions of apps, to avoid getting into a state where we have a licence for an app that is removed from the store. The third issue is commercial pressure. What if, in the future, users come to view programs not on the App Store with disdain for missing features or even outright suspicion at a perception of lower software quality? So far I don't think this has happened, but it's a possibility in the future. If sales outside the App Store begin to drop, devs will come under a covert pressure to move to distributing their wares via Apple. They might then face an unpalatable choice between dwindling sales or neutering their programs to comply with sandboxing. App Store only APIs With Gatekeeper and app signing, Apple seems to be proposing a three-tier system -- App Store apps in the first tier, digitally signed apps in the second, other apps in the third. In theory, apps in tier two and three are equal, but the ones in the App Store are limited by the sandboxing requirements. It's not that simple, however. A subtlety arises from the existence of features that are only accessible to the App Store apps. Two big new parts of Mountain Lion -- iCloud document syncing and Notification Center -- are described as being only useable to App Store programs. This widens the gap between the first and second tiers, particularly if the hunches of a few developers I spoke with are right and Apple continues to make marquee OS X features App Store-exclusive. Now to be fair to Apple, there is a big mitigating factor, because both of these services use server-side resources Apple has to maintain with no direct income. iCloud, for one, clearly relies on cloud storage to work and cloud storage doesn't come cheap. Notification Center is more puzzling. At first, I thought it worked primarily like Growl -- in other words, it was a way for an app already running on my Mac to bring something to my attention. Fellow TUAW writer Chris Rawson and Iconfactory's Craig Hockenberry told me I was wrong, so I dug deeper and talked to a few developers. Anand Lal Shimpi's investigation showed that, in the current developer beta, Mountain Lion has two types of notifications -- local ones, that can be sent by any app, and server-side push notifications, which can only be associated with App Store programs. Jonathan George, CEO of Boxcar, told me that for his company the push notifications are far preferable, even on OS X. On iOS, any app that wants to notify the user arbitrarily (except Apple's apps like Calendar and Mail, which can use private APIs) needs server-based push notifications as a workaround for the lack of always-on backgrounding. It initially seemed to me that this is less important for OS X. Consider my Twitter client, which is always running on my Mac. It's checking every few minutes for new messages and can send a ping to Notification Center without any external servers. This, however, can take a few minutes -- a server-side push is realtime, or at least, really really fast. This is clearly better for some types of apps than local-based notifications coming from a polling loop. So what about App Store-only? To come back to the question I opened this piece with: could/would Apple mandate, in a future release of OS X, that the App Store would be the only game in town for getting software onto the Mac? Well, perhaps "could" is the wrong word. Apple certainly could, but I think we're a long way away from a world where most users would approve -- and for those who are comfortable with it, they'll be able to switch Gatekeeper into full-on paranoia mode and achieve the same end. Furthermore, if Apple was planning it for the future, I don't think we'd have seen Gatekeeper's middle setting introduced at all. The mere existence of this feature underscores that Apple is serious about giving users some extra malware protection via code signing without mandating the App Store. Indeed, Panic's Cabel Sasser asked an Apple representative about this when he was briefed on Mountain Lion and he reported that "for what it's worth, they told me point blank that they value independent apps and do not want them gone." This code signing option is not only a technical solution, but also grants indie devs working outside the App Store a veneer of respectability that might help make some less experienced users more comfortable doing business with them. There's also the question of professional-level software. It seems rather unlikely that the Adobes, Avids and Microsofts of this world would be happy to hand 30% of the sales of high end programs like Creative Suite or Office to Apple, as would be required if these apps were put in the App Store. Do those companies need OS X more than Apple needs them? It's debatable, but it's a game of chicken Apple would perhaps be wiser to stay away from. It's not dissimilar to the row about in-app purchases under iOS and apps like Kindle, and Apple lost that one. A tale of two app stores I think Apple, in simultaneously watering down the existing App Store via sandboxing and giving a non-App Store mechanism for developers to bless apps, has created a segmented market. It seems to me we're going to end up with the App Store populated by smaller apps from smaller developers (who will find the support of Apple's payment processing infrastructure compelling) and larger but relatively simple apps for which sandboxing doesn't chafe too much. Meanwhile, we will hopefully still see a vibrant indie dev scene outside of the App Store. Indeed, by enforcing sandboxing, Apple might have just given the alternative channels a lifesaving boost... but by locking key OS X features up to only be accessible to App Store software, it's simultaneously making it harder for non-MAS indie devs to compete. It's too early to tell which of these factors will come to dominate over the others. This is assuming, of course, that Apple sticks by its guns. The slipping schedule for essential sandboxing suggests Apple is perhaps a bit uncertain or conflicted about the way forward here and maybe we will see sandboxing significantly relaxed or expanded before it becomes mandatory. I'll end with one piece of wild speculation, because I'm a blogger and because I'm under my House of Crackpot Theories quota for this month. If an existing sort-of-an-app-store service like MacUpdate took Apple's digital signing certificate and ran with it, it's not impossible we could see an Unofficial App Store emerge. One which requires digital signing of all the apps, and offers developers a payment processing and download hosting service, but does not require sandboxing or unpredictable app approval processes. I think Apple's sandboxing policy may create a gap in the market by wilfully narrowing the scope of the App Store. I don't know if that gap is big enough for someone to wedge an entire new product into, but I'd throw money at anyone who's willing to try. The author would like to thank everyone who helped compile the information in this article: Jonathan George, Craig Hockenberry, Chris Rawson, Erica Sadun, Anand Lal Shimpi, Fraser Speirs, Steve Troughton-Smith, and the other devs I spoke with off the record.
App-ocalypse soon: Apple extends sandboxing deadlines, but restrictions loom
Image: Shutterstock Apple issued a three month extension on application sandboxing today, giving devs a little more breathing room before new rules take over. June 1 2012 is now the enforcement date. We've been having many discussions about Mac development in the TUAW backchannel over the last week. The introduction of GateKeeper and the notion of signed apps, sandboxing, and developer IDs have us talking about where Apple is taking the Mac, and will be moving Mac development in general. Overall, we think things are moving towards a win for consumers and better opportunities for devs. Read on to learn more about these technologies, and how they affect developers and App Store. GateKeeper is Apple's new approach to making your Mac safer by giving you control over which applications may download and run on your computer. With GateKeeper, developers sign apps to authenticate them with the OS -- both apps that you purchase from the Mac App Store and, at the developer's option, also apps you purchase elsewhere. With Mountain Lion, you choose which apps are allowed to run. You'll be able to disable GateKeeper and run apps from anywhere if you like, although this is not the default setting. The thing is this: Apple continues moving towards a more controlled, less open, more appliance-like concept of what a Mac means. That redefinition is causing ripples, affecting app development more and more. Applications can do fewer things, access fewer system resources, and control other apps less than they did in the past. Developers who choose to enroll in the Mac development program pay a $99/year fee just as those who enroll in the iOS development program do. Once enrolled, they can sign their apps as identified developers -- as well as gain access to early beta versions of unreleased operating systems. When the iPhone SDK first debuted, many people including yours truly complained about what couldn't be done with the APIs: what files could be accessed, what routines could be called, and so forth. Coming from a general computing background, one learns to expect to build whatever one can imagine. If the building blocks are there, then why not build whatever tools you need? That all ties into a background of fully open computing. Apple's policy split the dev community into the jailbreak world and the App Store world, with many people crossing over depending on what they were building. Under jailbreak, developers gain full access to the entire iOS file system and run apps in a fully privileged mode. This gives devs a much broader development vocabulary to work with. The jailbreak world became known for its innovation, with Apple mining those forward-looking ideas and free R&D and bringing them into successive iterations of their operating system. At the same time, developers had to change. If they wanted to market through App Store, they had to relinquish product ideas that wouldn't work within the more closed-off system that App Store submission required and look instead for opportunities of development that were allowed. No one can look at App Store today, with its countless apps, and say that Apple denied developers opportunity. It's just a somewhat different opportunity than many developers expected. It's an opportunity that restricted certain kinds of applications, most typically OS enhancements and utilities (which have flourished on other mobile platforms with less oversight of developer access). Overall, Apple has provided better tools, better marketing, and better sales avenues than had existed before. The end result has been apps that are significantly better than previous generations. And now, Apple is doing the same thing for the Mac. This is emotionally hard for some long-term devs like me. We want Linux-y freedom for whatever we want to build and distribute. Now, with sandboxing (a technique that restricts application access to full system files; all apps that are not sandboxed will be removed from the Mac App Store starting June 1st [Update: Older apps will still be on the store and allowed bug fixes- Ed.]) and GateKeeper (limiting apps to those that are signed and authenticated), Apple is setting a new default: software consumers will expect to be protected, and will expect that any item being delivered to them will comply with Apple policies. We developers have two choices: either opt in to Apple's signing (developer IS) and/or distribution system (App Store), or limit ourselves to only those customers savvy enough to opt out to the "all's fair" system. It's essentially a Mac jailbreak--just without all the pain of waiting for the next untethered release. (Speaking of which, yes, it would be lovely if this idea goes exactly back to the iPhone, so we don't have to wait on those exploits and releases.) Apple's brave new world for the Mac gets that there are "power" users and "consumers." And it also gets that the latter category vastly outnumbers the former. As it builds new and better operating systems that retain desktop functionality, it is shaping computing to match consumer needs and wants, not developers. Not everything is roses. Some devs are complaining--with good reason--that Apple's approach to proprietary technologies will prevent them from selling off the App Store for iCloud features, for example. If you want to tie into those APIs, you won't be able to go to third party merchandising storefronts to sell your software. App Store-exclusive features will tie developers further into Mac App Store and to Apple's 30% cut. Those Apple-specific technologies will continue to grow over time. What's more, developers must continue putting pressure on Apple to extend entitlements, allowing apps to grow the kinds of resource access they are allowed under Apple's sandbox system. The current set of entitlement restrictions seems unnaturally limited. Just as iOS's App Store has responded to developer requests, the Mac environment will have to soften restrictive rough edges over time. A passionate and involved developer community will help those changes happen. Community-sourced advocacy such as Tim Burks' Open Radar project allow developers to cooperatively brainstorm and strategize about which access issues are the most important to them. In the end, this is going to be an amazing end-point for consumers. You can talk about "what has existed for a generation," but that means things like Microsoft Word. There is no way anyone can argue that MS Word was an amazing end-point for general consumers. It's a wake-up call for devs who have stuck with Apple through the dark years. Apple is changing up the game. Devs have to change it up too. And if Apple's success with iOS App Store is any indication there will be more opportunity and better chances at creating a living than ever before. Thanks, Remy "Psy" Demerest, Kyle Kinkade, |Agent
You're the Pundit: What's the killer Mountain Lion feature
When it comes to forecasting the next big thing, we turn to our secret weapon: the TUAW braintrust. We put the question to you and let you have your go at it. Today's topic is Mountain Lion. This week, a developer preview was released and Apple updated its site with a list of upcoming features. They range from an iOS-inspired Notification Center to Game Center support to integrated Twitter. Which of these is the killer feature that will help define the new platform and set it apart from earlier operating systems? You tell us. Place your vote in this poll and then join in the comments with all your predictions. %Poll-73554%
Talkcast tonight, 7pm PT/10pm ET: White sale edition!
Well! Another Sunday, another Talkcast. I'd like to thank Apple for giving me something to talk about this week, and while we're at it, we can chat about a new and cute little beta app too. This evening we'll have some guests too! One Apple briefing recipient, The Loop's Jim Dalrymple*, and Jeff Gamet of The Mac Observer will be there to discuss the latest Apple Cat and possibly how the OS kitty stacks up against the real one. As always, Kelly hosting the show means there will be aftershow. Which could mean...well, anything really, all bets are off when the aftershow's on. Since it's really all about you, the community, join me won't you? To participate, you can use the browser-only Talkshoe client, the embedded Facebook app, or download the classic TalkShoe Pro Java client; however, for +5 Interactivity, you should call in. For the web UI, just click the Talkshoe Web button on our profile page at 4 HI/7 PDT/10 pm EDT Sunday. To call in on regular phone or VoIP lines (Viva free weekend minutes!): dial (724) 444-7444 and enter our talkcast ID, 45077 -- during the call, you can request to talk by keying in *8. If you've got a headset or microphone handy on your Mac (you know those headphones that came with your iPhone or iPod touch?), you can connect via the free X-Lite Zoiper, or Blink SIP clients. You can also use any other SIP clients (aside from Skype or Google Voice), with these instructions. (If you prefer Blink, the pro version is available in the Mac App Store.) Talk to you tonight!* While Jim has confirmed his appearance, we are uncertain yet if The Beard will be joining him.
Mountain Lion may be able to scan a barcode, install an app
It's early days with the developer preview of OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, but there are already a few interesting tidbits peeking out around the corners of the developer NDA. We've heard that the system includes a new 'CoreRecognition' framework and a 'CRCodeRedeemer' class, both of which appear to be built for turning barcodes into app licenses. While marketers can use a 2D barcode now to lead customers to their website or app, that doesn't necessarily translate to an app download or purchase. If this framework operates as it appears, that won't be a problem in Mountain Lion. Specially-crafted barcodes would let you simply hold up a card to your Mac's camera to download a prepaid app from the Mac App Store (or from iTunes, possibly). That's a new level of convenience for developers who want to give away copies of their apps at face-to-face events. This technology would be even more interesting if Apple's 2011 patent application for 'digital handshakes' ever sees daylight. With barcodes or data embeds printed on your devices with invisible ink, you could log into your Mac just by waving your iPhone at it -- which would require that your Mac have some barcode-reading savvy.
New York Times seems to fall from Apple's favor (Updated)
Update: Both David Pogue and Andy Ihnatko responded to our request for comment about when they got briefed on Mountain Lion. Pogue did receive an advance briefing and a loaner laptop. See below for details. The New York Times appears to be pouting a bit, according to the Washington Post, because the paper missed the big exclusives on the release of Mountain Lion this week. The Times has broken a fair share of Apple stories. Times columnist David Pogue is pretty well plugged in and appears to have had early access to the software, but the Times still got scooped on the story and in getting interviews. This time, the scoops went to the Wall Street Journal with a Tim Cook exclusive interview; some prominent Apple sites (like John Gruber's Daring Fireball) rated private previews with Phil Schiller. All had access to a beta of Mountain Lion about a week before the announcement. The Times had to report on the coming OS release based on press releases, which was somewhat less than glorious for the Gray Lady. The Times believes it was payback for the articles critical of some of Apple's suppliers, where workers are sometimes working long hours, with poor housing conditions and sometimes unsafe factory environments. The Times quoted ex-Apple employees saying Apple has known about the conditions for a long time and did nothing to pressure suppliers. Tim Cook was reportedly incensed at the story and called it "false and offensive." So it looks like Apple was able to give the Times some 'payback' that it thought the Times had earned. The NYT is not the only outlet that appeared to be ignored. Walt Mossberg didn't have a review based on early access. Nor did Apple have Andy Ihnatko looped in, it seems. He has a long piece in the Chicago Sun-Times today but it doesn't appear to be written as if he had the software to play with. We did reach out to Pogue, Mossberg and Ihnatko for comment, but we did not hear back prior to publishing this post. [Update: David Pogue of the New York Times replied to our inquiry. His response: "Yes, the reports you've read are incorrect. As far as I know, all of the early Mountain Lion reviewers (Gruber, Mossberg, Pogue, etc.) were given the identical treatment: invitation to Apple's hotel suite, meeting with Phil Schiller, walk-through with Phil and the PR folks, loaner MacBook Air with an early version of the software on it." We also heard from Andy Ihnatko: "I didn't get an advance briefing, but that's perfectly fine. Early access isn't an entitlement. Also, Apple did give me a long phone briefing early Thursday morning. For 90 minutes, I got to pepper them with as many questions as I could come up with." So is it a tempest in a teapot? Could be, and maybe parts of all the stories are correct. Apple didn't favor some of the usuals with interviews, but many of the columnists and writers got their advance dose of OS X.] Covering Apple is complicated. If you're a reporter (and we know this from experience) it is challenging to get a comment from Apple in a timely fashion. In fact, most of the time, they only return calls from a favored few. Those who are 'golden' with Apple tend to be downright enthusiastic about most Apple products. They are the reporters who get the advanced hardware and software, and get invited to the pre-release demos. Most of us do our best to get the news out, and here at TUAW, even though we love Apple, we never hesitate to be critical or suggest that Apple might have blown it in some way. We are not on Apple's 'A' list. Companies will always grant exclusives to people if they think it benefits the enterprise. That is all well and good. It's the way exclusives work. Apple, however, has a deeper problem. Under Steve Jobs the company made it very difficult for journalists to get even simple questions answered. That hurts Apple's customers. That may clear up under Tim Cook, who seems to be moving Apple forward in areas where Jobs was not interested in changing. [via The Washington Post]
