Alex, I wouldn't rely on The Register for any serious objective analysis. They feed on sensationalist headlines and sarcastic take-downs. As they admit at the end of their article, Steve did say that the Mac App Store "won't be the only place [to buy Mac apps], but we think it'll be the best place."
I was somewhat worried about Apple's decision to stop bundling Java initially, but I think it isn't as bad as we might suspect and in actual fact may actually result in more quality software being available for Mac OS X and a far more healthy Mac platform into the future. It is pretty evident that iOS has now become so important to 3rd party software houses that the absence of Flash and Java has actually precipitated a landslide of native iOS apps and compatible web apps replacing those older legacy platforms. For example over 54% of all video on the web is now available in HTML 5 format and playable on iOS compared to only 21% back in April. Likewise, all the big software houses from Salesforce, to Oracle to all the games publishers who matter have jumped on the iOS bandwagon with gusto and swelled the iOS App count past 300,000. Who needs Flash games when you could have a far nicer native iOS app version? With Apple recently becoming the 4th largest PC manufacturer in the USA with 10.4% marketshare and 20.7% of the consumer market (and the largest computer manufacturer in total when you include the iPad in their sales - after all, PC Tablets are included in Dell and HP's figures), The Mac is now a very sizeable market opportunity for 3rd parties. With the enormous boost to Mac OS X app sales expected with the upcoming Mac App Store, 3rd parties would be extremely foolish to ignore the option of producing native Mac OS X apps. AutoCAD is not the only program to have been ported to the Mac recently. In James Gosling's reply to Apple's deprecation of Java on Mac OS X, he did actually admit that Sun/Oracle already makes Java for the largest platform - namely Windows, so it is entirely fair for Apple to now insist on this as well. It should mean Java on the Mac stays up to date with the latest releases far better than it has in the past if Oracle is serious about keeping Java alive. (Oracle's suit against Android's Java implementation not withstanding!) However, it also provides impetus for 3rd party developers to actually write native Mac versions of their software (instead of ugly, kludgy, slow Java versions) or go completely cross-platform HTML5 if they are going to give the best experience on the Mac OS X platform. Likewise with Flash, instead of Apple being lamb-basted for security holes in the version of Flash bundled with OS X, it will be Adobe who will rightly wear 100% of the blame instead. As such, with the Mac being a $20 billion dollar business to Apple all by itself, I wouldn't be too worried that Apple is going to stifle Mac OS X in preference to iOS. Rather, I see the benefits in market share, business and consumer acceptance all working together for the betterment of good old Mac OS X. My 2c anyway. :-) -Mart ------------------------------------ Martin Hill mailto:[email protected] homepages: http://web.mac.com/mart_hill Mb: 0401-103-194 hm: (08)9314-5242 On 01/11/2010, at 2:48 PM, Alexander Hartner wrote: > Reading the recent news items I am getting a little concerned about the > direction this is heading in. I am hoping it won't be as bad as the press > makes it out to be, but some of these topics do still worry me more then a > little. > > http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/11/01/mac_app_store/ > > http://news.cnet.com/8301-31021_3-20020338-260.html > > Gosling blows lid off Jobs Java nonsense > > Jobs' Lion to marry Mac OS X and iOS > > What do my fellow WAMuggers think ? > > Alex > > > > > > -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- > Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> > Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> > Unsubscribe - <mailto:[email protected]> -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> Unsubscribe - <mailto:[email protected]>
