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I would have to think that the downside to Apple if they sandboxed the entire system is the loss of millions of customers, such as myself.

(In other words, it ain't gonna happen - no way, no how.)

This post has been edited by Rhywun: 03 November 2011 - 05:57 PM

Lex is right; sandboxes are filthy. I think Apple needs to consider that as well.

"Mueller predicts that one day Apple may employ the same restrictions on the Mac—that you’ll only be able to install apps from the Mac App Store. “Why wouldn’t they? What’s the downside [to Apple]?” he wrote."

Lots of customers (myself included) would stop using apple's products. I am not the kind of person who says this lightly (e.g. "No iPhone 5 apple is crap I am buying android"), but locking down OS X to the same degree as iOS would force me to find other solutions. It works on iOS, it wouldn't on OS X.

Apple — by all means encourage people to use locked down, simple, safe apps, but you must let the power users continue to power use.

Ah yes... and Apple is locking itself in a tight little corner. The day the implement this sandboxing as a major rule in OsX (meaning no app allowed without Apple consent and through the App store) is the day I go back to Linux.

It'd be a sad day, but at least I'll still have some sort of control on MY computer.

Macworld, on 03 November 2011 - 05:35 PM, said:

Why wouldn't they? Because it's virtually impossible to actually do. The major difference between the Mac and iOS environments here is that the Mac hosts its own development tools. There's no realistic way to lock down the system to only allow apps delivered through specific channels when you can write them yourself. You can require signing (as they've been hinting since 10.5 shipped) and you can require sandboxing (as long as the sandbox model itself is capable enough) but you really *can't* lock down distribution.

As for the sandboxing model: Apple knows it's not ready for prime time. It was introduced in 10.7. Originally they were going to require it for App Store submissions as of 11/1. That they pushed it back 4 months is undoubtedly a reflection of developers pointing out that the current set of guaranteed entitlements was insufficient for whole classes real, legitimate and useful software. Some of the additional things that are needed are covered by so-called "temporary" entitlements but developers are going to want some assurance that those have been deemed permanent or that workable replacements are available before they commit to it. As one example: You need to use a temporary entitlement to write a "folder-watcher" - any kind of program that caches references to user-specified directories and then later operates in some way on the contents of those directories.

I am also very wary of this issue because for the Mac as a platform, upon which I do my cross-platform development, to be able to do these system-wide things that cannot be sandboxed is what makes the Mac smart and hopefully even smarter in the future. While I must accept the app. store on the iPad, which is limiting what the iPad can do, I don't want to use it on the Mac and have Apple determine my future. Let's hope a compromise is reached that allows continued 3rd party innovation because the alternative is very worrying.

Vafudhr, on 04 November 2011 - 01:13 AM, said:

As a long-time Mac user (26 years), I would be more inclined to stop with the last usable pre-sandbox OS release. However, I'm definitely with you on moving to Android-Linux should sandboxing become the Mac norm. It's annoying in iOS (both as a user and as a developer), but it would be intolerable on a computer. On the plus side, there will probably always be non-Apple alternatives.

My fear is that Apple will move to giving Mac users a 'choice' between an iOS version and the current OS X (which would then be slowly killed off). Users who have never been computer literate would simply accept the terrible inefficiencies and handicapping of over-zealous sandboxing, and the rest of us would get dragged down with them. Hopefully this is an unjustified fear.

kirkmc, on 03 November 2011 - 11:06 PM, said:

Come on now, cat turd is probably chock-full of protein. Maybe Apple can release the dogcow to eat all the turds.

Zeus: "release the dogcow!"

As a developer, I have created four apps for the Mac. Sandboxing breaks three of them.

I hope Apple reconsiders sandboxing.

This post has been edited by padinc: 04 November 2011 - 05:04 AM

I agree with the sentiment expressed by others in that I'm concerned that I may be forced from the Mac int the future.

A sandbox is fine for children's play time.

Some of us are in serious construction. We need a worksite, not a playground.

It seems that the app store has problems as it stands now. New versions are released yet it takes Apple two to four weeks to release them after they have been released by the vendor. Also, even now there are reasons for customers to pull out of the app store. I don't see much benefit.

I have serious doubts that Apple is going to stop making general purpose computers which is what it would mean to require all apps be sandboxed. Consider what this would mean.

No more VMWare/Parallels.
No more Unix tools not supplied by Apple.
A Unix shell/terminal that has serious limitations since a sandboxed shell is practically useless.
No development tools that aren't supplied by Apple.
No more Java/Python/Ruby/etc.

The list is endless. There is no way that Apple will do this. It doesn't make sense. Apple is simply providing a safe environment for their customers to buy software. Sandboxing makes customers safer which makes them more likely to buy more software. The conspiracy theories about Apple's ultimate goals are ridiculous fear mongering.

Sandboxing is a great security tool where it makes sense. To require it universally, however, is foolish and short sighted.

As with many other radical Apple shifts of direction, it's easy to say "they're cutting their own throat and customers will depart in a flood"... yet often the "signs of doom" are really just the tip of an iceberg and when all is revealed the pieces come together and it makes sense. Maybe not quite as many would like; but don't ever bet against Apple's vision and determination.