Well, here I am again. Another year, another Macworld er, uh, Macworld/iWorld. I guess it would sound stupid if they called it iPhone/iPad Case World, which is pretty much what it has become. In fairness, that is a more accurate description of the expo floor. The event taken in its entirety does offer a great percentage of Mac-centric content, but still, the "iOS-ification" of the entire Apple world is reflected quite accurately by this annual event. Many of us are sad about that.
I've been making this annual pilgrimage to San Francisco since 2007, the Macworld where Steve Jobs' keynote address included the introduction of the iPhone. Some might argue things have gone downhill (for Macworld Expo) ever since. It is hard to imagine anything topping the iPhone announcement and to date, nothing has. With Apple's withdrawal after the 2009 event, Macworld Expo wasn't blessed with the 2010 iPad introduction and it's unlikely anything like that will ever happen at Macworld again.
An argument can be made that, along with the Macworld Expo, Apple is in the process of abandoning the most loyal of their minions, the power users (like me) and Apple's decision to stop participating in the Expo was the first step in that direction. Don't get me wrong, I think iOS and all the great devices it runs on are truly life-altering. I'm writing this on my iPad and my iPhone is sitting on the sofa right next to me. Both have become almost indispensable to my daily workflow. iOS devices also comprise the vast majority (approximately 2/3) of Apple's money-minting juggernaut, so I understand why they focus on it. My question is, "Do they have to do it at the expense of the very loyalists who kept them solvent through the lean years?" Would it really hurt a company with over $100 billion in the bank to spend a million or two participating in an event that their users from all over the world pay good money to attend? Don't get me wrong, I'm a freedom-loving capitalist through and through. I own quite a few shares of AAPL and really appreciate the run up since I got in at $73 a share, but I'm also a total Apple gearhead who can't help but feel a bit jilted. As much as I love and rely on my iOS devices, I could never get by without my Macs and all the UNIX goodness of OS X. When Apple was there, the Expo gave fans an opportunity to get some quality "hands-on" time with whatever new Mac was announced at the keynote before anyone else in the country. The experience sort of made you feel privileged and special.
Oh well, enough pining for the "good ol' days".
Well, maybe just a couple more points while I'm bitching.
For me, an iMac and MacBook Pro do everything I need and Apple does a great job of keeping those models on the cutting edge of current technology. But I'm starting to worry for the Mac Pro crowd. Video editors and 3D modelers haven't had their Mac Pros updated significantly in over four years and perennial pro software titles from Apple like FinalCut and Aperture have taken a decidedly "pro-sumer" tack. It's becoming blatantly obvious that people who've historically relied on the most powerful Macs are being ignored. Tim Cook is promising something really great for them in 2013, but so far it's been all talk.
As neglected as the Pros are, I worry more about what may be happening to the rest of us power users. You know, those of us who spend a lot of time using Terminal, Automator and AppleScript. The people who enjoy command line wizardry and automating tasks with apps they create or scripts they write may me in as much danger of losing their mojo as their Pro brethren. Not because we lack good Apple hardware, but we sense a disturbing trend with each release of OS X. The first hint came with the introduction of the Mac App Store. Suddenly there was a clearinghouse for Macs like the one for iOS, but unlike iOS, users can still choose to get apps from anywhere they please...for now. Mac developers now have a gatekeeper to please before their apps can be sold in the App Store and the rules just got a lot more strict. Last year with Apple's insistence that all apps be "sandboxed", lots of our favorite apps got neutered and others will never pass muster with the Apple guard dogs. Simply put, "sandboxing" means an app can only play in its own sandbox, or memory space. This severely limits an application's ability to interact with OS X and other apps. The reason for this is to minimize the chance that an intrusive, poorly written or otherwise unstable app can steal data or compromise the security and stability of your Mac. This leaves developers of apps like 1Password and TextExpander (both rely heavily on calling OS X system functions and interacting with other apps) with the choice of publishing a stripped-down version for the App Store or selling a full-featured version by conventional means, or both, which is almost double work for them. I'm beginning to fear the loss of some really handy and powerful software titles because their developers inability to compete while outside of the Mac App Store.
The problem is, the App Store is quickly becoming the go-to for most users who need or want apps for their Mac (especially noobs) and it's a very financially attractive marketplace for developers. Like users of iOS devices, Mac users can virtually eliminate the possibility of inadvertently installing an unstable or malicious app by using the Mac App Store exclusively. As the store grows in popularity, some of us are beginning to fear a couple of things: 1) Really good apps will get stripped down to get into the App Store and 2) Apple may eventually decide to treat Macs like iOS devices and not allow app installation from anywhere else. The machinery for enabling this second nazi-like behavior is already in place. In Mountain Lion, there is a Gatekeeper app that allows users to choose whether or not they can install apps other than the Apple-vetted ones available in the Mac App Store. It would be a simple matter for Apple to exclude Gatekeeper from some future version of OS X, leaving everyone except gearheads like me with only one option for acquiring apps. This scenario isn't unimaginable. With computer security and privacy concerns constantly on the rise, some even predict its inevitability. It certainly fits Apple's M.O. If it does come to pass, I guess I'll have to jailbreak my Mac the same way I hack my iPhone.
That will be a sad day indeed. Probably as sad as the day I stepped onto the Apple-less Expo floor in 2010.