The Sandboxing Issue

To increase security for an already incredibly secure Lion, Apple is requiring application developers who have their applications on sale in the Mac App Store to comply with a new rule requiring the usage of Lion's new sandboxing feature inspired by iOS. Sandboxing means that an application is partitioned off from the operating system and other applications running on the system, which means that an application is completely prevented from having any unauthorized interaction with other applications and the operating system itself. The problem is, however, this isolation from the system itself and everything else running on the system means that functionality for many applications will be crippled.

Initially the deadline for the enforcement of this new rule was the first of November, but Apple opted to give developers a little more breathing room by extending the deadline until March first next year. While many developers have complied with this new rule and have re-submitted their applications, it's clear by the deadline extension that many others are resistent to this new requirement.

While the desire for increased security is understandable, Apple's push for sandboxing on OS X makes very little sense. Sure some applications make the transition completely unaltered, but others require access to other applications meaning that several key features and functions could get the axe. Of course there is no stopping a user from leaving the safe confines of the App Store and combing through the vast wilderness of the interent to find an application that suits their needs, but again, the point of the App Store is to be the primary place that users rely on to locate applications.

What are your thoughts?

Nintendo's Fight Against Piracy

With the DSi Nintendo has been known to occasionally release firmware updates to block and prevent the usage of flash carts and other sorts of piracy-related devices. Sadly these attempts to fight back against piracy were only viable for a short amount of time because of either two reason: makers of the devices worked their way around the update or people never even updated their system to begin with.

With the 3DS Nintendo expressed plenty of intent to change that in coming up with some new methods to make sure players' systems were updated whether they wanted it or not, and with the upcoming release of Super Mario 3D Land we're starting to see those methods put into action. As soon as you place the card into your 3DS and turn it on, it automatically updates the system's firmware. This automatic update  could mean one of two things: a ROM will not work without that update and that a ROM will not work after the update as well. This means that if you want to play the latest and greatest Nintendo title without paying for it and the with the aid of an eye patch, you will be out of luck. Not only are they employing automatic updates associated with game cards, but those who refuse to update the system firmware manually could find some of the game that they love non-functional, a method that honestly should have been utilized with the DSi.

I absolutely love seeing Nintendo taking the initiative to fight back against piracy, which has been a thorn in the side of any producer of media within the last several years. What's even more satisfying than that is to read the whining and complaints of those who supposedly use the piracy devices in legal ways. I'm sure there those out there who do use those devices legally, but at the same time almost 99% of those who do use the devices use them for piracy.

Facebook Hysteria

As everyone may have already noticed, last night Facebook rolled out some pretty drastic changes to the way that home pages both looks and operates. Whether this was prompted by the recent nes that Google+ is now open to the general public or not, you've gotta wonder what is going through the heads of those making the decisions over at Facebook.

The two main changes are in how the News Feed acts, and the new friends activity ticker that can be found on the upper righthand side of the page. In terms of the News Feed, now instead of being able to view items through tabs labeled "Top News" and "Most Recent" it's all jumbled together in an overall messy and confusing manner. Then there is the friends activity ticker, which while it is a pretty interesting idea, overall strikes me as pointless and superfluous. I honestly don't care about and don't want to see these updates, and the fact that it scrolls with the page to constantly keep itself within your view increases the aggravation as well.

Facebook honestly seems to be shooting itself in the foot. They're frustrating many of it's users with these updates, me included, and creating further temptation to make the jump over to G+. Facebook seems to be headed towards a decline much like MySpace in the face of this new competition by G+, scrambling to come up with and release half-baked and poorly thought out new features in an attempt to say "Hey! Stick with me!".

What are your thoughts?

3DS Analogue Stick Peripheral Revealed

This morning through Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu it was revealed that Nintendo will indeed be releasing a peripheral to add a second circle pad onto the 3DS. This was later strengthened and verified as true by a Nintendo UK official in the following statement: 

We can confirm that Nintendo does plan to release the attachment but that any further announcements on the attachment will be made at some later time by Nintendo. 

Looks incredibly ugly doesn't it? Adding a couple centimeters in overall thickness to the system, this thing certainly seems like it's stripping the 3DS of being a portable. Apparently the device is supposed to tie in with a release of the popular Monster Hunter series on the 3DS. With that knowledge it certainly seems that Nintendo is desperately catering to third party developers, I certainly couldn't imagine any other games utilizing this abomination. What are your thoughts?

The Blisteringly Fast Thunderbolt

Today Apple has released a refresh for the MacBook Pro line, and one of the most notable new features is the Thunderbolt port technology courtesy of Intel. To me this represents a pretty monumental shift in ports and how peripherals will interact with our computers. Consider this: Thunderbolt is twice as fast as USB 3.0. For those of you unfamiliar with USB 3.0, it's the latest iteration of the popularly used port and provides over ten times the speed of the previous generation. Thunderbolt is twice as fast as THAT. To give you a better idea, check out this graph from the MacBook Pro page on the Apple website:

It's pretty insane isn't it? I'm really curious to see how this plays out, and how much a role that Thunderbolt will play in the future of Apple's computers and computers in general.

The Mac App Store

October twentieth, along with revealing a new iLife and previewing OS 10.7 Lion, Apple announced the opening of the Mac App Store within ninety days from the event. Now, what are the implications of the Mac App Store? There is a lot of good that can come out of it, as well as plenty of bad, and after seeing what that bad is, I've gotta say that I'm on the fence about it now.

When the Mac App Store was announced I absolutely loved the idea. The key for me was that it is centralized location where I can get and discover applications for my Mac. Up until now, I have had to rely primarily on Mac|Life when it comes to the discovery of applications. To name a few that I have gotten because of them: MagicPrefs, Anxiety, AppFresh, TrashMe, and RockMelt. With the exception of AppFresh and TrashMe, due to the nature of the apps, I use the apps every single day. Beyond that, there is no real easy way to discover new applications. All you can is tirelessly search the internet, and hope you can come up with what you're looking for. It will really make app discovery easier, which brings me to another key good thing about the Mac App Store: making app installation and management incredibly simple. As it is right now, you have to download and mount a disk image (though they often mount themselves) and then install the application. Being an experienced user, I have no trouble with doing this but it is a little too complicated and not exactly consumer friendly. The Mac App Store will fix this, downloading and installing directly into your apps folder. Then there is the matter of updating your applications. As it is right now, each application has it's own settings and has it's own dialog window that will pop when an update is available. Of course there are apps out there, earlier mentioned AppFresh comes to mind, that will keep track of all of your applications and inform you which ones need updates, but the Mac App Store will act as a native, centralized location to update all of your apps.

Then, of course, we have the negatives. The really big one in my, and many others, mind is rules and restrictions Apple has over what applications will be available in the App Store. The iOS App Store has it's own share of issues with what can and cannot be sold, but the Mac App Store is on a far larger scale and has much greater implications. While the majority of the restrictions are reasonable (as stated by Rik Myslewski in Mac|Life), there are a key few that have the potential to create trouble. To sum them up: Apple is completely free to decide whether they like the interface or not, after a certain point apps that duplicate the functions of apps already existant in the store won't be accepted, and apps that appear to be similar to Apple's own apps will be rejected. I had no idea about these restrictions until I read about them in a column yesterday in Mac|Life. Each of these will have an incredibly negative effect on what is offered and will skew what is offered in the store in Apple's favor so as to eliminate possible competition. I love Apple, but this is stepping over the line. The rejection of apps that perform functions similar to those already in the store discourages competition between apps and will give users less to choose from. A good example that comes to my mind would be web browsers. They could simply say enough with say Safari and some other browser and just cut it off. That's wrong. That would mean other, possibly better browsers like RockMelt would be rejected just because that function has been filled. Then we have the rejection of apps that appear similar to Apple's own. Doesn't that seem just a little ant-competitive to you? Finally, not to be overlooked, is the decision over an apps interface. It makes senses with Apple's intense focus on aesthetics and keeping things nice and cleaning looking, but that could a potentially fantastic app could be turned down just because Apple doesn't like the way it looks.

Sure, it is Apple's app store, and being theirs they have every right to decide what is and isn't sold there, but those three restrictions are a little too favorable for Apple, and if the Mac App Store becomes as big as they intend it to could potentially kill the free market. What are your thoughts?

Google's Chrome OS: Just Un-Natural

So if you haven't heard, yesterday Google revealed several new services, including the Chrome Operating System. It is a completely cloud-based operating system, meaning that you can access it from anywhere without the need of hardware. If hardware is your thing, you can install into a Google notebook.

Here is a demo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFeD3qGVsrM

Now, in terms of Google and all of their products being integrated and quickly accessible in one place is a great thought. Logging into the Chrome OS logs you in across all of Google, so log in once and you are done. I love that thought. But that is as far as I'll go.

To me, a cloud-based operating system is completely un-natural. To be completely free and not tied to any hardware...it's difficult for me to wrap my mind around. And then, watching the video, everything is based with the Chrome browser. That makes me incredibly un-comfortable. I do not like the thought of being stuck with one application. Sure, there are web-applications that do the job of true applications, but I just can't stand the thought.

Humans are by nature resistant to change, and I am human after all. Perhaps in time I will get used to and warm to the idea, but for now I am so entrenched in my hardware-based operating system ways, I just cannot comprehend a completely web-based OS. So, for the time being, as far as I am concerned change in technology may keep marching on, but I'm not sure that I want to keep.