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Comment by DCKing | Hacker News Reader

I believe it's not clear because Apple is set to gain nothing if they would move against "open computing", and only lose. iOS has not been an open computing platform since the start, and Apple appears to have trouble changing their backwards attitude there. There's no attitude to change on the Mac. Everything they've done on Mac nudges to strict defaults, but does not limit anyone (at best it improves security, at worst it annoys, but it does not fundamentally limit anyone). You can fully disable Gatekeeper with one Terminal command if those defaults annoy you.

In my view you can only believe Apple will lock down the Mac if you somehow view them as an irrational ideological opponent, not simply a company that wants to make money by selling computers. Since you say you don't care what Apple themselves say towards this, I can't escape the impression that you might actually already view them in this way. If so, there's not much we can talk about.

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I don't know why they want to lock it down. I don't understand why they lock down iOS either. I also don't know why they are moving further on locking down OSX over time. I'm only observing what they are doing and extrapolate. I don't care what they are saying because it's worth nothing. I rather watch their actions.

I really would love nothing more then buy the new Apple Arm Macbook Pro but I can't risk investing in this ecosystem when, to me, it's quite obvious where Apple stands on this.

If you don't know why they want to lock it down, if Apple says they don't want to lock it down, and Apple Silicon Macs show no further evidence of things being locked down (they're just different), then why do you still think it's so evident they will lock it down? I honestly get the impression you're caught up in some narrative that has very little substantiation, just a fear that macOS will become iOS.

> I rather watch their actions.

And which actions are those? Gatekeeper and the Apple T2 are not enough to make the Mac not an "open computing platform", let alone something close to iOS. I'd argue they're not even on the way there, just like Windows SmartScreen isn't on the way there. And note that the T2 is even gone from Apple Silicon Macs.

Apple deserves all the added scrutiny in this area because of their attitude on iOS [1]. But there's absolutely no reason to believe that Apple's direction towards locking down Macs is either "clear" or "inevitable" in my view.

[1]: There are some identifiable explanations as to why iOS is so locked down whereas the Mac isn't, but let's talk about that some other time.

T2 has been rolled into M1. Not gone at all.

If you want a reason, efficiency of maintenance and RD departments.

If everything works exactly like iOS you save $$$$$$$, added benefits you can charge enterprise licensing fees to get access to your sdks and dev tools. And if you have e.g. a luxury market cornered you can command those sorts of prices.

This is exactly Apple's playbook, I don't know why anyone would expect them to do anything different...

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