Will you have to jailbreak your Apple Mac?

If you have an iOS device like an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch, you will be well aware that the only source of apps is Apple's App Store. It is not possible to download apps from elsewhere and install them. Unless, of course, you jailbreak it. This is risky and Apple doesn't like it. You could turn a perfectly good device into a lump of lifeless plastic, glass and metal. Will we soon be forced to jailbreak our Apple iMacs and MacBooks in order to install software? I predict that we will.

When the Mac App Store was launched it was a simple and convenient place to find, buy and download software for the Mac. At the time I wondered whether Apple was heading down the iOS route and whether one day only software from the Mac App Store could be downloaded and installed in OS X. It seems that we have taken one step closer to that reality With OS X Mountain Lion.

Mountain Lion was only announced yesterday and only to developers, so details are sketchy to say the least. The OS won't be available to the general public until some time this summer, so it will be a while before we all get our hands on it.

One detail from the announcement worried me. It was a new security feature and you can choose between the following three options for downloading and installing apps for your Mac:

• Mac App Store
• Mac App Store and approved developers
• Anywhere

The default setting is the second one and this means that by default you won't be able to install software from just anywhere, only from the Mac App Store and whatever developers Apple approves.

In OS X Mountain Lion this is not enforced and from what I've read so far, it looks like you can easily change it. However, there are two reasons to be worried. The first is that some people never change the default settings on their Macs. They will find that they can't install certain apps that they discover on the internet and this will directly affect developers. Their market and their sales will shrink and only those people that change the default setting will be able to install their software.

The second worry is that in a future version of OS X, perhaps the one after Mountain Lion, the last option will be dropped. "It will increase security and stability," Apple will claim, because only Mac App Store and approved developers will be allowed to install software on your Mac. You won't be able to install software from other sources.

I think that the final step in Apple's long term plan is to then drop the second option too, leaving the Mac App Store as the only source of software for the Mac. This will come in the version of OS X after the one after Mountain Lion. Apple will then completely control the software market for the Mac, just as it does with iOS. No-one will be allowed to sell any software unless it is through the Mac App Store.

This has tremendous advantages for Apple, of course, such as the roughly one third cut of all the profits it will get for all the software sold for all Macs. Just think how much money it will make. Developers will lose out though and they will find that they can't create Mac software unless they are willing to share their revenue with Apple. Some will not want to on principle, but others may find that it is not profitable because it costs money to be in the App Store.

When we get to the point where only applications from the Mac App Store can be installed on the Mac, will we then need to jailbreak it in order to install those great tools, utilities and applications that are not available in the store?