But Apple's reach goes further than controlling technology: No apps that "encourage excessive consumption." Apps can't misspell Apple product names—like iTunz. Apps can't look like Apple's applications either. Apps "with metadata that mentions the name of any other computer platform" are out. Apps can't be defamatory or "mean-spirited." (Unless you're a professional satirist.) No apps that replicate pre-installed applications—like Mail. Apps can't portray "realistic images of people or animals being killed or maimed" or shot. Goodbye Call of Duty. No "Chat Roulette" apps.

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The Future

Is this the kind of computer we want? A closed, completely controlled platform that hews to one company's vision of what we should be watching, downloading or doing? It is frighteningly easy to picture a Mac where all your apps have to be approved by Apple; all your music, movies and TV shows are streamed from iTunes; all your books come from iBooks. This will be totally fine for some people. But as the rest of us become increasingly comfortable molding our computing experience to our own needs, this strict environment starts to seem claustrophobic—even technologically totalitarian. It's still startling to think, even after the last few years of the App Store on the iPhone, that this is coming from the same company that made the 1984 ad over 25 years ago.

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For now, App developers can still sell and distribute apps the same way they always have, outside of the Mac App Store, and we'll still be able to download and install them the old fashioned way, willy nilly. But the incentives for developers to go through the App Store are going to be mighty powerful, possibly irresistible. Overwhelmingly, it's going to be the way Mac users find and buy apps. How long before it's the only way to sell apps on the Mac? It feels inevitable, just like the App Store creeping over to OS X. Apple is slowly starting to grip the rest of the Mac more tightly to pursue its vision of the future of computing, which is more iOS than OS X. More 1984 than 2010.