The Mac is dead! Long live the Mac!
With the release of the new Retina Macbook Pro (MBP), and later this month Mountain Lion the Mac that professionals have known for many years is soon to be no more. The writing has been on the wall for a about three years since the launch of the Air but the new MBP confirms it. Apple no longer has any time or concern for the professional or the tinkerer. Apple has instead seen the large mountain range of cash that the walled garden and hardware limited offerings the iPad and iPhone have provided them and are slowly but surely taking aim at the mac platform to do the same. Why is this bad you may ask, Apple's goal for many years has been to make computing easier for the general consumer. This then is just the next logical move through the product line you'd be inclined to say. True that is what Apple is about, but the MBP and the Mac Pro have one word in them "Pro", professional computing devices are not for consumers they are for people who do real IT, Graphics, Video production and other technical fields type work. For these professionals the iOSification of the Mac is not what these individuals want or need. Sure there are some features of iOS that have been great additions to the mac platform; muiti-touch, messages and notifications have and will make a better integrated system. However that's where the good things end and where the future gets really dark. To be blunt, it may not be the release after Mountain Lion but in a upcoming version Apple will lock down the mac OS the way it locks down iOS. You will not be able to install apps that don't go through the App Store. Think about that for a second, are you willing to jailbreak your Mac when this happens, and make no mistake that the path we're headed down. By locking the platform like iOS Apple sees dollar signs, massive ones. iOS apps go for $1-$10; mac apps, good ones any ways, are more like $30-70. Do the math, that's a section of the platform they desperately want to full control of. Apple will spin this as better for the user. They'll tell us this ensures that they can provide vetted and virus/malware free software to their user base, and they'll be right. The other side of this is they will also slowly hide and disable the configuration options of the mac. Honestly, though if they where to do this on the mac mini, MacBook Air and the iMac I have no issues with that those are consumer devices, please protect people from themselves. But please I beg of you Apple keep your walled garden loving mitts off the Pro line.