Comments on: Reading the tea leaves on app sandboxing in OS X

By: Peter Deep

Peter Deep — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 18:19:57 +0000

I will be hugely disappointed if this disables AppleScript.

By: H. Murchison

H. Murchison — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 05:41:56 +0000

That’s not the point of the article at all Sam. The point was that the reliance of applications to the local filesystem are becoming more tenuous because of sandboxing. This is not necessarily for security but maybe able to usher in an era where I can walk up to any OS X device and log in and suddenly not only are my documents available but so are my apps. Walled gardens have nothing to do with it.

By: Jose

Jose — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 06:11:57 +0000

Weldon,

Just wanted to comment on something specific you wrote:

“If this is truly a security-focused measure, I would expect to see more prompts in OS X about what applications are asking to do (or which entitlements they have requested).”

This is the exact opposite of Apple’s own expectations. The brains behind Apple’s Sandboxing tech (Ivan Krstic of OLPC Bitfrost fame) has a well-known aversion to dialogue prompts (Bitfrost doesn’t even request a password…) He used the political maxim of “if you’re explaining you’re losing” to expose some of his thinking behind this in his 2011 WWDC talk (available via ADC). As he saw presented it, he thinks that dialogue-box driven security is analogous to your car asking for permission to deploy its airbags…

You should really take a look if you have an ADC account. It’s a great talk (“Introducing App Sandbox”, WWDC 2011 track 203).

Cheers,

Jose

By: Sam

Sam — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 02:18:46 +0000

Apple wants to eventually get to a Mac app store only distribution system. It can’t do that untill most mac developers are in the store. So far the big boys are holdouts. It also needs to be able to shut out apps on a whim, hence the sandboxing, so when that door shuts to third party software on the mac, it’ll be easy. That day will come, don’t kid yourselves. Once mac software completely behind the walled garden, the merger of OSX and IOS can begin. One unified platform, completely controlled by Apple.

By: DotsOfColor

DotsOfColor — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 00:42:07 +0000

Reblogged this on Dots Of Color.

By: ronald

ronald — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 22:58:54 +0000

File-less system[1]. Or a path to a conversational UI, my guess Apple wants keep the conversational part.

1. http://gigaom.com/2012/02/26/mountain-lion-threatens-facebook-and-microsoft/#comment-813376

By: robyn

robyn — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 22:58:40 +0000

Brilliant piece–covers key issues. I agree with your instincts… it’s to herd the cats into the iCloud corral. Alas, for those of us who want local, and nearly all local, actions, storage, programs, etc.

Sandboxing, which, if I understand this properly, is the default and controlling system in the iOS on the iPhone and iPad. And it does limit inter-species (I mean, inter-app) communication. Which is often a shame.

In any event, appreciate the thought and effort that went into writing a carefully crafted piece. Thanks!