Originally Posted by KallDrexx:
That's not a valid analogy because desktop software you download software from everywhere, trusted and non-trusted sources.
A more apt analogy is downloading games from Steam's service. You assume that because the software is on steam it has been properly vetted for virii and malicious code and thus the user assumes it is safe to download. If a game is found to have malicious code in it or do things in ways that Valve does not consider safe, they will (and have) reject the application.
So no, downloading an app from the app store is no where near the same risk as downloading willy-nilly on your desktop from the thousands of untrusted websites. And most users and corporate entities don't want to deal with that risk on their mobile phone and want to be sure that they can trust Palm to distribute only software that is secure.
It's really not that hard of a concept.
You bring up a good point. I'm not anti app-store, and I'm not anti Palm's or even Apple's ridiculous app store policies. What I am against is an app store being the only reasonably accessible way to install applications. Have whatever rules you want for your app store, but if you're not going to give people alternate means to distribute their applications than we're going to have a problem.
The current sideload method for Palm is good, but it's not good enough. I want to be able to browse to a website and install an application from my phone. Outside of Palm's control.
IANAL, but I think if someone challenged app store exclusivity in court, it wouldn't hold up. It is anti-competitive and ultimately damaging to consumers. Especially in the case of Apple where they reject applications for "duplicate functionality. Anyone remember the Internet Explorer debacle?