News: Apple's cash hoard, Developer ID signups, cannibalising OS X, and more!

It's no secret that Apple has a huge amount of cash sitting around, something just short of US $100 billion. Although not all of it is located in the US, in the recent annual Apple shareholder's meeting, Tim Cook was quoted as saying that's more than enough cash they need to run a company. But it's not as if Apple are just sitting around doing nothing — Apple's board are actively thinking of ways to use that cash. Apple has introduced their Developer ID program ahead of the Mountain Lion launch. The whole premise of Developer ID is that it'll work in conjunction with Gatekeeper in Mountain Lion, so that users can decide what sources of apps they can run on their system. Developer ID essentially vouches for developers so that they can distribute their own apps outside of the App Store, just like they've always done.

Ars Technica says iOS is cannibalising Mac OS X sales, but they also ask the question if Apple even cares. I mean, hasn't it always been this way, that Apple have had something vastly more popular than OS X to drive sales? The iPod was a prime example of this; Mac OS X never really took off, per se, but the iPod halo effect did a great deal to get it into the spotlight.

Lion dropped support for Rosetta, so if you're hanging out for Rosetta support for third-party apps in Mountain Lion, I would probably expect to be disappointed.