> But Apple may succeed in arguing that its app stores for other devices should be excluded. (The Mac App Store should already be safe, as users are free to download and install apps direct from developers.)
And I imagine Apple would just love to close this historical "loophole", but is probably afraid of the backlash...
That would not be possible because Macs are much more open by design. There are so many methods to subvert such a restriction, and most of them can't be removed without significantly degrading the utility of the OS. And even if we suppose they did do that, users would just stop updating and stop buying new hardware incapable of running old OS versions.
And I imagine Apple would just love to close this historical "loophole", but is probably afraid of the backlash...