i have been more or less expecting apple to attempt to move the iphone style gated environment onto the desktop ever since the app store opened.

think of it this way, take a imac, put a cortex under the hood, put a variation of the iphone os on it, tie it to itms and app store, complete with parental control tools, price it below the imac, and you have the perfect present for a worried parent to give to their kid(s).

over time, apple can then phase out osx on the non-pro products. and if they tie the appletv into the same ecosystem, they have a set top box ready to go.