Apple's pattern with iOS has actually been one of slowly opening up.
Just web apps, then native apps with massive restrictions on what you can do and how you can build them, then native apps with a few less restrictions on what you can do and how you can build them (for instance compiled from non-objective C sources).
I get that people don't like where they are now but the pattern isn't one of closing down, it's slow but in the other direction. I don't think it's a jump to assume it might keep moving if Apple see the benefit of allowing it. Gatekeeper might, just might, be them seeing how such a model might work.
> Apple's pattern with iOS has actually been one of slowly opening up.
Tell that to Amazon or Barnes & Noble or Netflix or Hulu or anyone else burned by the In-App Purchase mess. I'd bet none of them would say Apple's pattern has been to open up iOS.
I should possibly have been clearer - from the perspective of software development.
Even with those three it's not closed. I read Kindle books on my iPhone (and use iBooks as nothing more the a PDF reader as it goes), just the purchasing model isn't as streamlined as Amazon would like.
