The way the Mac handles it, is a great way. An application is a directory with a special structure. The finder treats that directory like a file. You can double

The way the Mac handles it, is a great way. An application is a directory with a special structure. The finder treats that directory like a file. You can double click it for launching the application, you can move it like a single files. Usually, no installation is required. That also means, deinstallation is a single delete. On the shell you can just cd into that directory like any other. This way, the application developer does get all the benefits of a file system, while the user all of having a single file. While you don't need to do this constantly, being able to relocate an application on your file system is a very nice thing. Like moving it to a different volume or disk. Having it an a users home or the system application directory. Especially, having any amount of compies of the application (different versions) in as many places as you want. Not having the need to "install" an application is a big advantage, not having to "deinstall" an even bigger. Having the application doesn't change your system. This is especially great if you run your systems for many years. Having to do a "clean install" is a symptom of a not cleanly separated system.