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How Apple Cheats

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Re: How Apple Cheats

#111

Post by achivetta »

martinnormark wrote: post #65

This reminds me of how Microsoft added specific code to Windows 95 to ensure SimCity would run. This is from Joel Spolsky's Strategy Letter II: Chicken and Egg Problems http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000054.html So Windows 3.x on Intel 80386s was the first version that could run multiple DOS programs respectably. (Technically, Windows 386 could too, but 80386s were rare and expensive until about the ti…

Amazingly, this sort of use-after-free causes compatibility problems for allocator writers even today. Imagine if you change the implementation of malloc() such that smaller allocations get their own mmap() region rather than being stuffed in with other allocations. Now any use-after-free bugs to allocations affected by the change will segfault instead of reading garbage, since the allocator would munmap the region upon free().

Re: How Apple Cheats

#112

Post by loup-vaillant »

dilap wrote: post #42
jacquesm wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Microsoft did the same thing in Windows it was grounds for anti-trust lawsuits to be brought against them: http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/101947/microsoft-used-undocument... The idea here is that if you are supplying both the operating system and the applications that your applications should not benefit from being made by the same company as the OS, in other words, that it should be a level playing ground without…

Yeah, in a monopoly situation I see where you're coming from, but Apple has very healthy competition from Android. It's not currently in Apple's interest to hobble 3rd party apps; quite the opposite.

It's a local monopoly. An iOS user won't just switch to Android. Not overnight, at least.

Re: How Apple Cheats

#113

Post by minikites »

jacquesm wrote: post #47
chaz72 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft had a monopoly position at that time, and Apple does not.

Is it possible to run Windows Phone or Android on iPhones now? They may not have a monopoly on smartphones (they wished they did, and maybe they even think they deserve one), but that's not for lack of trying and as far as systems software on hardware supplied by Apple goes they do. You can't buy an iPhone without iOs and nobody makes an alternative. Anti-trust law does not require a monopoly per-se, 'market power' i…

What about first-party console games that sell better than some third-party games? Should Nintendo/Microsoft Games/Sony all be investigated for antitrust?

Re: How Apple Cheats

#114

Post by danford »

coldtea wrote: post #103
cookiecaper wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open-source operating systems seem to have pretty secure applications without depending on secret or undocumented API calls. aptitude and pacman are just normal Linux programs. How come App Store can't be a normal OS X program?

First, this isn't about "secure". It's about an API not being ready for prime time, so only used in a controlled manner. Second, open source projects have private APIs too. And if you use them, you risk breakage of your app, as soon as the API gets changed (which can at any time, under for a minor version update -- after all, it was meant to be private). Also, there's another, laxer platform called Android. It has ar…

Even though they're called 'private' they're not really private though. So saying

> open source projects have private APIs too

Is misleading (and unethical).

As far as APIs go, most project have a system to rate features called a stability index. Developers should take note and me aware of it. If something looks like it's going to be broken in the future, don't use it.

I'd also like to add that if you don't update apps on an iPhone they all start getting really slow. So iOS apps already do need to be updated.

Stability: 0 - Deprecated This feature is known to be problematic, and changes are planned. Do not rely on it. Use of the feature may cause warnings. Backwards compatibility should not be expected.

Stability: 1 - Experimental This feature was introduced recently, and may change or be removed in future versions. Please try it out and provide feedback. If it addresses a use-case that is important to you, tell the node core team.

Stability: 2 - Unstable The API is in the process of settling, but has not yet had sufficient real-world testing to be considered stable. Backwards-compatibility will be maintained if reasonable.

Stability: 3 - Stable The API has proven satisfactory, but cleanup in the underlying code may cause minor changes. Backwards-compatibility is guaranteed.

Stability: 4 - API Frozen This API has been tested extensively in production and is unlikely to ever have to change.

Stability: 5 - Locked Unless serious bugs are found, this code will not ever change. Please do not suggest changes in this area; they will be refused.

Re: How Apple Cheats

#115

Post by Touche »

martinnormark wrote: post #65

This reminds me of how Microsoft added specific code to Windows 95 to ensure SimCity would run. This is from Joel Spolsky's Strategy Letter II: Chicken and Egg Problems http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000054.html So Windows 3.x on Intel 80386s was the first version that could run multiple DOS programs respectably. (Technically, Windows 386 could too, but 80386s were rare and expensive until about the ti…

While a fascinating story, this is nothing like that.

Re: How Apple Cheats

#116

Post by harry8 »

celticninja wrote: post #58
jacquesm wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it possible to run Windows Phone or Android on iPhones now? They may not have a monopoly on smartphones (they wished they did, and maybe they even think they deserve one), but that's not for lack of trying and as far as systems software on hardware supplied by Apple goes they do. You can't buy an iPhone without iOs and nobody makes an alternative. Anti-trust law does not require a monopoly per-se, 'market power' i…

You are fundamentally misunderstanding a monopoly position.

You can always define something as not a monopoly by asserting the truth that people spend their money on a variety of items so the monopolist is competing with manufacturers and purveyors of beer, diesel and kites for the sales. The existence of monopoly isn't actually the interesting test, the test is usually is there an abuse of market power to the detriment of competitors. Emphasis on "abuse"

The flip side is that you can always define any supplier as a monopoly too. Apple have a monopoly on the supply of IOS and devices running IOS. Semantic definitions of monopoly aren't terribly useful. Budweiser have a monopoly on bud light. Budweiser probably can't use their market power to make miller taste worse than it does.

I didn't much care for Microsoft's anti-competitive behavior, didn't care for the stories from the grey-beard's about IBM's before that. Maybe you've heard of standard oil. I don't care for apple's anti-competitive behavior either. Microsoft and IBM always had plenty of people who defended them too. I didn't need to give Microsoft 30% (is it?) of my sales revenue to sell software that is run by my customer on a microsoft operating system. I wonder if the general reaction would have been much different if microsoft had tried charging a significant percentage of sales revenue for all software vendors selling software that ran on windows in late 90s and early 00s

Re: How Apple Cheats

#117

Post by scott00 »

endersshadow wrote: post #106
room271 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the vast chasm between pure monopoly (one supplier) and the perfectly competitive market (which is imaginary), is large room for firms which have competition but are still big enough to abuse their market position. It's not useful to focus only on pure monopoly. From an economics perspective, there are plenty of other market structures which can be damaging for consumers.

It's not just the person you're responding to--the FTC looks only at relatively pure monopolies for anti-trust violations. There are lots of things that are legal as a player in a competitive market versus illegal as a monopoly. The US has a long history with pure monopolies, which are why the laws are the way they are. You can argue until you're blue in the face that the FTC should look at other things, as well, but…

The SEC has nothing to do with enforcement of antitrust law. The Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice share that responsibility.

Re: How Apple Cheats

#118

Post by waps »

icantthinkofone wrote: post #85
jacquesm wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Microsoft did the same thing in Windows it was grounds for anti-trust lawsuits to be brought against them: http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/101947/microsoft-used-undocument... The idea here is that if you are supplying both the operating system and the applications that your applications should not benefit from being made by the same company as the OS, in other words, that it should be a level playing ground without…

The difference may be that Microsoft used the private APIs to give itself (and select partners) advantages over competitors while being a monopoly. I don't know if Apple is using those APIs to give themselves an advantage over competitors but they certainly are not a monopoly as Microsoft is.

One of the conditions of the apple app store, the single entry to any customer's smartphone, is that you don't directly compete with any apple app.

What more do you really need to know ? If this isn't abuse of monopoly power, then what is ?

Re: How Apple Cheats

#119

Post by abhigupta »

collyw wrote: post #109
gioele wrote: post #63

Let's contrast with Android's take on a private API: private Content Providers. > The problem is, there are more Content Providers in the system than are documented in that package, and while you can use them, you probably shouldn’t. They’re there because some of the Google-provided apps use them internally to access their own data resources. Because Android is an open-source project, it’s easy enough to find them ju…

Why is it whenever there is a criticism of Apple, we always have to turn it into an Apple vs Windows, or Apple vs Android type competition? Just because One party is behaving like a twat, doesn't mean there is justification for the other to do the same.

I find that such relative comparison put things in perspective.

Re: How Apple Cheats

#120

Post by GrinningFool »

jacquesm wrote: post #36
dilap wrote: post #27

It's totally reasonable for Apple to use APIs internally that it's not ready to make public -- making an API public is a serious decision with lots of downsides! You've got to support the API forever, and future design directions are constrained. To expect Apple to make all code it uses internally available publicly is silly. (If you want some great examples of the extreme amount of work it can be to support legacy A…

When Microsoft did the same thing in Windows it was grounds for anti-trust lawsuits to be brought against them: http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/101947/microsoft-used-undocument... The idea here is that if you are supplying both the operating system and the applications that your applications should not benefit from being made by the same company as the OS, in other words, that it should be a level playing ground without…

Those rules apply in a monopoly - when a business is not a monopoly it has considerably more freedom.
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