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Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

ericmigi.com

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Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#141
post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> moving a message over BLE to untrusted hardware and worse accepting them back into iMessage is a massive, massive change in the security boundary Anyone can already screenshot iMessages and move them out of the "security boundary"... which btw doesn't exist much, as if you have any Mac connected to your iCloud account then those messages are being synced to an SQLite DB any process running under your user can acces…

In what world is screenshotting an iMessage enough to move them out of the security boundary

World in which I've paired my two devices?

Doesn't the boundary get broken asking messages be read to me into a BT audio device?

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that this argument happens to conveniently align with Apple's financial interests.

I'm glad Apple's financial interests are aligned to my interests of not letting the eco system turn into a shitty Android-esque privacy wild west.

Be careful what you wish for! Apple doesn't let you modify apps to remove tracking the way you can on Android.

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#143
> It’s very difficult to enable other iOS apps to work with Pebble. Basically iOS does not have the concept of ‘interprocess communication’(IPC) like on Android.

Actually, let me make this worse. iOS has plenty of IPC, you're just not allowed to define your own IPC protocols. IPC is solely for your app to talk to Apple's code, not for apps to talk to each other.

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#144
post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that this argument happens to conveniently align with Apple's financial interests.

If your value prop to customers is seamless and secure default behavior, then of course blocking insecure peripherals aligns with your financial interests. This doesn't seem nefarious at all to me.

The post you're replying to meant that it boosts Apple Watch sales because they hobble the functionality of competitors. I think your statement is simply saying that any competitor is insecure. I'd be surprised if that were a widely held view.

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#145
post #132
post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your value prop to customers is seamless and secure default behavior, then of course blocking insecure peripherals aligns with your financial interests. This doesn't seem nefarious at all to me.

This is (I guess) not what OP meant. Apple obviously also gains financially from blokcing everything outside of there ecosystem, mainly because the majority of Apple users will only buy Apple hardware. Obviously, yeah, keeping the hardware a bit more safe also helps, but the main financial gain is definitely not coming from this.

Note that I said seamless AND secure. Having preferential treatment for a limited set of well known hardware makes the experience seamless. I like the secure and easy hand-off between apple devices. I wouldn't want to give up the security to make it work.

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#146
I completely get the point, and it's a shame. Apple is bad because it doesn't clearly announce this kind of limitation for third-party hardware and software before selling their phones. And I don't think Pebble or Garmin will either. Why not just limit your market to a platform that fits well? That would be the fairest solution for a customer.

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#147

I guess I’ll take the contra here on messages integration — moving a message over BLE to untrusted hardware and worse accepting them back into iMessage is a massive, massive change in the security boundary and therefore security architecture and therefore security promises that apple makes on iMessage. I do not believe average smartwatch users understand what they’d be doing if they got this. I do not believe vendors…

So sick of this strawman dialectic from the apple-brained, where the alternative to the walled garden is the worst possible implementation of an open standard.

It doesn't have to be the worst possible implementation to be less desirable than the walled garden for me. I get so much spam in whatsapp, groupMe, telegram, and from sms. Some of it is even from legitimate contacts but then they signed up for something or did something and it sends one of those stupid "join me on {thing}" messages. The only place I don't get spam is imessage

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#148

I guess I’ll take the contra here on messages integration — moving a message over BLE to untrusted hardware and worse accepting them back into iMessage is a massive, massive change in the security boundary and therefore security architecture and therefore security promises that apple makes on iMessage. I do not believe average smartwatch users understand what they’d be doing if they got this. I do not believe vendors…

> moving a message over BLE to untrusted hardware and worse accepting them back into iMessage is a massive, massive change in the security boundary

Is it? My iPhone replicates messages to my mac from where a process can extract that data, it can capture the screen etc. I can use a mac today to set up a relay that would then send those messages to a smart watch if one would do that.

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#149
post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your value prop to customers is seamless and secure default behavior, then of course blocking insecure peripherals aligns with your financial interests. This doesn't seem nefarious at all to me.

The post you're replying to meant that it boosts Apple Watch sales because they hobble the functionality of competitors. I think your statement is simply saying that any competitor is insecure. I'd be surprised if that were a widely held view.

Hobbling is a weird way to say that they aren't privileging unknown hardware. Yes, they make their own peripherals work better together. This seems like the only way to do some of what they do, airpods are so good because they use a proprietary standard that is better than bluetooth, using the open standard would be worse.

My point is that it is good that they focus on making their own products work well together, it provides better value than being wide open and trying to work super well with everything. Windows tries to work well with any peripheral, and its a bad experience.

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#150
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's pretty frustrating how "apple people" just don't care that it's apples fault. i routinely hear my wife mutter "i hate google so much!" when a google maps integration is being intentionally hobbled to keep her using apple maps. or when she has trouble managing rcs conversations because somebody in our social world has the gall to be on an android phone.

I am aware that apple blocks certain functionality to maintain a cohesive and secure experience. It is THE reason I buy their products, I want the curation. Otherwise I'd buy an android device.

That's all well and good. Opting into that knowingly is a reasonable decision. Hopefully knowing you've opted into that you aren't then cursing Google when they don't support some functionality blocked by Apple, or when RCS is poorly supported, but instead recognizing this as a trade-off you made opting into the Apple closed garden.
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