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Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

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Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#181

Post by tech234a »

As a side note: Phone Link on Windows does allow replying to texts/iMessages on a connected iPhone. However, group messages are not handled properly, and message history from before the connection started isn't available. I believe it's available on an API that is only available on an older version of Bluetooth that is not low-energy. It can also sync contacts and do phone calls.

Over BLE, it is possible to receive and delete notifications, as well as view and control media playback/volume/metadata.

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#182

Post by dwighttk »

vessenes wrote: post #101

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…

Apple is fine with any customer retention benefits from security and I don’t agree (with the article author) that they are merely pretending their strategy is primarily focused on security

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#183

Post by rickdeckard »

Nextgrid wrote: post #117
rickdeckard wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is more, where is that 'force' expected to come from which should make them change their way? Just hopes and prayers?

Regulation? When a market is stuck in a local maximum, an external force would be beneficial to push it out of it.

Exactly.

But who should drive such regulation then, elected representatives which represent constituents who can't be bothered to push for it..?

THAT'S the conundrum.

The market urgently requires regulation, but it also became so convenient so fast and affects end-users only indirectly, so there is no sufficient momentum to drive this change...

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#184

Post by wpm »

liuliu wrote: post #81

I think, we fundamentally lack a mechanism to enforce secure / privacy aware APIs without resorting to trusted inner-circle type of things. I am already not comfortable with Apple picking winners (such as giving Zoom special entitlement but not the VOIP apps you want to distribute by your own). Apple trusting their own apps more than other apps is another symptom of this and it is not helping their anti-trust situati…

Quicktime Player.app gets an entitlement called `com.apple.private.tcc.allow`, giving it unprompted access to the Camera, Microphone, and Screen Capture.

An MDM administrator, managing a computer or device owned by an organization, cannot grant those permissions to anything without user consent. For good reason!

So why the *fuck* does Apple think they're entitled to?

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#185

Post by Propelloni »

avgDev wrote: post #160
ch4s3 wrote: 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.

As a customer I would like to be able to make that decision. I don't need apple to hold my hand. They could inform me in the app store or when I install the app. Here apple is making that decision for me.

Apple is obviously the vendor for people who like to have their hands held. If you don't like that, make your decision earlier, just don't buy Apple. Worked for me the last decade.

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#186

Post by ch4s3 »

cosmic_cheese wrote: post #165
ch4s3 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My personal stance on this is that while I’m open to making iOS, etc more flexible, it needs to be done in a way that cleanly avoids the whole “grandma accidentally installed a pile of browser toolbars yet again” problem. I’m confident I can manage added flexibility myself but there’s a very real need for a truly foolproof, social-engineering-resistant option to point friends and family without such aptitudes toward.

I totally understand that perspective, but I think in terms of opportunity cost I just don't think it would ever be worth the effort.

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#187

Post by recursive »

commakozzi wrote: post #176
EA-3167 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something I learned a while ago is that there's a particular brand of very vocal person online who has a bone to pick with Apple. Sometimes it's for a good reason, sometimes less so, but the point is that they come to discussions of any Apple topic with a conclusion ready in hand and then work backwards from that. In this case the conclusion is, "Apple is wicked, perfidious, and monopolistic." Truthfully there isn't…

it's tiring isn't it?

Yes. Probably in approximately the same way I find that there's nothing you can say to Apple fans that find a way to justify anything the Apple does.

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#188

Post by 9rx »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #140
rickdeckard wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is more, where is that 'force' expected to come from which should make them change their way? Just hopes and prayers?

The issue is, suppose you want a phone with A, B, C, D and E. In a competitive market, there are a hundred phone OEMs providing every combination of those things for various prices with various trade offs etc. In a duopoly, there is one company providing A, another providing B and C, and nobody providing D or E. If you chose the company providing B and C, but you still want A, D and E, what are you supposed to do? Re…

> what are you supposed to do? Reward the company providing even less of what you want?

Assuming it isn't regulation (e.g. patents) getting in the way, you pull up your pants and produce [A, D, and E].

If that's too rich for your blood, I suppose rewarding the company that got you something close enough at a tiny fraction of the cost is reasonable. It is hard to deny the value in that.

> What you need is more competition.

Okay, but if you aren't willing to build [A, D, and E], why would anyone else? These things aren't delivered by angels from heaven.

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#189

Post by lelandbatey »

ch4s3 wrote: post #149
rpdillon wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That's not good enough. If you're Apple, and you're worth 3 trillion dollars, you can both do security and behave in a way that isn't anti-competitive. They could interoperate securely. Is it easier to just lock out your competition and use proprietary everything? Yes, duh. It's also blatantly anti-competitive, which is a thing that societally and (arguably) morally is not acceptable.

I hope to read this blog post in an antitrust case from the DOJ one day.

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#190

Post by peter_vukovic »

Apple is simply continuing to do what Apple does best - building strong products and protecting their ecosystem.

Does that mean some vendors will be treated unfairly? Of course.

Does it mean Apple users will remain happy? Absolutely.

If there is one OS that is anti-tinkering by design it is iOS, and yet people keep criticizing this intentional design decision that forms a large part of Apple’s moat.

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