iOS wearable integrations are bad, but somehow Meta Ray-Bans are very good. Voice assist to start a call, send a text, read a notification, etc. Did Meta get special access to do this?
Does it do anything that the linked article says it can't do?
Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones
21–30 of 1001 posts
Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones
#22Apple has been restricting iPhones from being awesome since 2007.
Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones
#23If iOS only allows you to build a worse experience, then Apple customers will leave the platform for Android. The problem solves itself.
It doesn't if there are only two choices and consumers don't like either.
That’s not Apple’s fault or responsibility. Maybe Android should stop sucking.
Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones
#24iOS wearable integrations are bad, but somehow Meta Ray-Bans are very good. Voice assist to start a call, send a text, read a notification, etc. Did Meta get special access to do this?
> Did Meta get special access to do this?
Apple would never give Meta access to private APIs. Eric has access to everything that the Meta View app is doing.
Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones
#25It's honestly amazing how Apple managed to dodge anti-trust in the United States. The fact you cannot build a competing watch is unacceptable and the idea that "well go build one for Android" is refusing to acknowledge that Apple is its own market in and of itself. Throw in the fact that even getting an app that isn't a game into the App store is not trivial, especially if it dares include some form of payment proces…
> It's honestly amazing how Apple managed to dodge anti-trust in the United States. What's amazing to me is how much things have changed since the Microsoft antitrust saga: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor... .
MS had a much larger market share than Apple does in any product category. They were something like 95% or more of the PC OS market. Apple has, in the US, around 50% of the smartphone market and around 15% of the PC market.
MS also did a lot to curtail competition that Apple hasn't even come close to. Like how they crippled BeOS by threatening OEMs with higher Windows licensing costs (as a low-margin business this would have pushed any OEM prices too high to remain competitive).
Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones
#26Another company that would like Apple to donate R&D resources to them to add iOS API for free.
Another company that would like Apple to not expose functionality to their first-party ecosystem and refuse to expose it to third parties even with user consent.
If the functionality isn't available to anyone, fine, so be it. If the functionality exists on the Apple Watch, it should be done through an API.
Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones
#27It's honestly amazing how Apple managed to dodge anti-trust in the United States. The fact you cannot build a competing watch is unacceptable and the idea that "well go build one for Android" is refusing to acknowledge that Apple is its own market in and of itself. Throw in the fact that even getting an app that isn't a game into the App store is not trivial, especially if it dares include some form of payment proces…
I think you’re overlooking Garmin who has a healthy business in smart watches and they’re compatible with Apple devices. Edit : more up to date and useful comments thankfully below
As someone who has a garmin watch and switched from android to iOS I can tell you it's exactly as crippled as the article spells out.
So if anything garmin has a healthy smartwatch business in spite of apple trying their hardest to choke competition.
Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones
#28One of the many reasons I have been exiting out of the Apple ecosystem.
They are so damn hostile to any third party integration, reserve apis for first party usage, and give middle finger to developers with their abusive fee structure (Apple takes a 30% cut …).
Only thing left is for my devices to age out (I am in deep with phone, watch, mbp, mba, and even Mac Studio M1 “ultra”)
Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones
#29iOS wearable integrations are bad, but somehow Meta Ray-Bans are very good. Voice assist to start a call, send a text, read a notification, etc. Did Meta get special access to do this?
Does it do anything that the linked article says it can't do?
> It’s impossible for a 3rd party smartwatch to send text messages, or perform actions on notifications (like dismissing, muting, replying) and many, many other things.
Unless I'm crazy, I think I've used my Meta Ray-Bans to do all of these things at some point. So is this a watch only limitation that Meta was able to avoid?
Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones
#30It's honestly amazing how Apple managed to dodge anti-trust in the United States. The fact you cannot build a competing watch is unacceptable and the idea that "well go build one for Android" is refusing to acknowledge that Apple is its own market in and of itself. Throw in the fact that even getting an app that isn't a game into the App store is not trivial, especially if it dares include some form of payment proces…
With as much functionality as there is on an Apple Watch I can see how that would be huge endeavor to accomplish while maintaining the tight security and privacy model.
I think the devil is in the details of how iOS and watchOS interact. Instead of sending and receiving texts from iOS, watchOS is running messages and only sharing data. I imagine this pattern works a large amount of the time in Apple's benefit. They make a notification API available for anyone to use, they just choose not to do it. They also make it so the watch can use the phone's data, and this they do use, but also it can use WiFi or Cellular on its own.