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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

#251
post #8

If iOS only allows you to build a worse experience, then Apple customers will leave the platform for Android. The problem solves itself.

I don't think this is true. Apple could drop smart watch support entirely and I still wouldn't use an Android phone. I personally find the user experience infinitely better on iOS than on Android, and Apple would have to drop the ball very bad to get me to switch. (Note: This isn't because Apple is without faults. iOS and macOS are both a mess right now, and iPadOS is even worse. I just think that Android is worse th…

Similarly if Apple opened up every API and allowed every smart watch to do whatever it wanted, I'd still prefer an Apple Watch. I tried using a Garmin and "not being able to send an sms" isn't even on the list of things I disliked about it. Ugly clunky interface, pogo pin charging, a companion app that at times wouldn't look out of place on a Windows CE smartphone circa 2006, etc.

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#252
post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every device you let in is another attack surface, and no certification process can eliminate it. Allowing devices to view and respond to messages is inherently lower risk than allowing them to freely communicate with anyone.

You could say the same about software and app stores. If safety were the top priority, then the safest option is to say no apps, but that isn't competitive or lucrative. Apple's approach is to create safe frameworks and a review process that allows the App Store to exist.

They're likely to be regulated into allowing third party app stores with review processes that they don't control.

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#253
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…

> I am already not comfortable with Apple picking winners

This is what I like most about them! Just pick something that you think is good. If I like what you pick I'll keep buying from you.

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#254
post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 competi…

The question is, why is it so infeasible to enter the market?

In theory it should be possible for someone to do this. Phones are made of modular parts. Some companies make chips, some make screens, some make operating systems, some make app stores, so you go acquire each of the parts, make your modifications and start selling your phone.

First problem, the best phone chips are made by Apple and they won't sell them to you for use in a competing phone. Also, they won't sell you their OS or let you use their app store. So it's already not possible to satisfy some of the requirements, e.g. using a chip of that quality or compatibility with existing third party iOS apps.

This is hypothetically more possible with Android, but it still isn't. Qualcomm will sell you a chip; it isn't as good, so you can't satisfy "use the best chip", but they'll sell it to you. You can get Android for free. Well, AOSP anyway. But that won't pass Google's Play Integrity system, so you've already lost compatibility with the existing bank apps. Other Android apps have more dependencies on Google APIs that aren't part of AOSP, so you've once again lost widespread compatibility with the only other market for third party apps, unless you ship with Google Play services. At which point you're not satisfying the "doesn't hoover up your data and send it to Google" requirement.

So anti-competitive behavior on the part of the incumbent duopolists is why there isn't more competition, and antitrust enforcement would address it. For example, break up Apple into its constituent parts. Then Apple Silicon is a separate company like AMD or Qualcomm and you could buy their chips to use in your own phones, the existing App Store becomes a separate entity with no monopoly on distributing apps to iOS users, etc.

At which point someone can feasibly produce a phone that does everything you want, and then someone would.

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#255
post #8

If iOS only allows you to build a worse experience, then Apple customers will leave the platform for Android. The problem solves itself.

Isn't this ignoring the lock-in factor? Leaving Apple is probably more than just switching a single piece of hardware for many users. The entire Apple ecosystem encourages "buying in".

As a few examples

* (almost all) bought apps don't transfer

* bought media (music, etc) and how that integrates into the software

* icloud and other account services

* replacing your phone + laptop + watch + IOT devices which may all be in the apple ecosystem.

So one can easily see how folks who have bought in are willing to put up with user-hostile actions.

Of course, Apple is not the only company that uses integration as a way to retain customers. However, from personal experience, I feel Android is a bit more open (at the cost of a more fractured experience). I can definitely understand the pros of not having to deal with carrier installed garbage when purchasing a device.

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#256
post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

'If you don't like our business practices, don't buy from Standard Oil' type argument

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#257
> I don’t want to see any tweets or blog posts or complaints or whatever later on about this. I’m publishing this now so you can make an informed decision about whether to buy a new watch or not. If you’re worried about this, the easiest solution is to buy an Android phone.

Agree or disagree with what he's saying, he sounds like a petulant child

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#258
post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is cap. I worked on heads up glasses, and one of our issues was the lack of integration with Apple's iMessage ecosystem. Device makers are willing to go through several security measures, like deploying the MFi chips and certification. However, at best this gives you access to the notification system, not iMessage itself. You are able to respond to messages via the notification framework, but not integrate direc…

Every device you let in is another attack surface, and no certification process can eliminate it. Allowing devices to view and respond to messages is inherently lower risk than allowing them to freely communicate with anyone.

You could argue for only allowing communication through selected carriers, or connections to selected brand computers, and connecting to selected manufacturer Wi-Fi hotspots too

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#259
post #38

I have a very capable smartwatch and it's ridiculously bad how hobbled it is on iOS. I'm glad to see this article specifically highlight the issues, and how it's 100% Apple's intention to make non-Apple wearables on iOS terrible.

The ONLY answer is antitrust action from every major government. The trillion dollar companies are so massive that they are impinging upon every category of business that touches them. And they're so massive that their sinnew and tendrils touch everything under the sun. Mobile computing is de-facto owned by two companies. It's owned, tightly controlled like an authoritarian government, and heavily taxed. Compared wit…

> Mobile computing is de-facto owned by two companies.

Still beats the Windows era when a single company owned desktop computing (which was the only type of computing for consumers).

> We've wound up with Standard Oil 2.0

Skipped right over Microsoft!

> We must break up these companies.

With Microsoft it was a complex consent decree. (The initial ruling to break up the company was overturned.)

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#260
post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It isn't anti-competitive to not open up your hardware and software security stack to any other OEMs who wander by. You can simply just buy a competitor's product, for less money even.

I recommend reading the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which required all incumbent telephone companies to allow any other company to install equipment in their central offices and buy rights to already laid phone lines at a fixed rate, where all the expense of actually building and laying everything laid entirely with the owner of the central office.

Turns out that (fairly applied) antitrust doesn't care how much it money it costs an incumbent company to begin allowing competitors

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