Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

ericmigi.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

421–430 of 1001 posts

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#421

Post by alphan0n »

xenodium wrote: post #383

> It’s impossible for a 3rd party smartwatch to send text messages From Apple's docs: https://support.apple.com/en-us/102842 "Message Access Profile (MAP 1.4) This profile is compatible with iPhone 5s and later. Message Access Profile allows devices to exchange messages. It's used to receive incoming message notifications on connected vehicles. iOS and iPadOS support these MAP functions on connected vehicles: - Recei…

> Every accessory that is compatible with a device and supports MAP must:

>•..

>•..

>•Not provide a user interface for sending messages. Devices do not support sending messages using MAP.

From: “Accessory Design Guidelines for Apple Devices” [0]

[0] https://www.bluetooth.com/wp-content/uploads/attachments/Blu...

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#422

Post by tavavex »

briandear wrote: post #297
rednafi wrote: post #139

There's nothing new here. From AirDrop to AirPods, Apple's MO is to lock you into their ecosystem and be as belligerent as possible toward any non-Apple gizmo. Couple that with social and network effects, and you have a perfect formula for monopolizing a market without continuously improving the tech.

I like the ecosystem. If you don’t, choose another ecosystem.

If you like it, use it. Why not let other people augment the ecosystem? If Apple allowed Pebble to get full permissions and it all turned out to be the extremely unsafe, buggy disaster that everyone here chooses to portray it as, then you can still buy an Apple Watch. In what way does shutting out the competition benefit you?

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#424

Post by kevincox »

snailmailman wrote: post #397
rickdeckard wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conveniently, Apple's App Store Review Guidelines also include several rules that restrict apps from duplicating features that the OS already provides. So if they detect a trend early enough, they implement it as first-party feature, dry out the existing competitors while restricting new competitors to enter based on the App Store Review...

I’m pretty sure this rule is only there to stop the hundreds of “flashlight” apps that used to exist. (Although, they appear to still exist) There isn’t tons of innovation or competition in “flashlight app” other than adding advertisements. There used to be a bunch of them that would only get popular out of necessity. The ones I’m seeing now in the App Store do seem to have non-default behaviors like “strobe light” a…

So what? Why not let there be flashlight apps if users find them useful? Apple doesn't have to recommend them in the app store and can sort them to the bottom of search results page. But why can't the exist. If people don't want them they will choose not to install them.

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#425

Post by legitster »

Not too long ago it was revealed that Apple's supposedly secure protocol for their Airpods entirely relied on plaintext keys locked to the hardware. Based on the quality of their software products, I am not surprised.

The Apple razor: "Never attribute to security that which can be adequately be explained by incompetence."

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#426

Post by pbhjpbhj »

basisword wrote: post #306
bloppe wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "closed" approach is way better when it involves guardrails rather than handcuffs. Pixels offer guardrails; they're just as secure as iPhones but offer a lot more freedom to power users. Android is a lot more than just Pixels though and some of the other OEMs don't provide security updates quite as timely, creating a bad reputation

I’m not sure I agree. I’ve seen tech illiterate family members screw up Pixels and Samsung devices in the same way they screwed up Windows systems in the past. Even the most tech illiterate family members have done nothing bad to their iPhones. In fact I know one that was still using an iPhone 7 until last year and it was very functional. Two year old top of the line Samsung phones are crawling after two years. All a…

What do you mean by 'screw up'?

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#427

Post by riazrizvi »

josefresco wrote: post #3

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.

Because everyone here commenting knows the reason?! This is all speculation by outsiders. Apple isn’t commenting and if they did, outsiders wouldn’t know if it’s the real reason. It could be that Apple lacks the patents, for some of these key features and they are making the best out of a bad situation. It is what it is and we can’t be sure why.

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#428

Post by Osiris »

frollogaston wrote: post #367
CivBase wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of choice... so long as that choice has been approved by Apple. It's a very convenient position for a company with a competing product.

Apple doesn't approve of me not having an Apple Watch.

Really? Did you have to pair your Apple watch? Did Apple sign the software on the watch? Did Apple build special APIs and tools into iOS to support certain features of the Apple Watch?

Apple is demonstrating here that they can control every aspect of what you can do with your phone, including not allowing Pebble to work.

Apple doesn't even allow you to replace broken parts in your phone unless it has an Apple approved signature that can be validated.

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#429

Post by standardUser »

I know people love Apple products, as do I, but at a certain point it must get exhausting arguing that the wealthiest company with the largest market share is also, somehow, the one that should be exempt from anti-trust action and/or exempt from developing simple 3rd party integrations.

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#430

Post by lynx97 »

chamanbuga wrote: post #191
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…

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…

As a user, I am totally fine with Apple restricting access to iMessage. In fact, now that I read this, I want them to do this, thanks Apple.
Post reply on HN