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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

#451

Post by 8ytecoder »

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…

The attack vector is a 3pt app being compromised - maliciously or otherwise - that logs/collects the messages - i.e, the apps themselves can be a threat vector. To be blunt and honest, I’m not sure I disagree. The notification framework seems like an okay compromise to me. I have used it with my Garmin bike computer and I’m more than happy with the level of integration.

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#452

Post by ericmay »

bigyabai wrote: post #441
lynx97 wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You can thank Apple for the Lightning connector and App Store too, for all the good it does everyone in the EU. If a company uses their power to prevent competition with their own products or services, the market's jurisdiction reserves the right to restore competition to their market and prevent the harms inherent to monopoly abuse.

> You can thank Apple for the Lightning connector

They did move to USB-C, but the lightning connector was actually a great product, far superior in usability to the Micro-USB, Mini-USB, and whatever other nonsense standards that existed. When Apple wanted to move to USB-C people complained about them "changing standards all the time". There really isn't a move that pleases everyone and even when they do the "right" thing people still complain lol.

> App Store too, for all the good it does everyone in the EU

The Apple App Store is pretty great. There's a large, vocal minority of folks that want changes there, but they also aren't the ones that have to deal with grandma and grandpa doing crazy stuff. If you want another App Store just by an Android phone since that's a feature they offer. Kind of like if I wanted a phone with a larger megapixel camera or something I'd buy something else.

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#453

Post by kevincox »

coolspot wrote: post #228
snotrockets wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With Spotify app, some issues seem to be due to Spotify themselves. For example, even when you explicitly download music to your watch, the app needs network connection to start playing. This seems to be explicit design decision on Spotify's part.

Likely a condition from IP holders to make sure the play is counted and paid for.

Pennywise pound foolish and harming UX at the same time. They could just require that Spotify logs the plays and uploads them on the next connection. Resulting in more plays and more money. But instead they block it for the 0.1% of the time that the watch is lost, destroyed or reinstalled before that sync happens.

And people wonder why piracy happens.

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#454

Post by bigyabai »

CharlesW wrote: post #50
sabellito wrote: post #18

Some 6 years ago I bought new bluetooth headphones. Every time I'd put them on, my macbook would open apple music (I didn't even know it was installed). Every time. No way to disable it, I really tried. Stopped shy of doing some kernel stuff. Sold that laptop, and have never touched anything apple since. Probably never will. The hardware's good, everything else is an embarrassing mess. Sent from my Ubuntu.

It's because your headphones were sending a Bluetooth "Play" command on connect (my Honda Odyssey does this as well). For anyone else with this problem, you can override this silly default in macOS using Privacy & Security > Bluetooth, adding Music, then turning off Bluetooth access for Music.

> you can override this silly default

But Apple sure won't, seeing as Music.app conveniently displays a modal advertisement for Apple Music when it launches.

Silly defaults. At what point does it stop being silly and start being a dark pattern?

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#455

Post by gnopgnip »

AndrewHart wrote: post #236
Retric wrote: 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.

What third party apps can see notifications and send via iMessage?

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#456

Post by crwll »

coolspot wrote: post #228
snotrockets wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With Spotify app, some issues seem to be due to Spotify themselves. For example, even when you explicitly download music to your watch, the app needs network connection to start playing. This seems to be explicit design decision on Spotify's part.

Likely a condition from IP holders to make sure the play is counted and paid for.

Garmin watches can start Spotify playback offline just fine. You need to have synced your playlist within last 30 days, IIRC, and that's it.

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#457

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

izacus wrote: post #413
sbarre wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tend to agree with this, but if you look at the PC ecosystem, you'll see that 'leave users to figure out their own security' is a shit show. Phones, for better or worse, contain much more private and personal information about users than their computer I would bet on average. So I understand the urge to make phones more secure by default and to help users avoid foot guns, even if it means restricting their choices.…

Without that "shit show" you would never end up with devices like iPhones and useful software that drove last decades of innovation and progress. The ability to build better things is the reason why you can now sit here, using technologies built on that "shit show" machine, and bloviate how new generations aren't allowed to build new things anymore because a megacorp needs to feed its greed.

It doesn’t follow that the past had to be a shit show for the future to not be a shit show.

In any case we are largely still learning when it comes to security and I don’t really want to make things less secure for the many just to satisfy the few.

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#458

Post by kevincox »

CharlesW wrote: post #50
sabellito wrote: post #18

Some 6 years ago I bought new bluetooth headphones. Every time I'd put them on, my macbook would open apple music (I didn't even know it was installed). Every time. No way to disable it, I really tried. Stopped shy of doing some kernel stuff. Sold that laptop, and have never touched anything apple since. Probably never will. The hardware's good, everything else is an embarrassing mess. Sent from my Ubuntu.

It's because your headphones were sending a Bluetooth "Play" command on connect (my Honda Odyssey does this as well). For anyone else with this problem, you can override this silly default in macOS using Privacy & Security > Bluetooth, adding Music, then turning off Bluetooth access for Music.

That is maybe questionable behaviour from the headphones. But the worse problem is that there is no way to change what media player is used. I don't use Apple Music, have no songs in it and no subscription. But it opens that rather than the player I do use.

I'm pretty sure I have also launched Apple Music accidentally with some keyboard button or touchbar action. For a "premium" device having to close Apple Music (effectively an ad) a few times a week is not acceptable.

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#459

Post by mistercheph »

sockaddr wrote: post #322
mistercheph wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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's not a straw man argument, it is the argument. An average user can't dive into the bluetooth driver code and figure out where in the 4000 page spec something deviates and is now a security issue. So we have to assume the worst.

Having an open standard doesn't mean every implementer will do so in good faith and using best practices, the consumer still ultimately has to make a choice about which product they use, and can continue to use apple's solution if they trust in apple to securely implement the spec. The insane strawman you're proposing is that the choice is between a single blessed solution from Apple that's infallible, and a wild west where the only way for a consumer to be safe is to personally audit their device against a 4000 page specification document. Absurd! We use devices and software every day that implement open standards and while issues do arise in particular implementations, they do with no more frequency than issues are discovered in proprietary solutions and standards.

Go look at the CVE's for iMessage, plurality of RCE's on apple devices in the last decade is Apple's iMessage implementation, and it's their own protocol! And almost all of the rest are apple's implementation of the open web standards!

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#460

Post by bigyabai »

ericmay wrote: post #452
bigyabai wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can thank Apple for the Lightning connector and App Store too, for all the good it does everyone in the EU. If a company uses their power to prevent competition with their own products or services, the market's jurisdiction reserves the right to restore competition to their market and prevent the harms inherent to monopoly abuse.

> You can thank Apple for the Lightning connector They did move to USB-C, but the lightning connector was actually a great product, far superior in usability to the Micro-USB, Mini-USB, and whatever other nonsense standards that existed. When Apple wanted to move to USB-C people complained about them "changing standards all the time". There really isn't a move that pleases everyone and even when they do the "right" t…

I've heard it all before, both of these are simple to refute. Apple designed the USB-C connector, they knew it was an option. But as is Apple tradition, they created a new licensed serial and power connector specifically for their phones to promote MFi, their arbitrary USB DRM. Apple could have switched to USB-C at any time; they had no issue shipping millions of peripherals and Macs with them onboard. But they didn't, because then they couldn't foist a proprietary standard onto their most lucrative submarket.

> If you want another App Store just by an Android phone since that's a feature they offer.

Sorry, this is bullshit. Alternative sources for installing software will always exist, even current iPhone users have to accept Cydia as an option. You don't ever have to leave the Apple App Store, but your preference has no right to enforce an artificial limitation onto other users. The Mac as a product would not exist without third-party software distribution, the iPhone is undeniably stifled by Apple's stance on the matter.

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