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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

#461

Post by Osiris »

peter_vukovic wrote: post #190

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.

Clearly not ALL users are happy because users of non-Apple watches are unhappy that their watch can do things with Android it's not allowed to do on iOS.

It's not reasonable to make a blanket absolutist statement like that.

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#462

Post by captainmuon »

ch4s3 wrote: post #131
distrill wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's pretty frustrating how "apple people" just don't care that it's apples fault. i routinely hear my wife mutter "i hate google so much!" when a google maps integration is being intentionally hobbled to keep her using apple maps. or when she has trouble managing rcs conversations because somebody in our social world has the gall to be on an android phone.

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.

That's their justification. I never had security problems on Android, and I actually find Android to be more cohesive. Just a few things where iOS is uncohesive to me: You can customize the keyboard, but it will not work everywhere the same. Apps will send you randomly through hoops to click some permissions things in settings. App settings are sometimes centralized, sometimes in the app. There is no single way to "back" to the previous screen.

I actually switched to an iPhone some time ago and was expecting it to be like you said. But I was shocked that iOS is actually less coherent and a mess in some places, and the App store could be curated better. To be honest the reason I still use it is because the hardware is really good and because it is pretty.

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#463

Post by nijave »

Avamander wrote: post #237
lern_too_spel wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bluetooth is encrypted.

Should be, but BT stacks are super crap and it's hard to truly guarantee that. Pretty sure they do not currently require the highest (actually proper) security level from everyone.

Given that Apple controls the entire hardware and software stack, can't they guarantee messages are encrypted and refuse to send them if they aren't?

It seems like they're refusing unconditionally and claiming security instead of actually requiring security.

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#464

Post by rahkiin »

lynx97 wrote: post #448
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.

I probably dont get your sarcasm. But I never had a problem with Lightning. In the long run, I like the switch to USB-C... But when I got my first iPhone, USB-C wasn't invented yet, so... Also, I like the AppStore for its reviews, and would actually NEVER activate an alternative appstore. No need to weaken my security on purpose. I know, its apparently an unpopular opinion here, but that is mostly because many people…

To add: when apple switched to lightning they made a deal with hardware makers that they would support this for 10 years in order not to make all their hardware obsolete again. They did eventually change it after exactly 10 years.

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#465

Post by mistercheph »

minkzilla wrote: post #147
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 doesn't have to be the worst possible implementation to be less desirable than the walled garden for me. I get so much spam in whatsapp, groupMe, telegram, and from sms. Some of it is even from legitimate contacts but then they signed up for something or did something and it sends one of those stupid "join me on {thing}" messages. The only place I don't get spam is imessage

I get spam on iMessage, and you can continue to live in the walled garden, nobody wants to force you to buy a third party watch, they just want third party devices to have the same API access as the first party device.

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#466

Post by mistercheph »

lynx97 wrote: post #448
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.

I probably dont get your sarcasm. But I never had a problem with Lightning. In the long run, I like the switch to USB-C... But when I got my first iPhone, USB-C wasn't invented yet, so... Also, I like the AppStore for its reviews, and would actually NEVER activate an alternative appstore. No need to weaken my security on purpose. I know, its apparently an unpopular opinion here, but that is mostly because many people…

You never needed speeds in excess of usb 2.0? LOL, this is such old hat, guys in IBM t-shirts telling me how nobody ever needed more than 64K, and why go third party with your treasured computation when you can get the best, the infallible, the International Business Machine?

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#467

Post by bigyabai »

rahkiin wrote: post #464
lynx97 wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I probably dont get your sarcasm. But I never had a problem with Lightning. In the long run, I like the switch to USB-C... But when I got my first iPhone, USB-C wasn't invented yet, so... Also, I like the AppStore for its reviews, and would actually NEVER activate an alternative appstore. No need to weaken my security on purpose. I know, its apparently an unpopular opinion here, but that is mostly because many people…

To add: when apple switched to lightning they made a deal with hardware makers that they would support this for 10 years in order not to make all their hardware obsolete again. They did eventually change it after exactly 10 years.

Not because their software would inherently break by switching to a different USB connector, or even by using a converter dongle. Apple signed this agreement because Lightning had a hardcoded DRM protocol baked into it to force third-parties to pay licensing fees. Of course they demanded a 10 year support window, it was a licensing ruse to make manufacturers pay a price premium to use the USB featureset.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MFi_Program

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#468

Post by FirmwareBurner »

maximusdrex wrote: post #164
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…

I truly don’t understand how these types of comments keep appearing under any discussion of apple’s blatantly anti-competitive behavior with messages. This doesn’t even make sense on technical grounds; it would be trivial to require such message passing to be encrypted/signed securely if that’s your real concern. After all, the Apple Watch does exist and does have these capabilities, so it’s clearly possible to do it…

[flagged]

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#469

Post by nomel »

shantara wrote: post #336
Nifty3929 wrote: post #268

I think people forget that Apple is not making devices for the Hackernews community. They are making devices for people that just want something that works pretty well and has reasonable security - even to the extent of protecting them from themselves. They have other things to do with their time than learn about security vulnerabilities and how to avoid them. They want to just click 'yes' on every popup and expect t…

We’re rapidly approaching the point where having a smartphone is becoming a necessity for being a functional part of the society. You could argue that is some countries we’re already past that point. A device of this social importance that’s also locked into one of the two American megacorps absolutely needs as much scrutiny as possible, since the interests of those megacorps are not aligned with the interests of the…

This is somewhat false. It wasn't removed, it just takes intent now, and it has a timeout. I've been spammed by strangers with airdrop before, and have accidentally airdropped things to strangers. I enjoy the increased intent.

But, gone are the fun days people spam airdropping funny "This is the captain" pictures to everyone while waiting for takeoff in an airplane.

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#470

Post by 9rx »

Pfhortune wrote: post #335
9rx wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless regulation is the problem[1], you need the will of the people[2] to see regulation come into force. But if the people had the will, they could just see it through already. No need for regulation. [1] Which it is in the case of computing. Intellectual property law makes direct competition against the law. [2] Assuming a democracy.

> But if the people had the will, they could just see it through already. How does this work in the context of this discussion?

There are a lot of contexts floating around, but you are meaning something like how would the people attain a state where they can buy something almost exactly like the iPhone, but with less restrictions or perhaps some different features, without regulation?

Well, how would they do that with regulation? Have the government (i.e. the people) tell Apple remove restrictions/add features else they can no longer sell the iPhone/operate a business at all, praying that they comply – and if they don't you no longer can buy an iPhone? –– Which is exactly the same as the people (i.e. government) telling Apple to remove restrictions/add features else they will no longer buy iPhones/Apple products, praying that they comply – and if they don't you no longer can buy an iPhone. That can be done right now without regulation, if the will is there.

But the will isn't there. Nobody outside of tech communities ever thinks about this, and the comparatively small number of tech enthusiasts who do, do not form a democracy. If they people don't have the will, they won't do anything.

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