Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#471

Post by wilg » Tue, Mar 18, 2025, 8:52 PM UTC

cm2012 wrote: post #19

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.

This is apple's modus operandi. Hobble competitors even if it's anti-customer. Fill the gap themselves for higher profits.

I mean it’s also a lot more work to add all the features Pebble would need so it could simply be they don’t think it’s worth it (and it probably isn’t, given all the other broken stuff they need to fix).

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#472

Post by DrBenCarson » Tue, Mar 18, 2025, 8:52 PM UTC

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…

Might be a little bit of both but nothing you said there contradicts the original point--opening up iMessage integration to arbitrary bluetooth connections is a bad idea. It blows open access to all your messages...who knows, maybe even the e2ee keys. Law enforcement would have a brand new frictionless way into all your messages

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#473

Post by mistercheph » Tue, Mar 18, 2025, 8:53 PM UTC

miki123211 wrote: post #442

tremon wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do realize this is a very infantilizing attitude? Why can't the end user choose its own level of security vs usability? Letting a corporation decide this for all users is just creating a nanny state in different clothing.

Because with iMessage, it's not about your own security, it's about the security of everybody that you're allowed to message from a given device. I suspect Apple can significantly cut down on abuse prevention measures just by making it harder to automatically send iMessage spam. If any random Bluetooth smartwatch was allowed to send those, there's no telling how that capability could be abused, we all know how IoT ve…

> we all know how IoT vendors are with device security.

Couldn't agree more: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord/SearchResults?query=apple+watc...

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#474

Post by bigyabai » Tue, Mar 18, 2025, 8:53 PM UTC

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…

[flagged]

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#475

Post by meatmanek » Tue, Mar 18, 2025, 8:54 PM UTC

bsimpson wrote: post #120

seba_dos1 wrote: post #22

Apple has been restricting iPhones from being awesome since 2007.

Remembering the uproar when Apple said 3rd party apps would have to be web apps, but didn't ship the features needed to write good web apps on the first iPhone? The term PWA wasn't coined until 8 years later, and Apple has long been accused of hobbling its web stack to incite people to ship on the App Store and pay their 30% tithing.

The term PWA may not have been coined until 2015, but you could definitely save a webpage to your home screen on i(Pad)OS at least as early as 2010. Granted, it was pretty limited, but you could put an icon on your screen, have it open a web view that was somewhat separate from Safari, store data with localstorage, and generally look and feel kinda mostly like a native app.

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#476

Post by dns_snek » Tue, Mar 18, 2025, 8:57 PM UTC

jmb99 wrote: post #371

dns_snek wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One reason iMessage is less of a total cesspit than SMS is that the ecosystem is closed, and makes automation difficult Really? I'm not in the Apple ecosystem to confirm but it looks trivial to me, and you can always fall back to keyboard/mouse input type of automation. https://airmessage.org/ https://bluebubbles.app/ https://medium.com/@jameskabbes/sending-imessages-with-pytho...

Some anecdata. I get a few dozen spam SMSs in any given month, as well as some spam phone calls (varies a lot by month - sometimes only 1-2, sometimes 20+). I have received a total of 2 spam iMessages (I remember them because they’re notable to exist), and 0 spam FaceTime audio calls, and I’ve had this phone number associated with iMessage since it was first released. Regardless of the reason, there is substantially…

I'm not debating the amount of spam but rather GP's claim that iMessage is hard to automate.

I showed that iMessage is trivial to automate and since you both claim that the amount of spam on the platform is very low, we can conclude that ease of automation isn't an important factor when it comes to iMessage spam.

Unless someone decides to move the goalposts we should therefore be in full agreement that Pebble being allowed to integrate with iMessage wouldn't have any appreciable effect on the amount of spam in the network.

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#477

Post by red-iron-pine » Tue, Mar 18, 2025, 8:57 PM UTC

rambambram wrote: post #370

eddythompson80 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or they mean cap as 'lie' in genz speak. 'No cap' = 'No lie'. in a sentence "I saw an alligator today. No cap"

Gen Z speak? I thought it was 'hood speak' or something. Like: I'm going to cap your sorry ass. I'm not a native English speaker, so what do I know.

both have roots in urban culture. but busting a cap in someone means cap like cap-gun, aka gun, aka shooting someone.

cap in the true/lie sense also has roots there, but more in a superlative sense and not guns

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#478

Post by xenodium » Tue, Mar 18, 2025, 8:57 PM UTC

alphan0n wrote: post #421

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...

It's been a little while since I've worked in the space, but it's worth checking a newer revision as this wording may no longer be present https://developer.apple.com/accessories/Accessory-Design-Gui...

From a technical standpoint, there is no limitation for an accessory to implement the profile.

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#479

Post by incanus77 » Tue, Mar 18, 2025, 8:57 PM UTC

Whenever I go to this one restaurant, they insist on feeding me the bread that they make. I bring my own dough, but they won't let me into the kitchen to use their equipment. It's a hobbled experience and they are doing it entirely in the name of increased profits. The bread could be awesome! The problem is, I want to eat at this restaurant. They are ruining my bread experience.

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#480

Post by wat10000 » Tue, Mar 18, 2025, 9:00 PM UTC

Osiris wrote: post #416

wat10000 wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making your own products interoperate better than competitors' products is pretty typical and I don't think it rises to the level of "anticompetitive practice." If you don't like it (and I can totally understand why), there are numerous other smartphone makers out there with products that allow better integration with these watches and you're free to buy one. MS didn't get into trouble because they went after competi…

Microsoft absolutely got in trouble for purposefully making other Office suites not work correctly on Windows, for using private Windows APIs in Office that other companies didn't have access to, etc. If Apple makes a watch that can receive and send iMessages then there is no reason any other device shouldn't be able to use the same APIs that Apple uses. It absolutely creates a system where competitors literally cann…

They got in trouble for doing that stuff while having a monopoly on PC OSes. Using private stuff to give your own products an advantage is (legally) fine if you're not leveraging a monopoly to do it.