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How Apple Cheats

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Re: How Apple Cheats

#51

Post by jamra »

dilap wrote: post #27

It's totally reasonable for Apple to use APIs internally that it's not ready to make public -- making an API public is a serious decision with lots of downsides! You've got to support the API forever, and future design directions are constrained. To expect Apple to make all code it uses internally available publicly is silly. (If you want some great examples of the extreme amount of work it can be to support legacy A…

The situation you're describing is not the same situation as described in the article. This API is not private. It's a public API for the iPad. There is a check that detects if you are running an iPad or iPhone. If you are running an iPhone, your program will crash.... unless it is one of the internal apple apps.

Nothing here is private.

Re: How Apple Cheats

#52

Post by reidrac »

dilap wrote: post #42
jacquesm wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Microsoft did the same thing in Windows it was grounds for anti-trust lawsuits to be brought against them: http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/101947/microsoft-used-undocument... The idea here is that if you are supplying both the operating system and the applications that your applications should not benefit from being made by the same company as the OS, in other words, that it should be a level playing ground without…

Yeah, in a monopoly situation I see where you're coming from, but Apple has very healthy competition from Android. It's not currently in Apple's interest to hobble 3rd party apps; quite the opposite.

If Apple is a abusing his position as OS provider by using in their apps APIs that are not available to other app developers, I'm not sure if the right answer is "go and develop for Android instead".

What I think it may be different in Apple's case is that they don't usually build apps that compete with apps from other developers like Microsoft did.

Re: How Apple Cheats

#53

Post by dtech »

cookiecaper wrote: post #46
rjknight wrote: post #28

There is definitely a need for private APIs that normal apps cannot use - they might have security implications, for instance. The App Store or Settings apps clearly need to be able to do things that other apps cannot do - for instance, any app that had the same privileges as the App Store would be able to install/uninstall other apps. Further, Apple's position is that the App Store, Settings etc. are akin to natural…

Open-source operating systems seem to have pretty secure applications without depending on secret or undocumented API calls. aptitude and pacman are just normal Linux programs. How come App Store can't be a normal OS X program?

But it does require the user to be vigilant and not give every app all permissions (i.e. the root access aptitude et. co require). Do you really think that is reasonable to expect from every mobile phone user?

Re: How Apple Cheats

#55

Post by greedy_buffer »

jacquesm wrote: post #36
dilap wrote: post #27

It's totally reasonable for Apple to use APIs internally that it's not ready to make public -- making an API public is a serious decision with lots of downsides! You've got to support the API forever, and future design directions are constrained. To expect Apple to make all code it uses internally available publicly is silly. (If you want some great examples of the extreme amount of work it can be to support legacy A…

When Microsoft did the same thing in Windows it was grounds for anti-trust lawsuits to be brought against them: http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/101947/microsoft-used-undocument... The idea here is that if you are supplying both the operating system and the applications that your applications should not benefit from being made by the same company as the OS, in other words, that it should be a level playing ground without…

Does this apply to the same extent to phones as it does to an operating system? Apple has made devices that don't even have an app store - nobody cries foul that the Nokia 1100 only runs Nokia software.

Re: How Apple Cheats

#56

Post by k-mcgrady »

xuki wrote: post #19

This is how to use this on iPhone - https://gist.github.com/xuki/f66e4d77b682dbb0960d This won't pass Apple's automatic check for private API, but you could do some clever swizzle. IMO it's ok to use this in production (if you can get pass the app review), Apple is using them in their app anyway.

>> "This won't pass Apple's automatic check for private API, but you could do some clever swizzle. IMO it's ok to use this in production (if you can get pass the app review), Apple is using them in their app anyway"

Private API's shouldn't be used in production. When Apple changes them they can update their apps to support the changes. They won't document these changes, you won't know about them, and your app is now broken for your users. You have to work out how to fix it, then submit it for review, and if they catch your private API use this time around you've screwed your users.

Re: How Apple Cheats

#58

Post by celticninja »

jacquesm wrote: post #47
chaz72 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft had a monopoly position at that time, and Apple does not.

Is it possible to run Windows Phone or Android on iPhones now? They may not have a monopoly on smartphones (they wished they did, and maybe they even think they deserve one), but that's not for lack of trying and as far as systems software on hardware supplied by Apple goes they do. You can't buy an iPhone without iOs and nobody makes an alternative. Anti-trust law does not require a monopoly per-se, 'market power' i…

You are fundamentally misunderstanding a monopoly position.

Re: How Apple Cheats

#59

Post by poolpool »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #38

Might be time for the Apple PR machine to crank up some more stories about developers making millions writing apps. As every casino in Vegas knows, watching some guy hit it big is a great way to take your mind off how many resources you're losing. I wonder, though, if there's going to be an end-game to this walled-garden nonsense. On one hand, people (tech-minded people) seem to be slowly getting it. On the other han…

Maybe nerds, sorry, educated tech users, will eventually accept that Jobs vision of computers as appliances is what many (most?) people want.

Re: How Apple Cheats

#60

Post by jacquesm »

celticninja wrote: post #58
jacquesm wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it possible to run Windows Phone or Android on iPhones now? They may not have a monopoly on smartphones (they wished they did, and maybe they even think they deserve one), but that's not for lack of trying and as far as systems software on hardware supplied by Apple goes they do. You can't buy an iPhone without iOs and nobody makes an alternative. Anti-trust law does not require a monopoly per-se, 'market power' i…

You are fundamentally misunderstanding a monopoly position.

And you are fundamentally misunderstanding that anti-trust law is about more than just monopolies.
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