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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

#911

Post by bfrog »

seba_dos1 wrote: post #22

Apple has been restricting iPhones from being awesome since 2007.

I guess this is why their market share grows and grows, because the product is terrible and the competition is amazing.

Or maybe reality is the opposite. That android phones that are supported by their vendor for maybe a year or two, have terrible battery life, allow any and all spyware, and generally suck aren't really comparable to the iPhone which effectively does the exact opposite? Or do you love being the product at Google?

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#912

Post by vessenes »

dns_snek wrote: post #476
jmb99 wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

It is definitely harder to automate than SMS. Very large companies exist only to provide API-backed support for automated SMS.

In contrast you need to hook into Apple APIs / scripting / sqlite databases on trusted apple hardware in order to automate iMessage.

You imagine "Pebble" as one company and say "how hard can it be to turn this on?" As I said in the original comment, it's not that it's hard, it's that it can only be turned on for everyone and that will create a security issue that WILL have a substantial impact on the ecosystem. I didn't say, but believe it to be true that the alternative -- a vendor security assessment program covering software, hardware, architecture and cloud security is not worth Apple's time or money to do. I don't think they have any business reason to do so.

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#913

Post by vessenes »

mistercheph wrote: post #459
sockaddr wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wes…

There are maybe three tech companies in the US that have large security groups dealing with persistent threat actors. Apple is one of them. Google is another.

Even with that (large) Apple security group, iMessage is difficult to lock down properly, as you note. However, I think that the cost of 0 day subscriptions for iOS vs Android tell a pretty good story: iOS zero day subscriptions sold to intelligence agencies/governments cost roughly $1mm / seat (phone compromised). Android -- $10k.

There are many many decisions along the way that end up with that raw 100x additional cost for iOS security breaches -- value Apple delivers to its customers when they purchase iOS products.

You cannot pick and choose from the outside and know which of your preferred opening-up implementations would impact that cost. My argument is that opening this up is one of likely hundreds of possible decisions that would contribute to lowering that cost of exploit.

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#915

Post by shuckles »

saagarjha wrote: post #884
shuckles wrote: post #692

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many users do you think call Apple everyday to complain about issues with their third party, knockoff AirPods lookalikes? Could you imagine why Apple could be protective of the user experience of their hardware and sensitive to that user experience being compromised by poorly implemented or nonfunctional peripherals? For every Pebble user, how many people might buy ripoff Apple Watches?

I would not be surprised if more people called every day about how their AirPods aren’t working as expected.

Not sure how it’s relevant that paying customers receive customer service.

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#916

Post by Ajedi32 »

1propionyl wrote: post #775
Ajedi32 wrote: post #771

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This perspective is infuriating. It's literally Stockholm syndrome. Your device is being held prisoner in a cell that they refuse to give you the key to unlock no matter how much you beg, and you are actually thanking them for it. How can you not realize that you're being abused?

Different people evaluate cost/benefit trade offs differently than you do, and don't speak of the matter with metaphorically charged terminology like "abuse", "prison", "Stockholm syndrome", etc.

Normally I'd agree; people overuse the term "Stockholm syndrome", but in this case it's a perfect analogy. Apple has you trapped. You can't use a competing smart watch even if you wanted to, because Apple is blocking critical functionality and there's nothing you can do about it short of ending the abusive relationship entirely and completely leaving the Apple ecosystem. But you don't want to do that, you love Apple too much, so instead you choose to thank your captor for holding you captive. It's your fault they have to do this after all; you can't be trusted to make a decision about which smartwatch you want to use. After all, if you chose a competitor that might be a bad decision that would hurt your security. So Apple is totally justified in preventing you from leaving. Thank you Apple for saving us from ourselves!

It would be one thing to acknowledge Apple's doing something bad here but still decide to use their products because you like their hardware. That would be a cost/benefit trade-off. But actually thanking them for the abuse itself? There's really, legitimately no better way that I can think of to characterize the situation than as Stockholm syndrome.

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#917

Post by tgtweak »

This is pretty much the hallmark of antitrust/monopolistic behavior - apple watch (and airpods) are a significant contribution to Apple's bottom line - by restricting these functions under the guise of security or optimization, and offering them only via privileged abi, and by controlling a sizeable share of the smartphone market, they can effectively kill and stifle competition - even to devices that aren't under Apple's control which is a key case to understanding why this behavior is harmful. If Pebble can't make a functional product work for 40% of their addressable market, it may make their business model impossible.

It's impossible to argue that this isn't intentional and to make the case that this isn't impacting competition, innovation and consumer choice here.

Hopefully someone takes Apple to task over this. If it can be done on Android without jeopardizing the security or optimizations of the phone - it can be done on iOS.

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#918

Post by djfdat »

criddell wrote: post #379
madeofpalk wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the limitations of integrating via notifications? That seems like the user-respecting method. For example, I don't use iMessage or SMS, but WhatsApp.

I'm just guessing, but notification suggests you could respond to an incoming message but maybe you can't initiate an outgoing message?

Haven't looked into this, but along with that:

- Multiple replies

- Edits

- Scheduled send

- Voice message

- Tapbacks

- Message history

- Message order is reliant on notification order

- Delays in the notification system could be different than the messaging system

- Opaque nature of message going from notification system -> messaging system, difficult if message is lost/not sent with no indication of why

Re: Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

#920

Post by culi »

frollogaston wrote: post #353
celsoazevedo wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main difference is that with Firefox no one can use the API. Apple seems to be happy to implement APIs... but only their own products can use them.

Like with headphones. Only AirPods and Beats (owned by Apple) headphones can use their proprietary extensions on top of Bluetooth for improved pairing or better headset-mode quality. Then they removed the jack to wipe out the rest.

So then why did almost all other major smartphone brands follow Apple's lead in removing the headphone jack?
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