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When it comes to shitty interoperability, Google takes the cake. No one ever claimed FaceTime works on your android. They wanted to open source it and got fuck

When it comes to shitty interoperability, Google takes the cake. No one ever claimed FaceTime works on your android. They wanted to open source it and got fucked on patents. Try using gmail to send a regular iCalendar format invite to an event. If they just happen to have used that email for a google account, fuck you it ends up in the Google calendar account they likely didn't know they even had, and never goes to their email. THAT is unexpected, and arguably deceptive behaviour.

ethanbond 10y ago
Is there any more info on trying to open source FaceTime? I've never heard of this before and seems interesting.
- stephenr 10y ago
  Jobs said it at the keynote when FaceTime was announced. They never managed to follow through, and ultimately had to change the way FaceTime works, because of a lawsuit by a patent troll.
  - izacus 10y ago
    Apple, richest company on the world, couldn't pay for a patent on their chat protocol to make it open? :/
  - deong 10y ago
    But they did do the work to circumvent the patent. "Patents" can't logically be the reason FaceTime isn't an open standard today. I doubt they ever were. Apple simply realized that FaceTime was an effective sales driver for iOS hardware and wanted to keep that competitive advantage more than they wanted to follow through on Jobs's promise.
    - aljones 10y ago
      The patents forced them to route through their own servers instead of peer to peer. Seems like a logical reason not to make that an open standard to me.
      - brazzledazzle 10y ago
        Couldn't they have made it an open standard and required an account with them to communicate with their users? An open standard would have resulted in cross-platform clients. Correct me if I'm wrong but I've read that they actively shutdown or circumvent projects to create other clients. If they really didn't consider it a strategic asset to push people to iOS I doubt they'd bother with that.
        aljones 10y ago
        I think there are plausible reasons that could have changed their plans for them. Who knows if they would have actually followed through with the original plan or what their true reasons are. I don't know. That they changed their implementation to relay all video through their servers is known. They said so in court.
        deong 10y ago
        I guess they could be saying that they don't want to run servers for competitors to connect to, but under patent law, there's clearly nothing preventing them from doing so.

ethanbond 10y ago

Is there any more info on trying to open source FaceTime? I've never heard of this before and seems interesting.

stephenr 10y ago
Jobs said it at the keynote when FaceTime was announced. They never managed to follow through, and ultimately had to change the way FaceTime works, because of a lawsuit by a patent troll.
- izacus 10y ago
  Apple, richest company on the world, couldn't pay for a patent on their chat protocol to make it open? :/
- deong 10y ago
  But they did do the work to circumvent the patent. "Patents" can't logically be the reason FaceTime isn't an open standard today. I doubt they ever were. Apple simply realized that FaceTime was an effective sales driver for iOS hardware and wanted to keep that competitive advantage more than they wanted to follow through on Jobs's promise.
  - aljones 10y ago
    The patents forced them to route through their own servers instead of peer to peer. Seems like a logical reason not to make that an open standard to me.
    - brazzledazzle 10y ago
      Couldn't they have made it an open standard and required an account with them to communicate with their users? An open standard would have resulted in cross-platform clients. Correct me if I'm wrong but I've read that they actively shutdown or circumvent projects to create other clients. If they really didn't consider it a strategic asset to push people to iOS I doubt they'd bother with that.
      - aljones 10y ago
        I think there are plausible reasons that could have changed their plans for them. Who knows if they would have actually followed through with the original plan or what their true reasons are. I don't know. That they changed their implementation to relay all video through their servers is known. They said so in court.
      - deong 10y ago
        I guess they could be saying that they don't want to run servers for competitors to connect to, but under patent law, there's clearly nothing preventing them from doing so.