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Which raises the question: to what degree does a platform owner have a responsibility to support the businesses of others? Rephrased, Spotify seems to think it

Which raises the question: to what degree does a platform owner have a responsibility to support the businesses of others? Rephrased, Spotify seems to think it has a /right/ to run its software on Apple platforms in an identical fashion to Apple's first-party software. Does that mean Apple has an obligation to provide an equivalent technical capacity for literally any software that runs on its devices? An app store? A payment provider? A cloud provider? A health data store? An update mechanism?

dmitriid 8y ago
EDIT: This is no longer true, and doesn't exist in the guidelines [---- obsolete info ----] Yeah, it's a bit of a grey area. However, App Store policies explicitly forbid apps that duplicate iOS and first-party functionality IIRC. Now that Apple has Maps, and Apple Music, and Podcasts, and..., and... should they enforce those rules? [---- obsolete info ----]
- theli0nheart 8y ago
  > However, App Store policies explicitly forbid apps that duplicate iOS and first-party functionality IIRC. Now that Apple has Maps, and Apple Music, and Podcasts, and..., and... should they enforce those rules? You should probably pull out the relevant quote from the guidelines. I don't think this is a thing anymore, at least in the way you're describing. If they did enforce it it would be a huge blow to the App Store.
  - dmitriid 8y ago
    You're right. This is no longer in the guidelines, updated my comment accordingly
theli0nheart 8y ago
> Which raises the question: to what degree does a platform owner have a responsibility to support the businesses of others? I wish you'd stopped here because this is an interesting question, but the rest of your comment feels like it stretches things a bit. What Spotify seems to be saying (correct me if I'm wrong), is that Apple does provide the technical capabilities for third parties to do as they're asking, but Apple is rejecting proposals purely on whim. It's not like there's not a API to stream music on the Apple Watch or play music through HomePod. It's all there. Apple's just blocking them from using it.
- scarface74 8y ago
  Once you publish an API you’re stuck with supporting it. When I’m hacking around with a library I wrote for my own use, I might do all sorts of things while I’m iterating but don’t want others to consume until they are fully baked. The same thing about not allowing others to use “private APIs”. No guarantees are made about any methods that I didn’t make public. If I change that method in future releases, and your software that depends on it breaks - so be it. Windows is full of backward compatibility hacks because one piece of software that wanted to use an undocumented method. Apple has since day one had APIs that it used privately until they were fully baked and made public. Do you think that Apple waited two or three years to make share extensions public because of competitive reasons?
rorykoehler 8y ago
Is it really a platform if it doesn't support 3rd party businesses?
- mediocrejoker 8y ago
  Who gets to define the term platform? I think this is just arguing semantics.
  - rahoulb 8y ago
    I think that's precisely the point. If the Apple Watch and WatchOS is a device then I expect it to only contain Apple software. If the Apple Watch and WatchOS is a platform then I expect to be able to install 3rd party software on it. The real question is how much feature-parity should 3rd parties expect when developing on another company's platform?
cromwellian 8y ago
Microsoft used to be roundly criticized for supposedly building private APIs into Windows that Microsoft Office was allowed to use either because they were undocumented, or Office got the documentation far ahead of anyone else. I'd say if you're selling $1200 computer devices, one principle of that is ownership and that you get to run what you want, not what Apple wants. We seem to have come a long way on this site from fighting Tivoization of embedded platforms, and unrepairable, unfixable, unhackable consumer electronics, to people making excuses for a super locked down platform, and not even on the excuse that it helps security, but from a philosophical standpoint that somehow Apple is morally right to do whatever they want. Yes, you have a choice of not buying Apple software, just like you had the choice of not buying Windows and using Linux, or building a MythTV instead of a Tivo, but keep in mind, in the latter case, this was only possible because the CableCard standard was forced by law on the cable industry. Apple can maintain their high levels of security and privacy without their 30% cut of subscriptions, it's a false dichotomy to pretend their behavior is anything but rent seeking.
- coldacid 8y ago
  >Microsoft used to be roundly criticized for supposedly building private APIs into Windows that Microsoft Office was allowed to use either because they were undocumented, or Office got the documentation far ahead of anyone else. At the same time though, Microsoft wasn't preventing other developers from using those hidden APIs (if they could find them) nor preventing them from publishing their own competing apps. Sure, Microsoft's behaviour at the time was anti-competitive and sometimes even predatory, but they were never so on Windows to the extent that Apple is today on iOS.
abelsson 8y ago
> Rephrased, Spotify seems to think it has a /right/ to run its software on Apple platforms in an identical fashion to Apple's first-party software. Does that mean Apple has an obligation to provide an equivalent technical capacity for literally any software that runs on its devices? Yes. > An app store? A payment provider? A cloud provider? A health data store? An update mechanism? Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes and Yes. To do otherwise, is to invite platform owners to be (potentially abusive) monopolists with a license to favor their own services instead of promoting and maintaining fair competition in markets on top of that platform. In western societies, since the last century, that has been behavior which has been regulated by law and courts.
- londons_explore 8y ago
  For comparison, Android keeps a very clear line between the 'Platform', and the 'Apps'. Every API on the platform is available to all apps which have the necessary permissions. Sure, it might look like Google has taken over key low level features of the device like updates and wifi location, but in fact from the platform perspective, all those components have an open API and can be replaced. The only fly in the ointment here is some of the API's require powerful permissions which aren't allowed in store apps, but you can still sideload them, or use an alternate store.
  - throwaway198389 8y ago
    This may have changed recently, haven't used an Android in a bit, but this wasn't true (and still probably isn't). Specifically my company wanted to break our app into multiple apps and give a way for people to easily install the companions. If you send the user to the Play Store page, about 75% of users would dropoff, in user studies much of it was confusion about what to do once they saw the play store page. Google has an api that is a much simpler flow than the full store experience which has much lower user dropoff. If you're curious where it's used, one example is the Google Drive app to install the Docs, Sheets, etc. The API validates that the calling app is an app signed by the Google dev cert. This isn't a security issue, you could just ship one app with all the functionality. It's clear they just wanted to reduce user drop off in a flow, but now provide that option to others. I understand the potential for abuse even though the api still checked with the user. It wouldn't bother me if no one had access to the API, we'd just have to deal with it. But it felt anti-competitive that Google had it and we did not. IIRC there are a few other similar non-security private APIs and they also felt anti-competitive to us. That said, it was no where near on the order of Apple, where it's commonplace on iOS.
Hamuko 8y ago
You can also ask if Netflix has a /right/ to send their videos to consumers using Comcast's network. Or if Bing has a /right/ to be accessible on Google Chrome.
- berbec 8y ago
  Thanks to recent FCC rule changes, the answer in the USA is: "For Now...."
buboard 8y ago
> to what degree does a platform owner have a responsibility to support the businesses of others? Perhaps they should not be allowed (by law) to change the terms of the platform for X amount of time.

dmitriid 8y ago

EDIT: This is no longer true, and doesn't exist in the guidelines [---- obsolete info ----] Yeah, it's a bit of a grey area. However, App Store policies explicitly forbid apps that duplicate iOS and first-party functionality IIRC. Now that Apple has Maps, and Apple Music, and Podcasts, and..., and... should they enforce those rules? [---- obsolete info ----]

theli0nheart 8y ago
> However, App Store policies explicitly forbid apps that duplicate iOS and first-party functionality IIRC. Now that Apple has Maps, and Apple Music, and Podcasts, and..., and... should they enforce those rules? You should probably pull out the relevant quote from the guidelines. I don't think this is a thing anymore, at least in the way you're describing. If they did enforce it it would be a huge blow to the App Store.
- dmitriid 8y ago
  You're right. This is no longer in the guidelines, updated my comment accordingly

theli0nheart 8y ago

> Which raises the question: to what degree does a platform owner have a responsibility to support the businesses of others? I wish you'd stopped here because this is an interesting question, but the rest of your comment feels like it stretches things a bit. What Spotify seems to be saying (correct me if I'm wrong), is that Apple does provide the technical capabilities for third parties to do as they're asking, but Apple is rejecting proposals purely on whim. It's not like there's not a API to stream music on the Apple Watch or play music through HomePod. It's all there. Apple's just blocking them from using it.

scarface74 8y ago
Once you publish an API you’re stuck with supporting it. When I’m hacking around with a library I wrote for my own use, I might do all sorts of things while I’m iterating but don’t want others to consume until they are fully baked. The same thing about not allowing others to use “private APIs”. No guarantees are made about any methods that I didn’t make public. If I change that method in future releases, and your software that depends on it breaks - so be it. Windows is full of backward compatibility hacks because one piece of software that wanted to use an undocumented method. Apple has since day one had APIs that it used privately until they were fully baked and made public. Do you think that Apple waited two or three years to make share extensions public because of competitive reasons?

rorykoehler 8y ago

Is it really a platform if it doesn't support 3rd party businesses?

mediocrejoker 8y ago
Who gets to define the term platform? I think this is just arguing semantics.
- rahoulb 8y ago
  I think that's precisely the point. If the Apple Watch and WatchOS is a device then I expect it to only contain Apple software. If the Apple Watch and WatchOS is a platform then I expect to be able to install 3rd party software on it. The real question is how much feature-parity should 3rd parties expect when developing on another company's platform?

cromwellian 8y ago

Microsoft used to be roundly criticized for supposedly building private APIs into Windows that Microsoft Office was allowed to use either because they were undocumented, or Office got the documentation far ahead of anyone else. I'd say if you're selling $1200 computer devices, one principle of that is ownership and that you get to run what you want, not what Apple wants. We seem to have come a long way on this site from fighting Tivoization of embedded platforms, and unrepairable, unfixable, unhackable consumer electronics, to people making excuses for a super locked down platform, and not even on the excuse that it helps security, but from a philosophical standpoint that somehow Apple is morally right to do whatever they want. Yes, you have a choice of not buying Apple software, just like you had the choice of not buying Windows and using Linux, or building a MythTV instead of a Tivo, but keep in mind, in the latter case, this was only possible because the CableCard standard was forced by law on the cable industry. Apple can maintain their high levels of security and privacy without their 30% cut of subscriptions, it's a false dichotomy to pretend their behavior is anything but rent seeking.

coldacid 8y ago
>Microsoft used to be roundly criticized for supposedly building private APIs into Windows that Microsoft Office was allowed to use either because they were undocumented, or Office got the documentation far ahead of anyone else. At the same time though, Microsoft wasn't preventing other developers from using those hidden APIs (if they could find them) nor preventing them from publishing their own competing apps. Sure, Microsoft's behaviour at the time was anti-competitive and sometimes even predatory, but they were never so on Windows to the extent that Apple is today on iOS.

abelsson 8y ago

> Rephrased, Spotify seems to think it has a /right/ to run its software on Apple platforms in an identical fashion to Apple's first-party software. Does that mean Apple has an obligation to provide an equivalent technical capacity for literally any software that runs on its devices? Yes. > An app store? A payment provider? A cloud provider? A health data store? An update mechanism? Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes and Yes. To do otherwise, is to invite platform owners to be (potentially abusive) monopolists with a license to favor their own services instead of promoting and maintaining fair competition in markets on top of that platform. In western societies, since the last century, that has been behavior which has been regulated by law and courts.

londons_explore 8y ago
For comparison, Android keeps a very clear line between the 'Platform', and the 'Apps'. Every API on the platform is available to all apps which have the necessary permissions. Sure, it might look like Google has taken over key low level features of the device like updates and wifi location, but in fact from the platform perspective, all those components have an open API and can be replaced. The only fly in the ointment here is some of the API's require powerful permissions which aren't allowed in store apps, but you can still sideload them, or use an alternate store.
- throwaway198389 8y ago
  This may have changed recently, haven't used an Android in a bit, but this wasn't true (and still probably isn't). Specifically my company wanted to break our app into multiple apps and give a way for people to easily install the companions. If you send the user to the Play Store page, about 75% of users would dropoff, in user studies much of it was confusion about what to do once they saw the play store page. Google has an api that is a much simpler flow than the full store experience which has much lower user dropoff. If you're curious where it's used, one example is the Google Drive app to install the Docs, Sheets, etc. The API validates that the calling app is an app signed by the Google dev cert. This isn't a security issue, you could just ship one app with all the functionality. It's clear they just wanted to reduce user drop off in a flow, but now provide that option to others. I understand the potential for abuse even though the api still checked with the user. It wouldn't bother me if no one had access to the API, we'd just have to deal with it. But it felt anti-competitive that Google had it and we did not. IIRC there are a few other similar non-security private APIs and they also felt anti-competitive to us. That said, it was no where near on the order of Apple, where it's commonplace on iOS.

Hamuko 8y ago

You can also ask if Netflix has a /right/ to send their videos to consumers using Comcast's network. Or if Bing has a /right/ to be accessible on Google Chrome.

berbec 8y ago
Thanks to recent FCC rule changes, the answer in the USA is: "For Now...."

buboard 8y ago

> to what degree does a platform owner have a responsibility to support the businesses of others? Perhaps they should not be allowed (by law) to change the terms of the platform for X amount of time.