7 ms·

Which Apps are threatened by iOS 5

62 points by nanijoe 15y ago

ansy 15y ago
If your app is useful and you don't have a patent don't be surprised if Apple copies it instead of buying you out. Moral: Get a patent or get out of Apple's way. EDIT: To the guys below that say patents don't matter because you can't beat Apple's deep pockets and patent portfolio in court: The patent does matter because after Apple buys you it can beat Google and Microsoft with it in court. Conversely, it doesn't want Google buying you doing the same.
- kenjackson 15y ago
  Maybe the first time someone gave a reasonable reason why a startup may want to consider getting IP protection on HN. With that said, is there anything stopping Apple from adding terms to their app store requiring you to license their technology to them, w/o limitation, for free? Given the strength of their app store, I could see them doing it if they needed to.
- patrickaljord 15y ago
  If you patent it, Apple will look at all the patents your app is infringing and do their app anyway. If you decide to sue them, they'll get back at you with all the patents you're infringing. Remember, patents are only useful for patent trolls (who don't sell software and therefor can't get sued) and for huge companies who have enough patents and money to retaliate.
  - kenjackson 15y ago
    Has that ever happened? I've seen small companies sue large ones -- but I must admit I've never seen a large company retaliate.
    - ansy 15y ago
      Relevant: http://jonathanischwartz.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/good-artists-copy-great-artists-steal/ http://jonathanischwartz.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/good-artis... EDIT: I should clarify it's relevant because of the Kodak case at the bottom. Kodak got away with suing Sun because it was so "small" in the software industry Sun couldn't use any of its own patents defensively to prevent the suit from going to court. Conversely, Apple and Sun never got into a slug-fest because each side infringed on so many of the other's patents that neither side could get an advantage. To get back to my original point, getting a patent will make you an acquisition target. Not because you can sue Apple when it copies you. But because Apple has the pockets to sue Google when it copies you.
      - deleted 15y ago
        [deleted]
      - kenjackson 15y ago
        Thanks for the edit. Sometimes context makes all the difference in the world. I deleted my other post that focused on the size of Sun.
- hvs 15y ago
  And be ready to spend money to defend that patent.
- msbarnett 15y ago
  Or better yet, rather than complaining that your market niche didn't exist, unchanged, in perpetuity, embrace competition and work to differentiate your product and make it better than Apple's offering.
  - nickpinkston 15y ago
    Completely! People still believe in developing new things and not just trying to patent the market into a corner - right?
weaksauce 15y ago
The flip side of this is: "What apps are enabled by iOS 5?"
- turbodog 15y ago
  Just get them into the App Store quick before Apple adds them to iOS 5.x or 6.
dsmithn 15y ago
Most of these are moot for me because my laptop is a Mac and my desktop is Windows 7. Chrome with sync set up, plus Dropbox, and I've covered basically everything on the list.
- joeguilmette 15y ago
  iOS is a mobile operating system.
smackfu 15y ago
It's not like this is new. Apple did the same in OS X. For instance, Spotlight replaced existing search software.
- burke 15y ago
  There's a little bit of a difference here in that Apple has set a precedent of removing applications in competition with features provided by the OS itself.
  - msbarnett 15y ago
    What apps has Apple ever removed because of a feature added to iOS after the app was originally approved for sale in the market? I can't think of any examples.
buster 15y ago
Instead of building those seperate solutions i really think Apple should build some general IPC/sharing model into the OS (like the intent system on android). It would enable so much more integration and open up all applications, i'd love that. I really miss that on my iPad, being able to just send the content i am viewing to random app/page X (articles to read it later, for example). Why rebuild read it later? I guess the only reason is that this would open up the platform a bit more, this would be a horrible scenario: At breakfast i could read the web on my iPad, send interesting articles to "read it later", read those on my android in the train to work and the rest at work on my linux laptop..
nathanb 15y ago
I have no great love for Apple, but the rhetoric around this is simply ridiculous. When a great app comes out, tech sites will say things like "why isn't this a feature of the OS?", but then when they become a feature then the OS vendor gets criticized for "stabbing" app developers.
- pyre 15y ago
  For starters, Apple is known for taking an idea that has many 3rd party solutions, incorporating it into the OS, then presenting it as their own whizz-bang idea. (See Spotlight vs Butler/QuickSilver/LaunchBar)
  - jamesaguilar 15y ago
    nathanb: why is Apple being criticized for doing X? pyre: Apple is doing X. Your comment doesn't really address the question, which is, "Why criticize Apple for not implementing it, then criticize them later for implementing it like you asked them to?"
    - pyre 15y ago
      It does. It has less to do with Apple implementing it or not, and more to do with Apple's lack of acknowledgement of where their inspiration came from. At least in my mind. It's sort of like the difference between copyright infringement and plagiarism.
      - Getahobby 15y ago
        Or the mindset where NBC will bother dedicating time in their nightly news to cover iCloud (stop looking at me that way, yes some people still watch the nightly news) and voila, the general public thinks apple invented the idea of the cloud. Great for Apple, annoying for us that think Jobs doesn't walk on water.
        Steko 15y ago
dpcan 15y ago
True of anything anywhere. Apple is not only your platform, but your competition. Utility apps for Windows have been getting squashed by new versions of Windows for years and years. - I used to run tools to move items around in my Task Bar. Now I can just do that in Windows 7. - Or add-ons that told you the resolution of a photo without having to open it. Now you just roll your mouse over it. - Red-Eye elimination and other basic photo functions showed up in Vista. It's the way of the world. If you are a utility, you may become standard issue.
- throwaway32 15y ago
  with such windows apps, you don't need to worry about Microsoft removing you from the only approved sales conduit.
  - jamesaguilar 15y ago
    No evidence whatsoever that Apple is going to do this with the affected app developers. And it seems like a pretty unlikely move.
    - throwaway32 15y ago
      why, they have removed apps for "duplicating iOS functionality" before.
      - exogen 15y ago
        Have they removed any, or simply not approved them in the first place? (Honest question.) It would be pretty unexpected for them to be retroactively banned.
        kenjackson 15y ago
        Apple removed Camera+ after it was in the app store. They removed them since they found a way to use the volume button as a shutter. Welcome iOS5. http://www.iphonehacks.com/2010/08/apple-removes-camera-iphone-app-from-the-app-store-after-developer-reveals-hack-to-enable-hidden-feature.html http://www.iphonehacks.com/2010/08/apple-removes-camera-ipho... The reason Apple gives is priceless: Your application cannot be added to the App Store because it uses iPhone volume buttons in a non-standard way, potentially resulting in user confusion. Of course, now it's standard. Say cheese.
GrandMasterBirt 15y ago
Dropbox is in no way threatened. Dropbox works on: Mac OSX (10.4+), iOS, Android, Linux, Windows. The new feature works on: Mac OSX 10.7. Sorry NYT get your facts straight.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
alexqgb 15y ago
Given the limitations of iCloud (only backs up purchased music, only syncs productivity docs created in iWork, etc.) I really can't see it killing my love of Dropbox.
tptacek 15y ago
Marco had two arguments on Build & Analyze for why he wasn't overly concerned with Reading List. First, he didn't expect RL to have defer-reading, readability, and sync. But, like everyone's saying, it does. Shit. Second, the defer-reading market is theoretically huge. It's something everyone needs to do. A tiny percentage captured off that market is worth millions of dollars. iP is currently the best synced defer-reading app around and probably will remain so even after Reading List is released. But more importantly, how hard is it to come up with 2-3 killer features to further differentiate iP from Reading List for the tiny fraction of the market required to be successful? I'm sure it's dismaying to see what he expected to be an afterthought feature showcased in the keynote, but I'm still with him on the dynamics of this market. Reading List is not going to be the final word in deferred reading. For whatever it's worth, Marco is the one I feel bad for here. Most of these other applications were so clearly implicated by Apple's roadmap that it's hard for me to get too worked up about it. How do you not cheer for Apple taking steps to replace SMS?
- ChrisLTD 15y ago
  The biggest problem for Marco is that adding articles to Instapaper on your iOS devices is difficult. Adding a bookmarklet on iOS takes 3 or more steps that were difficult even for a grizzled nerd like me. Reading List has absolutely no such friction on any Apple platform.
  - noahth 15y ago
    Did you know that you can also add articles on iOS by copying the URL and opening the Instapaper app? I didn't realize that there was a way to add a bookmarklet to mobile Safari, and I discovered the clipboard method by accident. Not that I use it often, but when I do, it's good enough.
    - ChrisLTD 15y ago
      I've accidentally activated that feature many times :-) As an aside, I really wish Apple would make it easier to add bookmarklets to Safari on iOS. It'd be useful for more than just Instapaper.
jmjerlecki 15y ago
Apple just pulled a Twitter!
mechanical_fish 15y ago
A lot of these arguments just don't seem very well thought out. Apple's todo-list is going to kill Remember The Milk? Maybe, but there are hundreds of todo-list apps in the store already, all with subtly different semantics and presentation, none of which appears to have achieved dominance and killed all the others, even though many are free. Why should Apple's fare any differently? And it's like that in every category. People predicted that Time Machine would kill SuperDuper. Well, it turns out that Time Machine is totally not a replacement for SuperDuper, and SuperDuper is very much alive, thank god. And Time Machine thrives as well, which is good, because the tools have different audiences and purposes. Seems like any article like this one should include a link to that classic article about the guy who had a Starbucks open up next to his indie coffeeshop, and then a year later started looking around for locations near other Starbucks stores to open coffeeshops in. It would be a useful disclaimer, because sometimes the big player co-opts your niche, but sometimes it justs makes your niche more mainstream.
- jeffgreco 15y ago
  Completely agree - in fact, Remember The Milk is likely benefiting from the extra publicity the NYT and others are giving them today.
- panacea 15y ago
  >Why should Apple's fare any differently? Because it's bundled with the OS and will sit on the homescreen of every iOS device going forward? Because, when my wife asked me to research a good to-do list for her the other day, it was because "Milk Sugar Eggs" wasn't on her phone's homescreen?
gallipoli 15y ago
I would worry more about the spotlight this brings on the functionality itself. The mainstreaming of deferred reading without ads is likely to inspire some kind of backlash from the content creators.
blaenk 15y ago
I don't know if Boxcar is all that threatened. The notification wrangling it seemed to do seemed like an after-thought, so no doubt the new notifications will be better. However, I use it and it has always seemed to me that its focus has been to create push notifications for services that otherwise wouldn't have them, such as email, twitter (before the official app added push), and others (they have an API).
pg 15y ago
It looks almost as if they use the existence of startups as a guide for what products to build. Which is not that bad an idea tactically, considering that a successful startup is usually a sign of something that was missing in the world. But it could start to alienate hackers.
- sjwright 15y ago
  By this logic, iOS 6 will include Apple's version of Angry Birds. Sarcasm aside, I get what you're trying to say, but I'm not so worried. It's not like Apple's going to just bundle in every successful business, they're clearly targeting specific gross functionality which benefits from unification. As an end user, I'm very glad there will now be a unified place for to-dos which any app developer can hook into. Cloud storage for all my apps? Cool. A glorified bookmark feature in a web browser? Shocking.
- bane 15y ago
  Perhaps they might start to adopt a different model...instead of company=single product they might revert to a more traditional company=company with a range of offerings. Even my local sandwich shop sells salads, chips and soda.
- BusinessType 15y ago
  I disagree. No one can do what Apple can do for 'cloud services' so they are taking care of that. Now if any developer wants to build 'such-and-such' feature, the cloud is ready to sync that data. Another example: Rich Text Edit: Lots of apps can use that one! I really like what Apple is doing to take care of building services that we can all use, vs. keeping behind some walled garden where we have to either pay to use it or build it ourselves.
- sushrutbidwai 15y ago
  When twitter announced changes in their policies, you had said you will be concern about startups which are building on it. Will you say you are now more concerned about startups (YC or not) which are building innovative apps for iOS?
dominostars 15y ago
"Apple clearly values their developers. They are a source of innovation and development. The company was proud to announce during the keynote that it had paid out more than $2.5 billion to developers." Wait, what? They value developers by taking $1 billion of their revenue, and then eating their lunch?
bergie 15y ago
From the comments of the post: > Hmmm, let's see, I paid my way to WWDC 2011 with my revenue from google ads on my website content - which are removed when using The Read feature in Safari. That content can also be mailed in full with no ads and no attributive link to friends. This is actually also an interesting point. Could it be a sneaky way from Apple to push publishers to go Newsstand as their online ads are not working any longer?
jessedhillon 15y ago
Add another one to the list. Now that the native email client can sign and en/decrypt emails, there's no need for the enterprise email reader from Good http://www.good.com/iphone/ http://www.good.com/iphone/
bergie 15y ago
It seems for most of these, the best way to compete will be to go multi-platform. That is something Apple won't be doing anytime soon. Want a chat app that you can also use to talk to your Android-using friends? etc.
droob 15y ago
So what refinements could Apple make, or what features could they add, without stepping on someone's toes?
warmfuzzykitten 15y ago
It's a natural progression. Applications that add useful features to a platform get assimilated in the platform. The only news is it's happening rather more quickly than in the past. Apple is looking quite nimble.
brisance 15y ago
It seems the author is missing the forest for the trees. It's not iOS 5 itself that is threatening apps, and not just apps. It's the entire Apple ecosystem which includes iOS 5, OS X Lion and iCloud versus everything else. With iCloud being free, and with iOS 5 being deeply integrated with Twitter, Apple is giving Google and FB the finger. No more indexable data through web crawlers.

62 points by nanijoe 15y ago

ansy 15y ago

If your app is useful and you don't have a patent don't be surprised if Apple copies it instead of buying you out. Moral: Get a patent or get out of Apple's way. EDIT: To the guys below that say patents don't matter because you can't beat Apple's deep pockets and patent portfolio in court: The patent does matter because after Apple buys you it can beat Google and Microsoft with it in court. Conversely, it doesn't want Google buying you doing the same.

kenjackson 15y ago
Maybe the first time someone gave a reasonable reason why a startup may want to consider getting IP protection on HN. With that said, is there anything stopping Apple from adding terms to their app store requiring you to license their technology to them, w/o limitation, for free? Given the strength of their app store, I could see them doing it if they needed to.
patrickaljord 15y ago
If you patent it, Apple will look at all the patents your app is infringing and do their app anyway. If you decide to sue them, they'll get back at you with all the patents you're infringing. Remember, patents are only useful for patent trolls (who don't sell software and therefor can't get sued) and for huge companies who have enough patents and money to retaliate.
- kenjackson 15y ago
  Has that ever happened? I've seen small companies sue large ones -- but I must admit I've never seen a large company retaliate.
  - ansy 15y ago
    Relevant: http://jonathanischwartz.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/good-artists-copy-great-artists-steal/ http://jonathanischwartz.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/good-artis... EDIT: I should clarify it's relevant because of the Kodak case at the bottom. Kodak got away with suing Sun because it was so "small" in the software industry Sun couldn't use any of its own patents defensively to prevent the suit from going to court. Conversely, Apple and Sun never got into a slug-fest because each side infringed on so many of the other's patents that neither side could get an advantage. To get back to my original point, getting a patent will make you an acquisition target. Not because you can sue Apple when it copies you. But because Apple has the pockets to sue Google when it copies you.
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
    - kenjackson 15y ago
      Thanks for the edit. Sometimes context makes all the difference in the world. I deleted my other post that focused on the size of Sun.
hvs 15y ago
And be ready to spend money to defend that patent.
msbarnett 15y ago
Or better yet, rather than complaining that your market niche didn't exist, unchanged, in perpetuity, embrace competition and work to differentiate your product and make it better than Apple's offering.
- nickpinkston 15y ago
  Completely! People still believe in developing new things and not just trying to patent the market into a corner - right?

weaksauce 15y ago

The flip side of this is: "What apps are enabled by iOS 5?"

turbodog 15y ago
Just get them into the App Store quick before Apple adds them to iOS 5.x or 6.

dsmithn 15y ago

Most of these are moot for me because my laptop is a Mac and my desktop is Windows 7. Chrome with sync set up, plus Dropbox, and I've covered basically everything on the list.

joeguilmette 15y ago
iOS is a mobile operating system.

smackfu 15y ago

It's not like this is new. Apple did the same in OS X. For instance, Spotlight replaced existing search software.

burke 15y ago
There's a little bit of a difference here in that Apple has set a precedent of removing applications in competition with features provided by the OS itself.
- msbarnett 15y ago
  What apps has Apple ever removed because of a feature added to iOS after the app was originally approved for sale in the market? I can't think of any examples.

buster 15y ago

Instead of building those seperate solutions i really think Apple should build some general IPC/sharing model into the OS (like the intent system on android). It would enable so much more integration and open up all applications, i'd love that. I really miss that on my iPad, being able to just send the content i am viewing to random app/page X (articles to read it later, for example). Why rebuild read it later? I guess the only reason is that this would open up the platform a bit more, this would be a horrible scenario: At breakfast i could read the web on my iPad, send interesting articles to "read it later", read those on my android in the train to work and the rest at work on my linux laptop..

nathanb 15y ago

I have no great love for Apple, but the rhetoric around this is simply ridiculous. When a great app comes out, tech sites will say things like "why isn't this a feature of the OS?", but then when they become a feature then the OS vendor gets criticized for "stabbing" app developers.

pyre 15y ago
For starters, Apple is known for taking an idea that has many 3rd party solutions, incorporating it into the OS, then presenting it as their own whizz-bang idea. (See Spotlight vs Butler/QuickSilver/LaunchBar)
- jamesaguilar 15y ago
  nathanb: why is Apple being criticized for doing X? pyre: Apple is doing X. Your comment doesn't really address the question, which is, "Why criticize Apple for not implementing it, then criticize them later for implementing it like you asked them to?"
  - pyre 15y ago
    It does. It has less to do with Apple implementing it or not, and more to do with Apple's lack of acknowledgement of where their inspiration came from. At least in my mind. It's sort of like the difference between copyright infringement and plagiarism.
    - Getahobby 15y ago
      Or the mindset where NBC will bother dedicating time in their nightly news to cover iCloud (stop looking at me that way, yes some people still watch the nightly news) and voila, the general public thinks apple invented the idea of the cloud. Great for Apple, annoying for us that think Jobs doesn't walk on water.
      - Steko 15y ago

dpcan 15y ago

True of anything anywhere. Apple is not only your platform, but your competition. Utility apps for Windows have been getting squashed by new versions of Windows for years and years. - I used to run tools to move items around in my Task Bar. Now I can just do that in Windows 7. - Or add-ons that told you the resolution of a photo without having to open it. Now you just roll your mouse over it. - Red-Eye elimination and other basic photo functions showed up in Vista. It's the way of the world. If you are a utility, you may become standard issue.

throwaway32 15y ago
with such windows apps, you don't need to worry about Microsoft removing you from the only approved sales conduit.
- jamesaguilar 15y ago
  No evidence whatsoever that Apple is going to do this with the affected app developers. And it seems like a pretty unlikely move.
  - throwaway32 15y ago
    why, they have removed apps for "duplicating iOS functionality" before.
    - exogen 15y ago
      Have they removed any, or simply not approved them in the first place? (Honest question.) It would be pretty unexpected for them to be retroactively banned.
      - kenjackson 15y ago
        Apple removed Camera+ after it was in the app store. They removed them since they found a way to use the volume button as a shutter. Welcome iOS5. http://www.iphonehacks.com/2010/08/apple-removes-camera-iphone-app-from-the-app-store-after-developer-reveals-hack-to-enable-hidden-feature.html http://www.iphonehacks.com/2010/08/apple-removes-camera-ipho... The reason Apple gives is priceless: Your application cannot be added to the App Store because it uses iPhone volume buttons in a non-standard way, potentially resulting in user confusion. Of course, now it's standard. Say cheese.

GrandMasterBirt 15y ago

Dropbox is in no way threatened. Dropbox works on: Mac OSX (10.4+), iOS, Android, Linux, Windows. The new feature works on: Mac OSX 10.7. Sorry NYT get your facts straight.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

alexqgb 15y ago

Given the limitations of iCloud (only backs up purchased music, only syncs productivity docs created in iWork, etc.) I really can't see it killing my love of Dropbox.

tptacek 15y ago

Marco had two arguments on Build & Analyze for why he wasn't overly concerned with Reading List. First, he didn't expect RL to have defer-reading, readability, and sync. But, like everyone's saying, it does. Shit. Second, the defer-reading market is theoretically huge. It's something everyone needs to do. A tiny percentage captured off that market is worth millions of dollars. iP is currently the best synced defer-reading app around and probably will remain so even after Reading List is released. But more importantly, how hard is it to come up with 2-3 killer features to further differentiate iP from Reading List for the tiny fraction of the market required to be successful? I'm sure it's dismaying to see what he expected to be an afterthought feature showcased in the keynote, but I'm still with him on the dynamics of this market. Reading List is not going to be the final word in deferred reading. For whatever it's worth, Marco is the one I feel bad for here. Most of these other applications were so clearly implicated by Apple's roadmap that it's hard for me to get too worked up about it. How do you not cheer for Apple taking steps to replace SMS?

ChrisLTD 15y ago
The biggest problem for Marco is that adding articles to Instapaper on your iOS devices is difficult. Adding a bookmarklet on iOS takes 3 or more steps that were difficult even for a grizzled nerd like me. Reading List has absolutely no such friction on any Apple platform.
- noahth 15y ago
  Did you know that you can also add articles on iOS by copying the URL and opening the Instapaper app? I didn't realize that there was a way to add a bookmarklet to mobile Safari, and I discovered the clipboard method by accident. Not that I use it often, but when I do, it's good enough.
  - ChrisLTD 15y ago
    I've accidentally activated that feature many times :-) As an aside, I really wish Apple would make it easier to add bookmarklets to Safari on iOS. It'd be useful for more than just Instapaper.

jmjerlecki 15y ago

Apple just pulled a Twitter!

mechanical_fish 15y ago

A lot of these arguments just don't seem very well thought out. Apple's todo-list is going to kill Remember The Milk? Maybe, but there are hundreds of todo-list apps in the store already, all with subtly different semantics and presentation, none of which appears to have achieved dominance and killed all the others, even though many are free. Why should Apple's fare any differently? And it's like that in every category. People predicted that Time Machine would kill SuperDuper. Well, it turns out that Time Machine is totally not a replacement for SuperDuper, and SuperDuper is very much alive, thank god. And Time Machine thrives as well, which is good, because the tools have different audiences and purposes. Seems like any article like this one should include a link to that classic article about the guy who had a Starbucks open up next to his indie coffeeshop, and then a year later started looking around for locations near other Starbucks stores to open coffeeshops in. It would be a useful disclaimer, because sometimes the big player co-opts your niche, but sometimes it justs makes your niche more mainstream.

jeffgreco 15y ago
Completely agree - in fact, Remember The Milk is likely benefiting from the extra publicity the NYT and others are giving them today.
panacea 15y ago
>Why should Apple's fare any differently? Because it's bundled with the OS and will sit on the homescreen of every iOS device going forward? Because, when my wife asked me to research a good to-do list for her the other day, it was because "Milk Sugar Eggs" wasn't on her phone's homescreen?

gallipoli 15y ago

I would worry more about the spotlight this brings on the functionality itself. The mainstreaming of deferred reading without ads is likely to inspire some kind of backlash from the content creators.

blaenk 15y ago

I don't know if Boxcar is all that threatened. The notification wrangling it seemed to do seemed like an after-thought, so no doubt the new notifications will be better. However, I use it and it has always seemed to me that its focus has been to create push notifications for services that otherwise wouldn't have them, such as email, twitter (before the official app added push), and others (they have an API).

pg 15y ago

It looks almost as if they use the existence of startups as a guide for what products to build. Which is not that bad an idea tactically, considering that a successful startup is usually a sign of something that was missing in the world. But it could start to alienate hackers.

sjwright 15y ago
By this logic, iOS 6 will include Apple's version of Angry Birds. Sarcasm aside, I get what you're trying to say, but I'm not so worried. It's not like Apple's going to just bundle in every successful business, they're clearly targeting specific gross functionality which benefits from unification. As an end user, I'm very glad there will now be a unified place for to-dos which any app developer can hook into. Cloud storage for all my apps? Cool. A glorified bookmark feature in a web browser? Shocking.
bane 15y ago
Perhaps they might start to adopt a different model...instead of company=single product they might revert to a more traditional company=company with a range of offerings. Even my local sandwich shop sells salads, chips and soda.
BusinessType 15y ago
I disagree. No one can do what Apple can do for 'cloud services' so they are taking care of that. Now if any developer wants to build 'such-and-such' feature, the cloud is ready to sync that data. Another example: Rich Text Edit: Lots of apps can use that one! I really like what Apple is doing to take care of building services that we can all use, vs. keeping behind some walled garden where we have to either pay to use it or build it ourselves.
sushrutbidwai 15y ago
When twitter announced changes in their policies, you had said you will be concern about startups which are building on it. Will you say you are now more concerned about startups (YC or not) which are building innovative apps for iOS?

dominostars 15y ago

"Apple clearly values their developers. They are a source of innovation and development. The company was proud to announce during the keynote that it had paid out more than $2.5 billion to developers." Wait, what? They value developers by taking $1 billion of their revenue, and then eating their lunch?

bergie 15y ago

From the comments of the post: > Hmmm, let's see, I paid my way to WWDC 2011 with my revenue from google ads on my website content - which are removed when using The Read feature in Safari. That content can also be mailed in full with no ads and no attributive link to friends. This is actually also an interesting point. Could it be a sneaky way from Apple to push publishers to go Newsstand as their online ads are not working any longer?

jessedhillon 15y ago

Add another one to the list. Now that the native email client can sign and en/decrypt emails, there's no need for the enterprise email reader from Good http://www.good.com/iphone/ http://www.good.com/iphone/

bergie 15y ago

It seems for most of these, the best way to compete will be to go multi-platform. That is something Apple won't be doing anytime soon. Want a chat app that you can also use to talk to your Android-using friends? etc.

droob 15y ago

So what refinements could Apple make, or what features could they add, without stepping on someone's toes?

warmfuzzykitten 15y ago

It's a natural progression. Applications that add useful features to a platform get assimilated in the platform. The only news is it's happening rather more quickly than in the past. Apple is looking quite nimble.

brisance 15y ago

It seems the author is missing the forest for the trees. It's not iOS 5 itself that is threatening apps, and not just apps. It's the entire Apple ecosystem which includes iOS 5, OS X Lion and iCloud versus everything else. With iCloud being free, and with iOS 5 being deeply integrated with Twitter, Apple is giving Google and FB the finger. No more indexable data through web crawlers.