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What is the “non proprietary” alternative and why should Apple or it’s users be forced to wait on consensus? This is the same reason that Apple wasn’t saddled

What is the “non proprietary” alternative and why should Apple or it’s users be forced to wait on consensus? This is the same reason that Apple wasn’t saddled with the horrible PC “standards” before USB became ubiquitous. Not to mention even today, Bluetooth is a shit show outside of the Apple ecosystem as far as handoff an ease of pairing.

viraptor 4y ago
One of the non-extreme solutions is publishing the doc for the extension + explicit usage grant on any related patents. They don't need to go full standardisation route before the first release. It would still be a proprietary extension under their control, but not a haha-screw-you proprietary.
- samwillis 4y ago
  Apple are religious about interoperability within their platform, making it easy and reliable. If they were to do as you suggested with some of their proprietary tech, there will be products that implement it badly. To the user they would have no idea who’s at fault, and would probably blame the tech in general, damaging Apple. Standardisation, in combination with certification to use the “label”, ensures that people developing on top of their innovation do so well enough that it doesn’t damage the brand. (Somewhat less relevant to an instruction set, and not something I particularly agree with)
  - viraptor 4y ago
    This doesn't really make sense. There are already systems implementing connections to Apple stuff badly due to lack of documentation. The situation would only improve with the publication. For example we already have most of m1 hardware reverse engineered in Asahi - that's not going away. We've had things like air drop and earbuds charge state RE'd too. We'll get amx libraries as well soon.
    - scarface74 4y ago
      “Apple’s stuff” is there hardware + operating system. The benefit of buying “Apple stuff” is the integration between their software and hardware ecosystem.
      - viraptor 4y ago
        Yes, and... That seems irrelevant to the point of my post?
        scarface74 4y ago
        It’s relevant because > For example we already have most of m1 hardware reverse engineered in Asahi - that's not going away. We've had things like air drop and earbuds charge state RE'd too. We'll get amx libraries as well soon. You’re trying to use Apple hardware with non Apple software. If you put Windows on an x86 Mac, do you expect the same experience (or battery life) that you get if you’re running MacOS on an x86 Max?
  - stephc_int13 4y ago
    >interoperability within their platform Isn't this called an oxymoron?
    - samwillis 4y ago
      Quite right, I should have said “ecosystem” really. And obviously this comment, about Apple in general, was a little off topic as a reply to the parent. I know what I was trying to get at, but didn’t convey it well in this context. Oh well.
    - Jcowell 4y ago
      No I’ve seen platforms where interoperability is non existent but it’s still a platform.
- aseipp 4y ago
  ARM literally doesn't allow public instruction set extensions by compliant license holders. Apple is presumably only allowed to do this precisely because they do not sell or otherwise offer their CPUs with any other software, with any other documentation, which hides this implementation detail entirely from all users, and I assume this allowance is worked directly into their specific ARM Architecture License. Apple themselves designed probably half (or more) of the ARMv8 standard themselves. I assume they are pretty aware of what avenues are available to them in this case.
School-Cotton 4y ago
I agree which is also why I’m very disappointed that the EU is forcing Apple into the absolutely horrible USB-C standard. People can buy android phones if they want to. Why remove choice?
- Tuna-Fish 4y ago
  How is USB-c horrible?
  - scarface74 4y ago
    Before I standardized on the cables below, I had USB-C cables in my laptop bag that: - were power only up to 100W. But couldn’t do data. - could do power up to 60W and data at USB2 speeds. But they couldn’t do video over USB-C. I have a USB-C powered portable display that can do power and video directly from my laptop. - a USB-C cable that can do power, video, and data. But I’m still not sure how much data and power it can deliver. - a few smaller USB-C cables that came with my Beats headphones and my Anker battery. I don’t know what they can do. I finally threw away all of my cables besides my MagSafe cable and standardized on these for mobile devices (cheaper and not as thick). https://a.co/d/7e3gH9u https://a.co/d/7e3gH9u But these are truly “universal”. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B093YVRHMB https://www.amazon.com/dp/B093YVRHMB
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - strangemonad 4y ago
    The physical form factor of the “type C” connector is great but that a good example of how broken things are is that anyone can stick that type of connector on pretty much anything - might be usb 1, might just be power delivery, might be usb 3.2, might be real thunderbolt, might be thunderbolt-esque paie framed over usb 3.2 messages, this is before even getting into the wild world of hdmi 1.4 and display port over usb 3. This mess is assuming that the vendor implemented things correctly or is using a compliant controller chip, reality just gets even worse. A simplistic interpretation: Because the consortium wanted to get everyone on board, they allow pretty much any part of the spec to not be complied with. In theory there are various profiles the should be adopted but in practice that hasn’t happened. What happens when I plug in a c-type plug? You just can’t say… and I mean you REALLY just can’t say. Will high power delivery and hdmi work (I’m looking at you broken Nintendo switch usb-c implementation), will you get thunderbolt packets wrapped over usb 3.2? Will you even get high speed? Is the cable active or passive? Will this cable give me high speed data? Will this >3ft cable give me high speed charging or just silently stay at 5v and ~1amp because the resistance on the middle pin is too high on that particular cable. To placate many vendors who wanted to because to produce cheap crap and flood online stores, many parts of the spec do this all without active protocol handshaking and simply fail silently.
stephc_int13 4y ago
Apple Bluetooth is not much better than run-of-the-mill Bluetooth, to be fair. Bluetooth is one of the rare cases where they should have come up with something different and better. (Just kidding, Bluetooth is an abomination and a very weak protocol)
semi-extrinsic 4y ago
> Not to mention even today, Bluetooth is a shit show outside of the Apple ecosystem as far as handoff an ease of pairing. I see people mention this, and I don't get it. I have a bunch of el cheapo Bluetooth audio adapters (car/garage/bathroom), one Bose headset, one Jabra headset, one chi-fi headset, one JBL speaker. They just work. Very occasionally on my Android phone I have to pull down the system tray, click the little arrow next to Bluetooth and select the device I want. But in those few ambiguous situations there is no tech apart from clairvoyance that would allow the phone to know my intentions without my input.
- scarface74 4y ago
  I have a Mac, an iPad, an iPhone, an AppleTV and an Apple Watch. If I’m on my iPad and playing something and put my AirPods Pro in my ear, sound automatically gets sent to my AirPods. The same happens with my Mac and iPhone. It doesn’t happen with the AppleTV since multiple people might be watching. Also once I pair my headphones to one device on my account, it’s automatically paired to all of my devices. The initial pairing process for my phone and iPad is just open the case the first time and a pop up shows up. On the other hand, if I’m on my iPad watching a movie and get a call on my phone, it switches over automatically. It then switches back when I go back to my iPad. If I take one AirPod out of my ear to gear someone, video pauses automatically on whichever device I’m using. Then there are the little touches like being able to control headphone options like noise cancellation and special audio from my phone, iPad, or TV, seeing battery remaining and automatically being registered with Find My.
  - doikor 4y ago
    > If I’m on my iPad and playing something and put my AirPods Pro in my ear, sound automatically gets sent to my AirPods. And for me apple decides to do these switches on its own without my input at times when I do not want this to happen. I have not found a way to disable this yet.
    - scarface74 4y ago
      https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212204 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212204 But is there ever a time that you said “I really wish I had to pair my headphones to each of my devices individually and had to adjust settings by clicking on a button on my headphones and decipher the various beeps”?
nicoco 4y ago
- scarface74 4y ago
  Nah, HN very much downvotes posts showing that maybe a company that controls the entire ecosystem may give users a better experience than a “consensus” of industry experts with an “open” standard.
  - pjmlp 4y ago
    And bonus downvotes if that standard isn't yet another UNIX clone.
vbezhenar 4y ago
Apple did not even bothered to implement proper codec support for their flagship airpods. When I enable mic, audio quality goes to zero. Where's their proprietary standards when they're needed?
- Reason077 4y ago
  Wow, Apple's own headphones have that issue as well? I thought it was just my Sonys that did that!
  - gruez 4y ago
    That's the case for all bluetooth headphones. The reason is that when microphones are enabled, the codec gets downgraded to some crappy one (presumably to free up bandwidth because there are two audio streams?).
    - Reason077 4y ago
      The issue isn't really bandwidth - it's about the host and device agreeing on a suitable codec. On a Mac, my Sony headphones will fall back to the SBC codec if the mic is active. Fine for voice, but music/video/gaming sounds terrible. On Android, however, they will negotiate bi-directional AptX or some similar modern codec, so the quality is much better.
      - sudosysgen 4y ago
        Fun fact though, on Linux you can force high-bitrate SBC on almost any headphone to get almost the same result as AptX.
        srrr 4y ago
        SBC and aptX have the same quality (at the same bit rate). You are most likely talking about SBC XQ and aptX HD: http://soundexpert.org/articles/-/blogs/audio-quality-of-sbc-xq-bluetooth-audio-codec http://soundexpert.org/articles/-/blogs/audio-quality-of-sbc... & https://habr.com/en/post/456182/ https://habr.com/en/post/456182/
dang 4y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32723422 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32723422.
WhyNotHugo 4y ago
> Not to mention even today, Bluetooth is a shit show outside of the Apple ecosystem as far as handoff an ease of pairing. I wish my iPhone's bluetooth worked as well as my Linux laptop. I've no idea why Apple gets so much praise for it's bluetooth, it's not "the worst", but it's not very good either. Is Android really _that_ bad?
- scarface74 4y ago
  Are you using Apple or Beats headphones? If not, BT is going to suck regardless.

viraptor 4y ago

One of the non-extreme solutions is publishing the doc for the extension + explicit usage grant on any related patents. They don't need to go full standardisation route before the first release. It would still be a proprietary extension under their control, but not a haha-screw-you proprietary.

samwillis 4y ago
Apple are religious about interoperability within their platform, making it easy and reliable. If they were to do as you suggested with some of their proprietary tech, there will be products that implement it badly. To the user they would have no idea who’s at fault, and would probably blame the tech in general, damaging Apple. Standardisation, in combination with certification to use the “label”, ensures that people developing on top of their innovation do so well enough that it doesn’t damage the brand. (Somewhat less relevant to an instruction set, and not something I particularly agree with)
- viraptor 4y ago
  This doesn't really make sense. There are already systems implementing connections to Apple stuff badly due to lack of documentation. The situation would only improve with the publication. For example we already have most of m1 hardware reverse engineered in Asahi - that's not going away. We've had things like air drop and earbuds charge state RE'd too. We'll get amx libraries as well soon.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    “Apple’s stuff” is there hardware + operating system. The benefit of buying “Apple stuff” is the integration between their software and hardware ecosystem.
    - viraptor 4y ago
      Yes, and... That seems irrelevant to the point of my post?
      - scarface74 4y ago
        It’s relevant because > For example we already have most of m1 hardware reverse engineered in Asahi - that's not going away. We've had things like air drop and earbuds charge state RE'd too. We'll get amx libraries as well soon. You’re trying to use Apple hardware with non Apple software. If you put Windows on an x86 Mac, do you expect the same experience (or battery life) that you get if you’re running MacOS on an x86 Max?
- stephc_int13 4y ago
  >interoperability within their platform Isn't this called an oxymoron?
  - samwillis 4y ago
    Quite right, I should have said “ecosystem” really. And obviously this comment, about Apple in general, was a little off topic as a reply to the parent. I know what I was trying to get at, but didn’t convey it well in this context. Oh well.
  - Jcowell 4y ago
    No I’ve seen platforms where interoperability is non existent but it’s still a platform.
aseipp 4y ago
ARM literally doesn't allow public instruction set extensions by compliant license holders. Apple is presumably only allowed to do this precisely because they do not sell or otherwise offer their CPUs with any other software, with any other documentation, which hides this implementation detail entirely from all users, and I assume this allowance is worked directly into their specific ARM Architecture License. Apple themselves designed probably half (or more) of the ARMv8 standard themselves. I assume they are pretty aware of what avenues are available to them in this case.

School-Cotton 4y ago

I agree which is also why I’m very disappointed that the EU is forcing Apple into the absolutely horrible USB-C standard. People can buy android phones if they want to. Why remove choice?

Tuna-Fish 4y ago
How is USB-c horrible?
- scarface74 4y ago
  Before I standardized on the cables below, I had USB-C cables in my laptop bag that: - were power only up to 100W. But couldn’t do data. - could do power up to 60W and data at USB2 speeds. But they couldn’t do video over USB-C. I have a USB-C powered portable display that can do power and video directly from my laptop. - a USB-C cable that can do power, video, and data. But I’m still not sure how much data and power it can deliver. - a few smaller USB-C cables that came with my Beats headphones and my Anker battery. I don’t know what they can do. I finally threw away all of my cables besides my MagSafe cable and standardized on these for mobile devices (cheaper and not as thick). https://a.co/d/7e3gH9u https://a.co/d/7e3gH9u But these are truly “universal”. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B093YVRHMB https://www.amazon.com/dp/B093YVRHMB
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- strangemonad 4y ago
  The physical form factor of the “type C” connector is great but that a good example of how broken things are is that anyone can stick that type of connector on pretty much anything - might be usb 1, might just be power delivery, might be usb 3.2, might be real thunderbolt, might be thunderbolt-esque paie framed over usb 3.2 messages, this is before even getting into the wild world of hdmi 1.4 and display port over usb 3. This mess is assuming that the vendor implemented things correctly or is using a compliant controller chip, reality just gets even worse. A simplistic interpretation: Because the consortium wanted to get everyone on board, they allow pretty much any part of the spec to not be complied with. In theory there are various profiles the should be adopted but in practice that hasn’t happened. What happens when I plug in a c-type plug? You just can’t say… and I mean you REALLY just can’t say. Will high power delivery and hdmi work (I’m looking at you broken Nintendo switch usb-c implementation), will you get thunderbolt packets wrapped over usb 3.2? Will you even get high speed? Is the cable active or passive? Will this cable give me high speed data? Will this >3ft cable give me high speed charging or just silently stay at 5v and ~1amp because the resistance on the middle pin is too high on that particular cable. To placate many vendors who wanted to because to produce cheap crap and flood online stores, many parts of the spec do this all without active protocol handshaking and simply fail silently.

stephc_int13 4y ago

Apple Bluetooth is not much better than run-of-the-mill Bluetooth, to be fair. Bluetooth is one of the rare cases where they should have come up with something different and better. (Just kidding, Bluetooth is an abomination and a very weak protocol)

semi-extrinsic 4y ago

> Not to mention even today, Bluetooth is a shit show outside of the Apple ecosystem as far as handoff an ease of pairing. I see people mention this, and I don't get it. I have a bunch of el cheapo Bluetooth audio adapters (car/garage/bathroom), one Bose headset, one Jabra headset, one chi-fi headset, one JBL speaker. They just work. Very occasionally on my Android phone I have to pull down the system tray, click the little arrow next to Bluetooth and select the device I want. But in those few ambiguous situations there is no tech apart from clairvoyance that would allow the phone to know my intentions without my input.

scarface74 4y ago
I have a Mac, an iPad, an iPhone, an AppleTV and an Apple Watch. If I’m on my iPad and playing something and put my AirPods Pro in my ear, sound automatically gets sent to my AirPods. The same happens with my Mac and iPhone. It doesn’t happen with the AppleTV since multiple people might be watching. Also once I pair my headphones to one device on my account, it’s automatically paired to all of my devices. The initial pairing process for my phone and iPad is just open the case the first time and a pop up shows up. On the other hand, if I’m on my iPad watching a movie and get a call on my phone, it switches over automatically. It then switches back when I go back to my iPad. If I take one AirPod out of my ear to gear someone, video pauses automatically on whichever device I’m using. Then there are the little touches like being able to control headphone options like noise cancellation and special audio from my phone, iPad, or TV, seeing battery remaining and automatically being registered with Find My.
- doikor 4y ago
  > If I’m on my iPad and playing something and put my AirPods Pro in my ear, sound automatically gets sent to my AirPods. And for me apple decides to do these switches on its own without my input at times when I do not want this to happen. I have not found a way to disable this yet.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212204 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212204 But is there ever a time that you said “I really wish I had to pair my headphones to each of my devices individually and had to adjust settings by clicking on a button on my headphones and decipher the various beeps”?

nicoco 4y ago

scarface74 4y ago
Nah, HN very much downvotes posts showing that maybe a company that controls the entire ecosystem may give users a better experience than a “consensus” of industry experts with an “open” standard.
- pjmlp 4y ago
  And bonus downvotes if that standard isn't yet another UNIX clone.

vbezhenar 4y ago

Apple did not even bothered to implement proper codec support for their flagship airpods. When I enable mic, audio quality goes to zero. Where's their proprietary standards when they're needed?

Reason077 4y ago
Wow, Apple's own headphones have that issue as well? I thought it was just my Sonys that did that!
- gruez 4y ago
  That's the case for all bluetooth headphones. The reason is that when microphones are enabled, the codec gets downgraded to some crappy one (presumably to free up bandwidth because there are two audio streams?).
  - Reason077 4y ago
    The issue isn't really bandwidth - it's about the host and device agreeing on a suitable codec. On a Mac, my Sony headphones will fall back to the SBC codec if the mic is active. Fine for voice, but music/video/gaming sounds terrible. On Android, however, they will negotiate bi-directional AptX or some similar modern codec, so the quality is much better.
    - sudosysgen 4y ago
      Fun fact though, on Linux you can force high-bitrate SBC on almost any headphone to get almost the same result as AptX.
      - srrr 4y ago
        SBC and aptX have the same quality (at the same bit rate). You are most likely talking about SBC XQ and aptX HD: http://soundexpert.org/articles/-/blogs/audio-quality-of-sbc-xq-bluetooth-audio-codec http://soundexpert.org/articles/-/blogs/audio-quality-of-sbc... & https://habr.com/en/post/456182/ https://habr.com/en/post/456182/

dang 4y ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32723422 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32723422.

WhyNotHugo 4y ago

> Not to mention even today, Bluetooth is a shit show outside of the Apple ecosystem as far as handoff an ease of pairing. I wish my iPhone's bluetooth worked as well as my Linux laptop. I've no idea why Apple gets so much praise for it's bluetooth, it's not "the worst", but it's not very good either. Is Android really _that_ bad?

scarface74 4y ago
Are you using Apple or Beats headphones? If not, BT is going to suck regardless.