11 ms·

Aspiring partners accuse Apple of copying their ideas

128 points by SirLJ 4y ago

sbate1987 3y ago
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cyclecount 4y ago
This has been true for many. many iOS releases. The good apps that become essential eventually get built into the operating system. This happened with sleep trackers, menstruation trackers, numerous other HealthKit apps, SwiftKey/Skype, Tile (the AirTag-like thing), camera features borrowed from the best third party camera apps, the list goes on and on. Building for iOS is a great way to show Apple that there's a market for something :)
- newsclues 4y ago
  Same as Amazon marketplace. If you prove an idea is successful on a large platform, that idea gets used by the platform directly.
  - explorer83 4y ago
    This happened to an e-commerce business I did some work for. They became a top seller in their product category but then found themselves competing with Amazon. Only the manufacturers themselves could compete at that point.
    - newsclues 3y ago
      Grocery stores do the same thing. New product category of some food or condiment suddenly starts selling, the store has the sales data and finds someone to make the same thing and sells it under a house brand.
- bryanrasmussen 4y ago
  yes for a large enough portion of the population - if your app is useful for every kid, every adult or all of one general traditional gender - that's a big market - if you're very successful the platform will take over. If on the other hand you have the top selling real estate portfolio management app in the world I don't expect the platform will fold that up in their offerings, even if you are making more money on that than any of the apps with more universal appeal.
  - waboremo 4y ago
    >If on the other hand you have the top selling real estate portfolio management app in the world I don't expect the platform will fold that up in their offerings Why not? In hindsight, we see "menstrual tracking" as an obvious fit now for a more complete Apple Health, but it's very easy to apply that same exact thinking to menstrual tracking. Using your real estate portfolio management app, ok maybe Apple doesn't replicate it exactly as is, but what's stopping them from turning Apple Home into a more complete home control experience, where you can buy and sell in an easier way or incorporate Airbnb elements. Heck, having more control over your home totally fits their privacy MO. It might seem far fetched now if you don't have the vision, but again same about things like health tracking just 8 years ago! So I would rethink this angle, I don't believe the determining factor is if it's a big market vs a niche market. A weather app is a niche market, yet they gobbled that up. An infinite canvas brainstorming app is a niche market, here comes Apple's Freeform.
    - bryanrasmussen 3y ago
      actually I guess I was unclear earlier, when I said real estate portfolio management I was thinking about a real estate agent managing the properties they needed to flog and contacts for said flogging. >A weather app is a niche market, yet they gobbled that up. I guess you and I will have to agree to disagree about how much of the population is affected by the weather, I say all of it, you evidently much less. Gobbling it up is actually interesting for weather apps, because the weather app, and the clock and other apps that have to do with stuff that everyone in the world needs is basically the kind of thing my argument says will always happen for a platform. >>If on the other hand you have the top selling real estate portfolio management app in the world I don't expect the platform will fold that up in their offerings >Why not? Apple's main business is selling devices with other ancillary businesses growing up to support this primary business, of course from outside it can look like these ancillary businesses are very nice to have indeed and any one of us might be happy to have them but for Apple they are rounding errors. And if you have one of these businesses already and Apple comes calling then it's like the WSJ article points out - not good for your business because Apple might just decide to pack it up in their platform and give it away for free or provide a much better implementation than you can and up the profile of their apps in their store. But in the end Apple is mainly interested in making one of these apps because it enhances their platform for the general population (or their historical target demographics that are still of some importance to the Apple brand). Thus Apple is not going to be making apps targeted at lawyers even though such apps might make a LOT of money because a lawyer app LOT of money to Apple is a pittance.
- est31 4y ago
  The funniest part is when an apple/big tech recruiter contacts you, you get to explain your app's design choices during the interview process, they don't hire you and launch that competitor of yours.
  - brookst 4y ago
    If a big company is so bereft of design ideas they have a process to collect them from interview debrief and build them into product requirements, that company is dead. I'm very skeptical that ever happens. I'm sure that there have been times when someone mentioned design / arch / marketing strategies in an interview and later saw the same thing implemented, but I mean have have had multiple times in my life where I told nobody an idea and still saw it implemented somewhere else. Ideas are not half as unique as people like to think they are.
  - herculity275 4y ago
    Does this actually happen outside of Silicon Valley plotlines? I can't see a SWE interview debrief having enough detail to leak anything useful about a competitor that you wouldn't have gathered through common sense.
    - est31 3y ago
      I've seen it mentioned multiple times here on this site, but I haven't remembered the link and don't really know how to search for it.
  - STM32F030R8 4y ago
    The least believable part of your story is that the recruiter could somehow understand the tech and steal it
- cced 4y ago
  Also happened with the app called 'Workflows' which is now known as 'Shortcuts'.
  - darthnebula 4y ago
    Apple bought Workflow, it wasn't Sherlocked.
    - cced 4y ago
      I know, OP said the apps get integrated into iOS, was just adding to the set of apps that got built in.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  As a consumer, I prefer Apple building all of that into the OS because I assume any other business will sell out at some point. I recall quite a bit of bad publicity when the menstruation trackers were found to be selling data.
  - osigurdson 4y ago
    The nice thing about Apple is it's incentives are not misaligned. Its revenues are largely based on selling products, not people's data. Whether or not they sell data anyway is perhaps an open question but decisions should tend to err on the side of product sales and most consumers want to control their data.
    - snapplebobapple 4y ago
      That just tells me the next wave of revenue growth will come from aligning those incentives....
    - fakedang 4y ago
      The growth in Apple advertising belies this thesis.
  - wpm 4y ago
    I typically do too until they incorporate some feature in a bad way. See: Dark Sky.
    - MrDunham 4y ago
      Can we all agree not to mention Dark Sky anymore? I'm not through the grieving process yet. But seriously, what a great app that is sorely missed now.
    - scarface74 4y ago
      And Apple also made the API available to both Android and Apple developers.
    - CharlesW 4y ago
- osigurdson 4y ago
  I believe this is why ycombinator does not recommend building a business on top of another company's platform. I suspect OpenAI based businesses will eventually learn this lesson.
  - robertlagrant 4y ago
    I imagine many would like to be bought ASAP.
  - illiarian 4y ago
    It's fine to build a business on top of another company's platform. You do need a contingency plan, especially if what you offer can be easily replicated in that platform.
    - realusername 4y ago
      There's no contingency plan possible on mobile unfortunately, you can't remotely switch customers to another platform.
      - mejutoco 4y ago
        A PWA could work in some cases, depending on the capabilities needed.
    - gabereiser 4y ago
      Apple vs Epic Games is currently challenging this in courts over Fortnite. You can play on other platforms but the argument is on mobile, you're forced to use their walled garden and let them take 30%.
      - waboremo 4y ago
        Yes, and as per the very recent ruling, one would suggest that ycombinator is entirely correct in regards to not relying on a singular other company's platform, since they've decided that Apple is within their rights in regards to a walled garden.
- brookst 4y ago
  Isn't this true any time you build a business adding a small bit of value to a larger platform? The aftermarket showed carmakers demand for superchargers, cup holders, and bigger wheels. Third parties, including Microsoft, showed Google the demand for Gmail. And on and on. I am forever at a loss at people's surprise and dismay that a large platform maker will seek to improve their platform by incorporating features that their users are signaling are missing by acquiring from third parties.
- numpad0 4y ago
  This just occurred to me: there is 100% chance that there is Genshin clone by Apple by the end of the decade. Microsoft already has Steve from Minecraft, Apple will have a 14 years old girl on Apple Campus Lunar in aluminium boots over latex suit, named, say, Isaac, at which point the online landscape will be so absurd that Zuckerberg in Meta avatar explaining their Nintendo partnership is going to look as natural and comforting as an Uber Orbit’d bowl of soup out at the side of a mountain in rural Mongolia. And I bet, the audiences’ focus in 2029 WWDC Keynote will be, whether she will finally reveal her $19840/mo. R18+ plans on iPatreon.
- MildlySerious 4y ago
  I recall there being a thing about a drum machine app, as well, and iirc F.lux had faced anti competitive behavior as well.
- detourdog 4y ago
  iOS is a platform and I think it can be argued that platforms are stronger with generic implementations of things most people use. Apple doing this pre-dates Sherlock. The patent aspect is disturbing on the face of it becuase it seems to go beyond healthy competition. I would just argue that platforms should integrate generic features. We all sleep and why can't I get a taste of what a sleep monitor is like as seamlessly as possible. If Apple's built in platform has a better implementation than a company specializing in sleep monitoring I see it as raising the table stakes. Apple showed the world there was a market for an always connected capacitive touchscreen slab. The world keeps changing and what was once an App becomes a feature.
- rekoil 4y ago
  SwiftKey is still the only keyboard that supports fluently typing both Swedish and English without switching layouts in iOS. It is literally the only keyboard I can use, and Microsoft was about to kill it in 2022, thankfully they changed their mind and finally implemented a feature I'd been requesting for 2 years, the ability to access the input cursor by long-pressing spacebar. Long-pressing spacebar was previously reserved for changing input layout, and only appeared (and replaced input cursor) when multiple layouts were selected, which is required on SwiftKey for iOS when having both Swedish and English enabled, even though SwiftKey for Android allows users to select the Swedish QWERTY layout for the English language, resulting in two languages but only one layout enabled, and input cursor would continue working.
bejd 4y ago
https://archive.is/XTm5v https://archive.is/XTm5v
toyg 4y ago
I find it funny how people just don't learn from history. There is even a term for it, and it comes from the same exact behaviour from the same exact company: https://www.howtogeek.com/297651/what-does-it-mean-when-a-company-sherlocks-an-app/ https://www.howtogeek.com/297651/what-does-it-mean-when-a-co... Apple don't care one iota for any developer on their platforms.
- echelon 4y ago
  The developer is building on Apple's system and owes the entire opportunity to Apple. Without Apple they wouldn't be able to develop the app or find customers for it.
  - gbil 4y ago
    Equally superficial reading of this ends up to the following statement: Apple is building it's ecosystem on developers. Without developers Apple wouldn't be able to build an ecosystem and find customers for it
    - ninkendo 4y ago
      This isn’t necessarily true. You can actually have quite a useful device by only using Apple’s software. As a customer, I don’t need third party apps on my iPhone. (There are only one or two third party apps I actually use, and my phone would still be 95% as useful without them.)
      - prettyStandard 4y ago
        I assume that other 5% is the internet?
        ninkendo 3y ago
        No? I use safari as my web browser, which is written by Apple. I didn’t say “no third party content of any kind”, and this discussion is about app stores after all. Apple not having an App Store would still mean I get to keep safari, so the phone is still 95% as useful. I’d miss my baby feeding tracking app and… not much else.
acegopher 4y ago
This was true of Microsoft in the 1990's. Just ask Gary Kildall among others. My personal brush with this was in a startup I was at 3 years before RFC 2616 (HTTP compression). We had developed a client proxy and server that would not only compress HTML pages but also bundle in a zip file all the images (TCP connection ramp up time was a thing) and it dramatically sped up page load on what was then a slow internet. Microsoft came sniffing, on the pretense they were interested in buying our company or at least licensing. But then they ghosted us, and if I recall correctly, those features ended up in IIS and Internet Explorer as proprietary extensions, when Microsoft was trying to embrace and extend the web to beat Netscape.
- acegopher 4y ago
  I should say it was 3 years before RFC 2068 (2616 superseded). When Microsoft came out with their extension, and then it eventually ended up in HTTP/1.1 (or at least some version of it), we pivoted to a primarily client-side product that offered read-ahead caching, metasearch (could perform a query on multiple search engines like Hotbot, Altavista, Infoseek, etc. -- this was pre-Google) and save and integrate the results. It would also then rerun those queries periodically and highlight new results, and you could save or bookmark. We also used that search technology in a product that would monitor trademark use, which companies used to keep track of where and how their trademarks or brand names were being used. We never made enough to keep that side of the business running, while the web consulting/development side grew and grew. These were pre-2000 days when businesses were wanting to "get online".
  - tpmx 4y ago
    Would you be able to share any more details on the startup - privacy allowing? What tech were you using on the client (Windows 3.x/95?)/server-side? Did WebTV/MSN TV do anything of this? (Fascinated with early HTTP/web optimization tech because of my part in creating the much later Opera Mini - launched mid 2005.)
    - acegopher 4y ago
      Sure thing! I was on the client-side, and joined in 1995, when there was already a version 1 of the compression/connection piece. I started work and was lead on the search product. If I remember correctly, we were developing on Windows 3.1 with Microsoft Visual C/C++ 7.0 to start and then moved to Windows 95 and Visual C++. We used Microsoft Foundation Classes, as well as Rogue Wave libraries (tools.h++ I believe). We were funded by some guys who had made a lot of money in government software contracts (we were near a major Airforce base). Here is a Google folder link with some scans of contemporaneous ads and press coverage: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0BzleZlz4NcDSMDc0VTBpdG9uU3c?resourcekey=0-qS2PqIhUXs0XzuUKh1jlSA&usp=share_link https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0BzleZlz4NcDSMDc0VTBp...
nokamok 4y ago
“We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas,” Apple co-founder Steve Jobs once said.
- tibbydudeza 4y ago
  Or in the case of Dropbox - you are just a feature - he was right considering how obnoxious the Dropbox client has become.
gumballindie 4y ago
"Greed is eternal." - The 10th rule of acquisition.
bitL 4y ago
Can't you get them to sign a contract before the brain rape starts that they pay close to acquisition sum when features resembling yours based on similar decisions end up in their portfolio?
- brookst 4y ago
  Nobody would ever sign such a contract. Because the moment they did, the startup would declare that they were worth eleventy billion dollars. Pay up or you can never ship a competing product! If you really see acquisition diligence as rape, probably just stay out of business.
  - bitL 4y ago
    There was some ancient startup wisdom summarized as "never talk to business development of other companies".
    - fakedang 4y ago
      https://www.paulgraham.com/corpdev.html https://www.paulgraham.com/corpdev.html
- scarface74 4y ago
  It’s funny that tech workers (rightfully) were up in arms when there was industry wide collusion over poaching each other’s employees and now they are complaining that big ole mean Apple is offering engineers twice their compensation. Not to mention I would (and do) take RSUs in a public company any day over statistically meaningless equity in a startup any day.
deleted 4y ago
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madsbuch 4y ago
Isn't this what patents ought to solve? Or is that only when it is the other way around?
- 3D30497420 4y ago
  That is covered in the article. Basically, Apple will contest the patents to get them invalidated. It seems this tactic is often deployed punitively. If the infringed company sues Apple, instead of settling or contesting the infringement suit, Apple attempts to get the patents invalidated. Apple is accused of even contesting patents unrelated to the suit that the company has also been granted. It also notes that defending a patent can cost millions of dollars. So... yes, in theory. But in practice, the side with the deeper pockets wins.
  - UncleEntity 4y ago
    Most software patents are utter and complete BS so I have no problem with someone trying to get them invalidated. If they are valid, unique and original ideas then they should have no problem standing up to a challenge.
tibbydudeza 4y ago
In the past I always wondered why Apple would ship a custom browser and email client for iOS/MacOS - they should provide core functionality of an OS but that line seems to have blurred with "customer experience". Microsoft is doing nearly the same thing via Office365 - OneNote,Office,Teams and Edge rather than WebView2. It is hard using a third party program on Windows because it is so glaring obvious it looks rather weird.
solarkraft 4y ago
I'm okay with them entering a market. They do their stuff well. What I'm very much not okay with is that they don't play by their own rules. They're the only company that can provide the services iCloud provides. Their apps regularly get capabilities that no other app can have. Platform advantage is a big problem that needs regulation. I hope that the Digital Markets Act is an attempt at this, but I worry that it won't go far enough and not touch the areas where I think it's the most needed. Come on regulators, start treating Apple like Microsoft. If you can force Microsoft to unbundle IE and Teams, why can't you make Apple unbundle iCloud? They're a monopoly on their platform and their platform is the only option many users have (for a variety of reasons).
- scarface74 4y ago
  Microsoft was never forced to unbundle Microsoft or Teams. > They're a monopoly on their platform and their platform is the only option many users have (for a variety of reasons). This is prima facie a horrible nonsensical argument that a judge just said was false yesterday.
  - hatsix 4y ago
    First off: If you're going to reference something as a way of proving your point, without any other supporting evidence, please post a link. Secondly: Microsoft voluntarily changed their practices regarding IE and Teams in order to appease regulators during active litigation. Their practices regarding IE happened during the US v Microsoft that required MS be split, but was later appealed, and given the changes that happened in the meantime, the DoJ agreed to not seek to break up MS. The Teams unbundling is actively happening now, see: https://www.engadget.com/microsoft-will-reportedly-unbundle-teams-from-office-to-avoid-antitrust-concerns-183139403.html https://www.engadget.com/microsoft-will-reportedly-unbundle-... It's undisputed that they are a monopoly on their platform. It's a legal finding that they are a duopoly when it comes to "Mobile Gaming" and that several of their practices violate anti-competitive laws. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_Games_v._Apple#Decision https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_Games_v._Apple#Decision The OP is saying that Apple should be held to the same standards that Microsoft/IE was and be forced to allow other marketplaces on their phones. 35 States Attorneys General, AND Microsoft agree with this and have filed Amicus Briefs to this point. This is not some fringe viewpoint. At the very least, Apple should be forced to allow full browsers on their platform, not wrappers around the safari rendering engine, which is directly in-line with the changes made during the US v Microsoft lawsuit and subsequent settlement, and while there was no legal finding related to these changes, they appeased the DoJ enough to settle.
robg 4y ago
Counterpoint: When we were developing a smartwatch for brain health, I was invited to give a talk to the Apple watch team in 2013. What I talked about was up to me and from the questions asked I was able to see behind the curtain of what the team was working on. In follow ups we talked about the science and user experiences but wasn’t asked to divulge any secrets. Had Watch launched with or included the capabilities, maybe I’d feel differently, but I understand in the time since why brain health is so challenging even for the big companies. I pushed them to include blood oxygenation for athletes given that application would lower component costs for us with patients. And yet, says a lot, the team took years to get that right. By contrast EKG and PPG were already being commoditized by the time Watch included those capabilities. AliveCor and Valencell do both really well, but the protectability is not as deep a competitive moat.
ttul 4y ago
It’s not just the big guys who steal ideas. Unless you have an agreement in place prohibiting a partner from copying the ideas you shared with them, they are generally free to do so. Get a sharp lawyer and never just sign someone’s “boilerplate NDA”. At the very least, understand what you are allowing the other party to do with the information you share. If you push back, even Apple may have an alternative NDA they’re willing to sign that is less promiscuous.
NelsonMinar 4y ago
The other half of this is how Apple never shares anything or collaborates outside its walls. I can't tell you how many good engineers I know who took a job at Apple and then immediately disappeared. Websites taken down, GitHub projects removed, all trace of their professional work scrubbed off the Internet now that Apple owned all their time. I get how valuable the secrecy is for the company but it's not good for the individuals who work there or for the profession.
ldehaan 4y ago
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gumby 4y ago
I've been following the Masimo situation and their case seems pretty strong (though IANAL). But in many cases the "product" is actually just a feature, not enough to sustain a whole company. And I say this by having made that very mistake myself years ago, and having learned from it.
InTheArena 4y ago
People are (correctly) upset when Apple, Facebook, Google etc have anti-poaching agreements. Then whenever developers switch companies, and similar features are announced, this is the inevitable response. Either employees should be able to move around freely, spreading the knowledge and skillsets in problem domains or they should not be able to do so. The legal frameworks are patents and code copyright. I'd like to see patents go away in general, but the abuse that is alleged here should be examined All that said, the statement here that "apple steals people" is fundamentally and ethnically wrong. People are not owned by corporations.

128 points by SirLJ 4y ago

sbate1987 3y ago

[dead]

This has been true for many. many iOS releases. The good apps that become essential eventually get built into the operating system. This happened with sleep trackers, menstruation trackers, numerous other HealthKit apps, SwiftKey/Skype, Tile (the AirTag-like thing), camera features borrowed from the best third party camera apps, the list goes on and on. Building for iOS is a great way to show Apple that there's a market for something :)

newsclues 4y ago
Same as Amazon marketplace. If you prove an idea is successful on a large platform, that idea gets used by the platform directly.
- explorer83 4y ago
  This happened to an e-commerce business I did some work for. They became a top seller in their product category but then found themselves competing with Amazon. Only the manufacturers themselves could compete at that point.
  - newsclues 3y ago
    Grocery stores do the same thing. New product category of some food or condiment suddenly starts selling, the store has the sales data and finds someone to make the same thing and sells it under a house brand.
bryanrasmussen 4y ago
yes for a large enough portion of the population - if your app is useful for every kid, every adult or all of one general traditional gender - that's a big market - if you're very successful the platform will take over. If on the other hand you have the top selling real estate portfolio management app in the world I don't expect the platform will fold that up in their offerings, even if you are making more money on that than any of the apps with more universal appeal.
- waboremo 4y ago
  >If on the other hand you have the top selling real estate portfolio management app in the world I don't expect the platform will fold that up in their offerings Why not? In hindsight, we see "menstrual tracking" as an obvious fit now for a more complete Apple Health, but it's very easy to apply that same exact thinking to menstrual tracking. Using your real estate portfolio management app, ok maybe Apple doesn't replicate it exactly as is, but what's stopping them from turning Apple Home into a more complete home control experience, where you can buy and sell in an easier way or incorporate Airbnb elements. Heck, having more control over your home totally fits their privacy MO. It might seem far fetched now if you don't have the vision, but again same about things like health tracking just 8 years ago! So I would rethink this angle, I don't believe the determining factor is if it's a big market vs a niche market. A weather app is a niche market, yet they gobbled that up. An infinite canvas brainstorming app is a niche market, here comes Apple's Freeform.
  - bryanrasmussen 3y ago
    actually I guess I was unclear earlier, when I said real estate portfolio management I was thinking about a real estate agent managing the properties they needed to flog and contacts for said flogging. >A weather app is a niche market, yet they gobbled that up. I guess you and I will have to agree to disagree about how much of the population is affected by the weather, I say all of it, you evidently much less. Gobbling it up is actually interesting for weather apps, because the weather app, and the clock and other apps that have to do with stuff that everyone in the world needs is basically the kind of thing my argument says will always happen for a platform. >>If on the other hand you have the top selling real estate portfolio management app in the world I don't expect the platform will fold that up in their offerings >Why not? Apple's main business is selling devices with other ancillary businesses growing up to support this primary business, of course from outside it can look like these ancillary businesses are very nice to have indeed and any one of us might be happy to have them but for Apple they are rounding errors. And if you have one of these businesses already and Apple comes calling then it's like the WSJ article points out - not good for your business because Apple might just decide to pack it up in their platform and give it away for free or provide a much better implementation than you can and up the profile of their apps in their store. But in the end Apple is mainly interested in making one of these apps because it enhances their platform for the general population (or their historical target demographics that are still of some importance to the Apple brand). Thus Apple is not going to be making apps targeted at lawyers even though such apps might make a LOT of money because a lawyer app LOT of money to Apple is a pittance.
est31 4y ago
The funniest part is when an apple/big tech recruiter contacts you, you get to explain your app's design choices during the interview process, they don't hire you and launch that competitor of yours.
- brookst 4y ago
  If a big company is so bereft of design ideas they have a process to collect them from interview debrief and build them into product requirements, that company is dead. I'm very skeptical that ever happens. I'm sure that there have been times when someone mentioned design / arch / marketing strategies in an interview and later saw the same thing implemented, but I mean have have had multiple times in my life where I told nobody an idea and still saw it implemented somewhere else. Ideas are not half as unique as people like to think they are.
- herculity275 4y ago
  Does this actually happen outside of Silicon Valley plotlines? I can't see a SWE interview debrief having enough detail to leak anything useful about a competitor that you wouldn't have gathered through common sense.
  - est31 3y ago
    I've seen it mentioned multiple times here on this site, but I haven't remembered the link and don't really know how to search for it.
- STM32F030R8 4y ago
  The least believable part of your story is that the recruiter could somehow understand the tech and steal it
cced 4y ago
Also happened with the app called 'Workflows' which is now known as 'Shortcuts'.
- darthnebula 4y ago
  Apple bought Workflow, it wasn't Sherlocked.
  - cced 4y ago
    I know, OP said the apps get integrated into iOS, was just adding to the set of apps that got built in.
lotsofpulp 4y ago
As a consumer, I prefer Apple building all of that into the OS because I assume any other business will sell out at some point. I recall quite a bit of bad publicity when the menstruation trackers were found to be selling data.
- osigurdson 4y ago
  The nice thing about Apple is it's incentives are not misaligned. Its revenues are largely based on selling products, not people's data. Whether or not they sell data anyway is perhaps an open question but decisions should tend to err on the side of product sales and most consumers want to control their data.
  - snapplebobapple 4y ago
    That just tells me the next wave of revenue growth will come from aligning those incentives....
  - fakedang 4y ago
    The growth in Apple advertising belies this thesis.
- wpm 4y ago
  I typically do too until they incorporate some feature in a bad way. See: Dark Sky.
  - MrDunham 4y ago
    Can we all agree not to mention Dark Sky anymore? I'm not through the grieving process yet. But seriously, what a great app that is sorely missed now.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    And Apple also made the API available to both Android and Apple developers.
  - CharlesW 4y ago
osigurdson 4y ago
I believe this is why ycombinator does not recommend building a business on top of another company's platform. I suspect OpenAI based businesses will eventually learn this lesson.
- robertlagrant 4y ago
  I imagine many would like to be bought ASAP.
- illiarian 4y ago
  It's fine to build a business on top of another company's platform. You do need a contingency plan, especially if what you offer can be easily replicated in that platform.
  - realusername 4y ago
    There's no contingency plan possible on mobile unfortunately, you can't remotely switch customers to another platform.
    - mejutoco 4y ago
      A PWA could work in some cases, depending on the capabilities needed.
  - gabereiser 4y ago
    Apple vs Epic Games is currently challenging this in courts over Fortnite. You can play on other platforms but the argument is on mobile, you're forced to use their walled garden and let them take 30%.
    - waboremo 4y ago
      Yes, and as per the very recent ruling, one would suggest that ycombinator is entirely correct in regards to not relying on a singular other company's platform, since they've decided that Apple is within their rights in regards to a walled garden.
brookst 4y ago
Isn't this true any time you build a business adding a small bit of value to a larger platform? The aftermarket showed carmakers demand for superchargers, cup holders, and bigger wheels. Third parties, including Microsoft, showed Google the demand for Gmail. And on and on. I am forever at a loss at people's surprise and dismay that a large platform maker will seek to improve their platform by incorporating features that their users are signaling are missing by acquiring from third parties.
numpad0 4y ago
This just occurred to me: there is 100% chance that there is Genshin clone by Apple by the end of the decade. Microsoft already has Steve from Minecraft, Apple will have a 14 years old girl on Apple Campus Lunar in aluminium boots over latex suit, named, say, Isaac, at which point the online landscape will be so absurd that Zuckerberg in Meta avatar explaining their Nintendo partnership is going to look as natural and comforting as an Uber Orbit’d bowl of soup out at the side of a mountain in rural Mongolia. And I bet, the audiences’ focus in 2029 WWDC Keynote will be, whether she will finally reveal her $19840/mo. R18+ plans on iPatreon.
MildlySerious 4y ago
I recall there being a thing about a drum machine app, as well, and iirc F.lux had faced anti competitive behavior as well.
detourdog 4y ago
iOS is a platform and I think it can be argued that platforms are stronger with generic implementations of things most people use. Apple doing this pre-dates Sherlock. The patent aspect is disturbing on the face of it becuase it seems to go beyond healthy competition. I would just argue that platforms should integrate generic features. We all sleep and why can't I get a taste of what a sleep monitor is like as seamlessly as possible. If Apple's built in platform has a better implementation than a company specializing in sleep monitoring I see it as raising the table stakes. Apple showed the world there was a market for an always connected capacitive touchscreen slab. The world keeps changing and what was once an App becomes a feature.
rekoil 4y ago
SwiftKey is still the only keyboard that supports fluently typing both Swedish and English without switching layouts in iOS. It is literally the only keyboard I can use, and Microsoft was about to kill it in 2022, thankfully they changed their mind and finally implemented a feature I'd been requesting for 2 years, the ability to access the input cursor by long-pressing spacebar. Long-pressing spacebar was previously reserved for changing input layout, and only appeared (and replaced input cursor) when multiple layouts were selected, which is required on SwiftKey for iOS when having both Swedish and English enabled, even though SwiftKey for Android allows users to select the Swedish QWERTY layout for the English language, resulting in two languages but only one layout enabled, and input cursor would continue working.

bejd 4y ago

https://archive.is/XTm5v https://archive.is/XTm5v

toyg 4y ago

I find it funny how people just don't learn from history. There is even a term for it, and it comes from the same exact behaviour from the same exact company: https://www.howtogeek.com/297651/what-does-it-mean-when-a-company-sherlocks-an-app/ https://www.howtogeek.com/297651/what-does-it-mean-when-a-co... Apple don't care one iota for any developer on their platforms.

echelon 4y ago
The developer is building on Apple's system and owes the entire opportunity to Apple. Without Apple they wouldn't be able to develop the app or find customers for it.
- gbil 4y ago
  Equally superficial reading of this ends up to the following statement: Apple is building it's ecosystem on developers. Without developers Apple wouldn't be able to build an ecosystem and find customers for it
  - ninkendo 4y ago
    This isn’t necessarily true. You can actually have quite a useful device by only using Apple’s software. As a customer, I don’t need third party apps on my iPhone. (There are only one or two third party apps I actually use, and my phone would still be 95% as useful without them.)
    - prettyStandard 4y ago
      I assume that other 5% is the internet?
      - ninkendo 3y ago
        No? I use safari as my web browser, which is written by Apple. I didn’t say “no third party content of any kind”, and this discussion is about app stores after all. Apple not having an App Store would still mean I get to keep safari, so the phone is still 95% as useful. I’d miss my baby feeding tracking app and… not much else.

acegopher 4y ago

This was true of Microsoft in the 1990's. Just ask Gary Kildall among others. My personal brush with this was in a startup I was at 3 years before RFC 2616 (HTTP compression). We had developed a client proxy and server that would not only compress HTML pages but also bundle in a zip file all the images (TCP connection ramp up time was a thing) and it dramatically sped up page load on what was then a slow internet. Microsoft came sniffing, on the pretense they were interested in buying our company or at least licensing. But then they ghosted us, and if I recall correctly, those features ended up in IIS and Internet Explorer as proprietary extensions, when Microsoft was trying to embrace and extend the web to beat Netscape.

acegopher 4y ago
I should say it was 3 years before RFC 2068 (2616 superseded). When Microsoft came out with their extension, and then it eventually ended up in HTTP/1.1 (or at least some version of it), we pivoted to a primarily client-side product that offered read-ahead caching, metasearch (could perform a query on multiple search engines like Hotbot, Altavista, Infoseek, etc. -- this was pre-Google) and save and integrate the results. It would also then rerun those queries periodically and highlight new results, and you could save or bookmark. We also used that search technology in a product that would monitor trademark use, which companies used to keep track of where and how their trademarks or brand names were being used. We never made enough to keep that side of the business running, while the web consulting/development side grew and grew. These were pre-2000 days when businesses were wanting to "get online".
- tpmx 4y ago
  Would you be able to share any more details on the startup - privacy allowing? What tech were you using on the client (Windows 3.x/95?)/server-side? Did WebTV/MSN TV do anything of this? (Fascinated with early HTTP/web optimization tech because of my part in creating the much later Opera Mini - launched mid 2005.)
  - acegopher 4y ago
    Sure thing! I was on the client-side, and joined in 1995, when there was already a version 1 of the compression/connection piece. I started work and was lead on the search product. If I remember correctly, we were developing on Windows 3.1 with Microsoft Visual C/C++ 7.0 to start and then moved to Windows 95 and Visual C++. We used Microsoft Foundation Classes, as well as Rogue Wave libraries (tools.h++ I believe). We were funded by some guys who had made a lot of money in government software contracts (we were near a major Airforce base). Here is a Google folder link with some scans of contemporaneous ads and press coverage: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0BzleZlz4NcDSMDc0VTBpdG9uU3c?resourcekey=0-qS2PqIhUXs0XzuUKh1jlSA&usp=share_link https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0BzleZlz4NcDSMDc0VTBp...

nokamok 4y ago

“We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas,” Apple co-founder Steve Jobs once said.

tibbydudeza 4y ago
Or in the case of Dropbox - you are just a feature - he was right considering how obnoxious the Dropbox client has become.

gumballindie 4y ago

"Greed is eternal." - The 10th rule of acquisition.

bitL 4y ago

Can't you get them to sign a contract before the brain rape starts that they pay close to acquisition sum when features resembling yours based on similar decisions end up in their portfolio?

brookst 4y ago
Nobody would ever sign such a contract. Because the moment they did, the startup would declare that they were worth eleventy billion dollars. Pay up or you can never ship a competing product! If you really see acquisition diligence as rape, probably just stay out of business.
- bitL 4y ago
  There was some ancient startup wisdom summarized as "never talk to business development of other companies".
  - fakedang 4y ago
    https://www.paulgraham.com/corpdev.html https://www.paulgraham.com/corpdev.html
scarface74 4y ago
It’s funny that tech workers (rightfully) were up in arms when there was industry wide collusion over poaching each other’s employees and now they are complaining that big ole mean Apple is offering engineers twice their compensation. Not to mention I would (and do) take RSUs in a public company any day over statistically meaningless equity in a startup any day.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

madsbuch 4y ago

Isn't this what patents ought to solve? Or is that only when it is the other way around?

3D30497420 4y ago
That is covered in the article. Basically, Apple will contest the patents to get them invalidated. It seems this tactic is often deployed punitively. If the infringed company sues Apple, instead of settling or contesting the infringement suit, Apple attempts to get the patents invalidated. Apple is accused of even contesting patents unrelated to the suit that the company has also been granted. It also notes that defending a patent can cost millions of dollars. So... yes, in theory. But in practice, the side with the deeper pockets wins.
- UncleEntity 4y ago
  Most software patents are utter and complete BS so I have no problem with someone trying to get them invalidated. If they are valid, unique and original ideas then they should have no problem standing up to a challenge.

tibbydudeza 4y ago

In the past I always wondered why Apple would ship a custom browser and email client for iOS/MacOS - they should provide core functionality of an OS but that line seems to have blurred with "customer experience". Microsoft is doing nearly the same thing via Office365 - OneNote,Office,Teams and Edge rather than WebView2. It is hard using a third party program on Windows because it is so glaring obvious it looks rather weird.

solarkraft 4y ago

I'm okay with them entering a market. They do their stuff well. What I'm very much not okay with is that they don't play by their own rules. They're the only company that can provide the services iCloud provides. Their apps regularly get capabilities that no other app can have. Platform advantage is a big problem that needs regulation. I hope that the Digital Markets Act is an attempt at this, but I worry that it won't go far enough and not touch the areas where I think it's the most needed. Come on regulators, start treating Apple like Microsoft. If you can force Microsoft to unbundle IE and Teams, why can't you make Apple unbundle iCloud? They're a monopoly on their platform and their platform is the only option many users have (for a variety of reasons).

scarface74 4y ago
Microsoft was never forced to unbundle Microsoft or Teams. > They're a monopoly on their platform and their platform is the only option many users have (for a variety of reasons). This is prima facie a horrible nonsensical argument that a judge just said was false yesterday.
- hatsix 4y ago
  First off: If you're going to reference something as a way of proving your point, without any other supporting evidence, please post a link. Secondly: Microsoft voluntarily changed their practices regarding IE and Teams in order to appease regulators during active litigation. Their practices regarding IE happened during the US v Microsoft that required MS be split, but was later appealed, and given the changes that happened in the meantime, the DoJ agreed to not seek to break up MS. The Teams unbundling is actively happening now, see: https://www.engadget.com/microsoft-will-reportedly-unbundle-teams-from-office-to-avoid-antitrust-concerns-183139403.html https://www.engadget.com/microsoft-will-reportedly-unbundle-... It's undisputed that they are a monopoly on their platform. It's a legal finding that they are a duopoly when it comes to "Mobile Gaming" and that several of their practices violate anti-competitive laws. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_Games_v._Apple#Decision https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_Games_v._Apple#Decision The OP is saying that Apple should be held to the same standards that Microsoft/IE was and be forced to allow other marketplaces on their phones. 35 States Attorneys General, AND Microsoft agree with this and have filed Amicus Briefs to this point. This is not some fringe viewpoint. At the very least, Apple should be forced to allow full browsers on their platform, not wrappers around the safari rendering engine, which is directly in-line with the changes made during the US v Microsoft lawsuit and subsequent settlement, and while there was no legal finding related to these changes, they appeased the DoJ enough to settle.

robg 4y ago

Counterpoint: When we were developing a smartwatch for brain health, I was invited to give a talk to the Apple watch team in 2013. What I talked about was up to me and from the questions asked I was able to see behind the curtain of what the team was working on. In follow ups we talked about the science and user experiences but wasn’t asked to divulge any secrets. Had Watch launched with or included the capabilities, maybe I’d feel differently, but I understand in the time since why brain health is so challenging even for the big companies. I pushed them to include blood oxygenation for athletes given that application would lower component costs for us with patients. And yet, says a lot, the team took years to get that right. By contrast EKG and PPG were already being commoditized by the time Watch included those capabilities. AliveCor and Valencell do both really well, but the protectability is not as deep a competitive moat.

ttul 4y ago

It’s not just the big guys who steal ideas. Unless you have an agreement in place prohibiting a partner from copying the ideas you shared with them, they are generally free to do so. Get a sharp lawyer and never just sign someone’s “boilerplate NDA”. At the very least, understand what you are allowing the other party to do with the information you share. If you push back, even Apple may have an alternative NDA they’re willing to sign that is less promiscuous.

NelsonMinar 4y ago

The other half of this is how Apple never shares anything or collaborates outside its walls. I can't tell you how many good engineers I know who took a job at Apple and then immediately disappeared. Websites taken down, GitHub projects removed, all trace of their professional work scrubbed off the Internet now that Apple owned all their time. I get how valuable the secrecy is for the company but it's not good for the individuals who work there or for the profession.

ldehaan 4y ago

[dead]

gumby 4y ago

I've been following the Masimo situation and their case seems pretty strong (though IANAL). But in many cases the "product" is actually just a feature, not enough to sustain a whole company. And I say this by having made that very mistake myself years ago, and having learned from it.

InTheArena 4y ago

People are (correctly) upset when Apple, Facebook, Google etc have anti-poaching agreements. Then whenever developers switch companies, and similar features are announced, this is the inevitable response. Either employees should be able to move around freely, spreading the knowledge and skillsets in problem domains or they should not be able to do so. The legal frameworks are patents and code copyright. I'd like to see patents go away in general, but the abuse that is alleged here should be examined All that said, the statement here that "apple steals people" is fundamentally and ethnically wrong. People are not owned by corporations.