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Apple Execs on Facebook (2011)
- shmerl 3y ago> So, for example If Adobe comes in with an app that links to new web apps that they promote we need to allow that "app store" in, even worse Google could come up with an app that runs all their 3rd party Chrome web apps and we would need to allow that in too! I don't see why we want to do that. All these apps won't be native, they won't have a relationship or license with us, we won't review them, they won't use our APIs or tools, they won't use our stores, etc. What a horror - someone won't be using Apple APIs and tools. This perfectly shows how Apple's ban on other browser engines and all similar restrictions in general are not about security or any other bogus excuses they like to present, but about being anti-competitive lock-in control freaks.
- DrBenCarson 3y agoThey don’t make that argument at all in the quote you pulled. The objection could very well be for security reasons.
- badsectoracula 3y ago> The objection could very well be for security reasons. It could also be for control over users but claiming "security reasons" whenever anyone asks since that has become a "think of the children" topic in tech.
- DrBenCarson 3y agoSure I don’t disagree. My point was that the quote isn’t “proof.”
- ryandrake 3y agoThe thing I took away from this exchange was the total lack of discussion about what’s in the end user’s best interest. What’s best for the user’s experience? It’s all “We want this” and “Facebook wants that” and the end user is just a bystander. Nobody cares what we think or want. For all these companies’ marketing-talk about how they care so much about the end user experience, the executives don’t seem all that interested.
- doctor_eval 3y agoDo you not think that this would already have been discussed when the policy under discussion was first developed? The rationale for the policy - whatever it is - would have been determined well before this problem arose. There would be no need for these people, who would have been central to those policies, to rehash their reasons in these emails. They already know all the arguments.
- shmerl 3y agoAnti-competitive reasons hidden with security excuses is Apple's modus operandi.
- DrBenCarson 3y agoSure I don’t disagree. My point was that the quote isn’t “proof.”
- hgsgm 3y agoCharging 30% doesn't enhance security.
- DrBenCarson 3y agoI’ll let the Google Play Store know.
- detourdog 3y agoDefinitely let them know. Then they can make their store successful enough so that the android developers stop trying to make iOS android.
- detourdog 3y agoCharging a markup on products sold in a store has a long tradition in retail.
- simondotau 3y agoHuh? The parent didn't make that claim. The grandparent wasn't making that claim. And I certainly haven't ever heard Apple stating or implying that free apps are less secure than paid apps.
- cscurmudgeon 3y agoAka the mob argument
- Dudester230602 3y agoIf your store is big you can sabotage your providers: Apple to Facebook. If your store is small your providers can sabotage you: Google to Microsoft (Windows Phone). I wonder whom will Apple be begging for more content for their Vision - perhaps Valve? Big respect to Apple though for inadvertently protecting their customers from web "apps". But times will change...
- zitterbewegung 3y agoFrom the latest WWDC (2023) Apple has actually encouraging web app support. In Safari Version 17: Added support for web apps on macOS Sonoma. Add any website to the Dock from the File menu or Share Sheet to get to them even faster. Web apps open in their own window, and integrate with system features like Stage Manager, Screen Time, Notifications, and Focus. (68606770) [1] [1] https://developer.apple.com/documentation/safari-release-notes/safari-17-release-notes https://developer.apple.com/documentation/safari-release-not...
- shmerl 3y agoEncouraging support while banning competing browser engines doesn't look like encouraging.
- hgsgm 3y agoWhy? As a web app developer or user, the browser engine is low on my list of priorities. Browser engine preferences are about far more niche concerns.
- zitterbewegung 3y agoAs a web app developer your perspective actually makes you desire a monopoly so you only have to test once. But, as a person I don't want that situation at all.
- ryandrake 3y ago
- tambourine_man 3y agoIf you’re steering a platform, you want people to use your APIs and tools. I don’t see how that’s controversial. Otherwise, what are you even doing?
- shmerl 3y agoIt's not about using their APIs and tools. It's about banning competition. That is beyond controversial - it should be illegal. What they should be doing? Competing on merit. Not pushing lock-in.
- tambourine_man 3y agoYou were specifically disdaining Apple’s push to APIs and tools adoption: “What a horror - someone won't be using Apple APIs and tools.”
- pxue 3y agoAllowing third party also circumnavigates Apple's approval process. Personally I don't care about giving up choice if it means reduction of spam.
- hospitalJail 3y agoOn a similar note, I'm happy Reddit is reducing third party apps. Prevents spammy reddit apps.
- pie420 3y agospammy reddit apps?
- code_duck 3y agoIt's illegal when a company has a monopoly, but otherwise that's the nature of business. The line of thought that 'apple has a monopoly in iPhone software distribution' never seemed very compelling to me since they don't have a monopoly on mobile phones in general.
- astrange 3y agoIf other browsers were allowed Chrome would become an all-platform monopoly and there would no longer be real web standards.
- pyrale 3y agoI guess regulators could also antitrust Google in a balancing act.
- kitsunesoba 3y agoTo be fair, the amount of effort that Apple puts into their APIs is well above the industry standard. Cocoa and Cocoa Touch stand with few peers when it comes to depth, breadth, and quality which has been a big factor in the success of their platforms. They’re some of the few SDKs where if you want to, you can produce a top tier app without importing a single third party library, which is no small feat. In their shoes, even if the App Store didn’t exist, I’m sure I wouldn’t be all that thrilled to open the floodgates for lowest common denominator apps built with other toolkits that do nothing to leverage what makes the platforms good and unique.
- shmerl 3y agoThat's never really an excuse for lock-in. If they are so superior, they wouldn't need to worry about developers not using them, right? Using tools as a way to control developers is just disgusting.
- kitsunesoba 3y agoIt doesn't matter how good your SDKs and tooling are, there will always be a large number of developers who will instead prefer options they perceive to be cheaper or more convenient. It's the same reason why McDonalds has no problem selling their food when far higher quality options exist. Outright control is probably overboard yes, but I don't see any reason why a platform maintainer should want to do anything to encourage low-investment apps.
- shmerl 3y agoThere is a huge difference between encouraging and forbidding. And quality or security in the above case are used as an excuse to hide the anti-competitive intent.
- detourdog 3y agoThis is an argument to trust developers and business school grads as opposed to a company that I have a 40+ relationship with. If you want developer freedom choose a different platform. Apple is for users and not developers. We all have the freedom to do whatever we want. Why some people choose to constantly rail against a company they think is ridiculous os mystifying. Move on bless some other platform with your gifts. One should develop for a platform they enjoy.
- donmcronald 3y agoThe thing that surprised me the most is there’s no mention of what makes a better product for the user. It’s all business strategy and scheming to build a silo. I hope regulators obliterate the platform owners.
- classified 3y agoBut then they'd also have to obliterate Microsoft, Google, and who knows what else. This won't happen.
- hospitalJail 3y agoBut the user as almost full control of a M$ and google device. These are not related unless I'm misunderstanding.
- tomaskafka 3y agoReally? Good luck getting rid of Google play services, the mix of core of the operating system and location/ad tracker.
- vlovich123 3y agoI’m kind of curious how this shook out at the time and then evolved to what the experience is today. That’s kind of missing from just the emails. Also, aren’t these emails normally deleted with very short retention? How are they showing up in court cases a decade later.
- kenferry 3y agoIf a person is involved in a court case, they are under document retention and can’t delete anything. All Apple’s execs are likely always under document retention. I was at Apple, and tons of people were under document retention. Individual contributors too.
- htk 3y agoThis might not be a popular view here, but I'm surprised how professional they are in these exchanges. I would expect a much more visceral discussion on how the other party is trying to bypass paying them, how they can get more money the other way, etc.
- mempko 3y agoHuh? That's what the whole conversation was about. How other parties, Adobe, Google, etc could bypass them if they allowed a new rule that made facebook happy to be a native app. It's clear their concern was how other parties would get around their walled garden and huge cut they get via their app store.
- tyingq 3y agoThey've developed a sort of polite code that stands in for more precise/honest wording they would use in person. Execs understand the discoverable nature of email.
- hgsgm 3y agoThis email was shortly after Steve Jobs and Eric Schmidt blatantly discussed their illegal wage suppression scheme until Schmidt sent an email saying basically "let's stop emailing about our crimes".
- tyingq 3y agoYeah, I suppose hubris or anger sometimes blinds them to being prudent. I think they really got caught up in "poaching" somehow being the big problem.
- anthlax 3y agoLink to this?
- tyingq 3y agoThis one seems to have the most source material: https://9to5google.com/2013/01/23/court-docs-reveal-email-exchange-between-eric-schmidt-and-steve-jobs-over-poaching-employees/ https://9to5google.com/2013/01/23/court-docs-reveal-email-ex... Including the exchange with Schmidt talking about a "paper trail" and thus the preference to "do it verbally". Though that part of the discussion seems Google internal and not between Apple and Google. https://9to5google.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2013/01/papertrail_1020_verge_super_wide.png https://9to5google.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2013/01/pa...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- tambourine_man 3y agoI find these emails exchanges fascinating and a treasure trove when you consider a company as secretive and influential as Apple. What I don’t understand is how they used an unencrypted form of communication for such important topics.
- extr 3y ago? It's not about encryption. These emails were subpoenaed.
- hgsgm 3y agoEncrypt the email, rotate and delete keys after 18months.
- judge2020 3y agoUnlike Google, Apple isn't trying to hide anything (post-High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation)
- rblatz 3y agoOr just set a company policy around email retention. Then delete anything older than that? Apple chose to keep these emails around because the value of the emails was greater than the risk of keeping them.
- B1FF_PSUVM 3y agoI rabbit-holed to the 2005 "irate call" from Steve Jobs: https://www.techemails.com/p/sergey-brin-irate-call-from-steve-jobs https://www.techemails.com/p/sergey-brin-irate-call-from-ste... Does anyone know who was the REDACTED browser expert being recruited by Google?
- musicale 3y agoSo many interesting things there. Jobs and Campbell knew each other from Apple antiquity, and both Campbell and Eric Schmidt sat on Apple's board - and Jobs was already ballistic about Android vs. iPhone. On one hand I understand how Jobs would have been angry about Google trying to poach the Safari team for Chrome, but on the other I completely agree that anti-poaching schemes (as well as non-compete clauses) are harmful to employees and illegal for good reason. One fair solution for employees would presumably have been to deal with it head on and make competing offers up to the level of the Safari team's actual value to Apple, but companies are rarely enthusiastic about that as it costs them money and encourages other employees to ask for raises and/or to interview at other companies (probably to discover that they are underpaid.) An interesting possibility would have been for Apple and Google (or Google and Mozilla for that matter) to collaborate more closely on web browsers, although that would have run into problems eventually due to business incentives. Sadly one of the primary results from Chrome seems to have been the erosion of Firefox's browser share.
- B1FF_PSUVM 3y ago> Jobs was already ballistic about Android vs. iPhone. This was 2005, well before that, which is part of what makes it interesting. I think this was about the time that Apple picked up the KDE Konqueror browser Webkit platform and reworked it. I seem to recall there being some objections to Apple fulfilling its open-source obligations by tossing a massive patch "over the wall" ... P.S. quick search result, 2003: https://dot.kde.org/2003/01/08/apple-announces-new-safari-browser https://dot.kde.org/2003/01/08/apple-announces-new-safari-br...
- musicale 3y ago
- stubybubs 3y ago[flagged]
- bsaul 3y agoreading this makes wonder what scott forstall is doing now. I hope he's not completely disgusted by what happened to him at apple and will get back to creating tech. We need people with truely innovative ideas from that era.
- gilgoomesh 3y agoForstall is semi-retired from tech. He's producing Broadway musicals and acting in minor advisory roles.
- musicale 3y agoHaha, nice. I wish him every success. I'm probably the only one who would go to see iPhone! The Musical but I am sure it would be great.
- musicale 3y agoI don't know exactly what happened to Scott Forstall, or how good he actually was to work with, but in his public presentations he seemed to communicate a clear understanding of Apple's products and their design.
- ilrwbwrkhv 3y agoHe was the reason the iphone took off along with the hardware. It was truly a thing of beauty and we have gone downhill on ux since.
- tpmx 3y ago"--S." That is one odd signature (from Scott Forstall).
- idoh 3y agoI worked on Birthday Cards, one of the apps listed out. Warms my cold pm heart to know that something I worked on was vaguely known about by high level Apple execs. At the time it was hugely advantageous to have a native app linked to fb, I remember the week where we made it and released v1, we were the #1 app in lifestyle instantly.
- ufish235 3y agoPaywall
- ec109685 3y agoAnd this is why FB has invested billions in the Metaverse, so they are not at the mercy of a capricious platform. This thread brings me back the salad days where FB sought to facilitate an ecosystem on their social graph.
- rootsudo 3y agoThis is what nobody sees - they have a thriving marketplace of ads that rivals Google and they did not need to start a hardware business to get it. But they want too and so far it seems they'll burn everything to find their niche in hardware. They are their own platform.
- classified 3y agoHow indiscreet. The same thing today would get you fired on the spot.
- ranting-moth 3y agoWhy is this titled 2011 when the article was published yesterday? I know the emails are from 2011 but they're news to people today, not back then.
- tolmasky 3y agoAmazing to read pages and pages of AppStore rule minutia (Facebook Credits vs. directory-listing vs. heuristics for what links "look like apps") with basically zero regard for user experience (Scott comes closest to this by acknowledging he wouldn't use a completely gutted Facebook app). Everything is about positioning, or what this means with respect to other big players like Adobe if they let this slide, etc. I would have imagined they would have at least been so bought into their own party line that they would have convinced themselves that "We can't allow this because all those apps are junk and we want a pristine experience on the iPad! This is our chance to avoid all that!" But nope, it's all just business.
- Terretta 3y ago> they would have convinced themselves that "We can't allow this because all those apps are junk and we want a pristine experience It's understood, and also mentioned: "All these apps won't be native, ... we won't review them, they won't use our APIs or tools..."
- hospitalJail 3y ago>I agree - if we eliminate Fecebooks third proposal it sounds reasonable. >Remove:Tapping on one of these app-related links would (3) link out to Safari otherwise. That made me sick reading it.