14 ms·

This feels like it reflects similar actions taken against companies that are dominant in a market. The first one I heard about[1] was IBM versus Memorex which w

• dmix 3y ago
  > In the IBM case it opened up an entire industry of third party "compatible" peripherals and saved consumers a ton of money I’m curious what market opportunities the Apple suit could open up. - Xbox cloud game streaming - WeChat like super apps w e-commerce (X wanted to do this play but more likely Facebook Messenger and the like) - iMessage on android - a receipt tracking app or something directly tied into Apple Pay tapping
  • ChuckMcM 3y ago
    From a hardware standpoint third party fitness trackers with full integration into iHealth and third party ear buds with the same (or better) features than airpods. Part of the IBM settlement required them to document interoperability. That was used by the DoJ to force Microsoft to document their CIFS (distributed storage) and Active Directory (naming/policy) protocols. The latter might be particularly instructive as my experience with CIFS when I worked at NetApp was the different ways that Microsoft worked to be "precisely" within the lines but to work against the intent. Documentation like "this bit of this word must always be '1'" Which as any engineer knows, if it really was always '1' then that bit didn't have to be in the protocol, so what did it do when it wasn't '1'?
    • anonymouse008 3y ago
      > From a hardware standpoint third party fitness trackers with full integration into iHealth and third party ear buds with the same (or better) features than airpods. As someone who makes apps in the health space, I couldn’t care less if other tracker data was integrated into HealthKit. HealthKit honestly sucks - it's some bastard of objc naming schemes and methods jammed into Swift. The async is horrible to debug, too. No one has a good time in HK. The issue with other trackers is that they are more locked down than Apple. You can't just get HR from Oura for instance - and that's not a health kit issue either.
      • canadianfella 3y ago
        [dead]
      • jimrandomh 3y ago
        The reason you can't get heart rate data from Oura is that they don't want people looking at it except in aggregate, because then they would notice the accuracy problems and data gaps.
    • microtherion 3y ago
      I'm not a developer in this space myself, but my impression is that HealthKit is one area where 3rd party apps have access to the same data as 1st party apps.
    • cryptonector 3y ago
      I had a similar experience with MSFT docs when working at Sun. The docs were not very good, and though they seemed somewhat redacted, it felt like in fact their internal docs probably weren't much better.
      • m463 3y ago
        Don't tall into that trap of thinking. Many years ago I knew an ex-microsoft engineer. Microsoft had poor interoperability with something, and I speculated that engineers in microsoft didn't know what 3rd parties were doing and accidentally broke things. He told me, "don't be naive - microsoft would have meetings saying 'how can we own this?'"
        • throwaway-blaze 3y ago
          Not to cast doubt on your friend's story, I worked on both the SQL Server team and later on the Windows kernel team in the early 2000s (the bad years). I came from "outside" meaning I had already had a career at non-Microsoft-related companies (mostly startups using linux on the server). I was continually shocked at how _little_ the MSFT employees seemed to know about the industry, or how their customers used their own products. As an example, this was the era of the J2EE App Server. Almost none of the people I worked with knew what an App Server was, despite the #1 database in use by App Server customers being MSFT SQL Server.
          • m463 3y ago
            This was before that, early to mid 90's era
          • astrange 3y ago
            I still don't know what an app server is. Isn't that one of those things from the enterprise programming era where they'd get "architects" to design an "enterprise system" and it would come with twenty different things with names like "message bus" and "dependency injection" that no program in history has ever actually needed?
    • heromal 3y ago
      Reminds me of Bob Colwell's talk, although it's not from the same angle: https://youtu.be/jwzpk__O7uI?si=NZmfU6av_2D-uPgk https://youtu.be/jwzpk__O7uI?si=NZmfU6av_2D-uPgk (around 1:04:10)
    • Thorrez 3y ago
      >Documentation like "this bit of this word must always be '1'" Which as any engineer knows, if it really was always '1' then that bit didn't have to be in the protocol, so what did it do when it wasn't '1'? Maybe it was a deprecated part of the protocol, and setting it would cause an error or do nothing.
      • thaumasiotes 3y ago
        Maybe it's there to prevent desyncing errors that occur for long strings of zeroes. Information theory isn't the only possible consideration.
      • technothrasher 3y ago
        Or it could be a placeholder for future expansion and while it would do nothing now, in the future it might break things if you've ignored the documentation.
        • bluGill 3y ago
          If you design a protocol without at least one field reserved for future expansion you are a bad engineer. Generally I would call this the protocol version number field, but there are other options. The important thing is there is some field that currently has a defined range, but can get an a larger range in the future and you check that field and abort if it is out of range. I also recommend a second field called protocol ID which is set to a known random value (your wife's birthday) so that if someone gets an unknown message if they see that value they can guess what the protocol is.
  • johnnyanmac 3y ago
    Forget iMessage, I just want media messages from iPhone to not be sub-144p pictures/videos. I know sms is limited but I doubt that's a technical limitation. And yea, Gamepass was an immediate thought of something a company wanted to ship but Apple blocked. Between that and the Epic Games store it looks like there's gonna be a lot more options to game on IOS by the turn of the decade.
    • mullingitover 3y ago
      It's not sms, it's mms, and it is in fact a technical limitation. Honestly we should just sunset MMS entirely. It's like using 56k dialup.
      • gryn 3y ago
        yeah, but the one blocking its sun-setting is apple with their artificial barriers. if apple didn't do it's shenanigans, RCS or something similar with a different name would've have replaced MMS by now.
        • mullingitover 3y ago
          [flagged]
          • rezonant 3y ago
            Please don't conflate messaging apps with texting, it's disingenuous. Texting is the feature users expect of any smartphone to be able to send a message to any other user who has a smartphone, regardless of what apps they have installed.
            • mullingitover 3y ago
              [flagged]
              • throwway120385 3y ago
  • bluk 3y ago
    Cloud game streaming has been recently allowed worldwide under a few conditions ( https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=f1v8pyay https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=f1v8pyay ). Forcing Apple to allow third party payments without Apple's cut would improve market opportunities for many businesses. Facebook could have its marketplace conduct peer to peer transactions. Amazon could allow the purchase of digital goods (books, movies, etc.) and put it on more equal footing with Apple itself. While big businesses are best positioned to take advantage today, the effects directly trickle down to small startup businesses. While I personally don't care for it, cryptocurrency use would have more potential. Apple blocked apps for NFT features in the past because they couldn't get their 30%. Having third party marketplaces might make it so that there is some actual curation at the App Store.
    • barkerja 3y ago
      I wonder if this will have a trickle down effect on other app stores, specifically gaming consoles. Would XBox Live or Playstation Store, for example, be on the hot seat if they rejected an application or "game" that was basically a storefront for streaming other games?
      • bluk 3y ago
        I don't think so, at least not as a consequence from this case if Apple loses. Antitrust cases are usually very limited in scope. Microsoft's loss required many actions (documenting Active Directory and other protocols/formats, browser choice screens, etc.), but no one else in tech were required to do so. John Sircacusa (from ATP.fm) pointed out years ago that the heart of Apple's biggest issues is business relationship management. This was when Apple only had a handful of issues with a few companies and made some poorly received statements about developers. Their ability to build mutually agreeable relations has only gotten worse in recent years. Sony and Microsoft have kept their relations with third parties tough but ultimately agreeable. They promote practically all of their third parties (unlike the App Store which has so many apps that its like winning the lottery to be promoted). Consoles have stores which are probably more curated but which third party publishers/developers actually like. IMO, DoJ, EU, etc. are acting primarily because they have received so many complaints from Spotify, Microsoft, Epic Games, Google, Meta, Tile, etc. Governments don't take action for the "public" interest on its own.
  • bobthepanda 3y ago
    Facebook tried this with games and cash transfer within Messenger but it never really took off. Personally, I don’t think Western (or at least American) consumers are all that interested in a super app. Asia has a ton of players in this space like WeChat, QQ, Line and Kaokao but those have never taken off in the West outside of diaspora communities.
    • k12sosse 3y ago
      Kind of sideline here but.. Tim Hortons had gift and loyalty cards ("every 7th coffee free"). Then they introduced an app with "rewards" as an alternative to loyalty and gift cards. Then the app turned into a bank. Then they stopped the physical loyalty cards. Now you can't "earn" free coffee without giving them your personal information and signing up for the bank of Tim Hortons. It's ok though. I stopped being a customer because of it.
    • gessha 3y ago
      Facebook’s attempt didn’t work out because they lost the youth market to Snapchat, TikTok, Discord and Instagram(It’s funny, I know). They tried to bring in Instagram users into Facebook but that didn’t(hasn’t) work out yet.
      • bobthepanda 3y ago
        I mean even the old people barely play Facebook games or use Messenger money transfer. Western consumers just tend to trust product specialists rather than an all in one app.
      • parasubvert 3y ago
        Facebook marketplace has been the unexpected success in drawing Instagram users and youth in general. It's thrifting central for Gen Z.
  • numpad0 3y ago
    Why don't twitter. com just do the super apps w/ e-commerce thing? It's financial regulations, not App Store regulations, isn't that the case? What are challenges for implementing such "payment" system on iOS that can transfer, say Monopoly money vs real USD? Aren't those almost entirely legal or compliance matters for very good reasons? The Alaskan 737 MAX 9 landed largely intact thanks to still-working parts of regulations and we all value that. So why not they just do that? Or CAN'T they?
    • dragonwriter 3y ago
      > Why don't twitter. com just do the super apps w/ e-commerce X, the company formerly known as twitter, fairly explicitly plans to, they are just taking time to pivot, in part because they don’t seem to have any real clear roadmap from where they are to where they want to be.
      • entropicdrifter 3y ago
        And also because they're in a technical quagmire of their own creation
        • nomel 3y ago
          > And also because they're in a technical quagmire of their own creation Could you expand on that?
      • dwighttk 3y ago
        >fairly explicitly plans to, >don’t seem to have any real clear roadmap not your fault, but that's pretty funny
        • dragonwriter 3y ago
          I see the apparent contradiction, but the goal has been made pretty explicit, but from the outside the plan seems to be missing.
  • astrange 3y ago
    Super apps are a dud. China has them because the regulators want them, not because they're a good business.
    • novok 3y ago
      Why do they show up in other asian markets, like Grab and such?
      • astrange 3y ago
        A lot of people are used to WeChat, so it can feel natural to make another one. LINE is also basically WeChat. I don't think that's enough to make them competitive though. For instance, a scandal in one feature of the app (or Facebook being considered lame by kids) will hurt the rest of it.
    • RhodesianHunter 3y ago
      Exactly. Most people would rather use the best app for the niche thing they want to do rather than the shittier version from some mega-app they happen to have for some other reason.
      • unclebucknasty 3y ago
        Yes, but don't underestimate the power of convenience. That factor seems to inordinately raise the shittiness toleration threshold these days.
    • PaulHoule 3y ago
      My understanding is the reason they are dead in the US is even though the banks might let you build payments into it they will not let you negotiate any discount in fees so you will have to add your own fees on top of their own fees. It begs the question of why a bank or consortium of banks hasn’t developed a super app. When I gave this talk in late 2016 https://www.slideshare.net/paulahoule/chatbots-in-2017-ithaca-talk-dec-6 https://www.slideshare.net/paulahoule/chatbots-in-2017-ithac... there was huge interest in messaging-centric apps as this runs around the boondoggle of having even the tiniest patch to your app get reviewed.
  • m463 3y ago
    I would be happy if iMessage threads could be exported and saved. if I was going to dream big, I would like to point the iCloud hooks to a personal server instead of apple in a meaningful way.
    • brindikassidy 3y ago
      [dead]
    • JimDabell 3y ago
      If you have a Mac, your messages are stored locally with SQLite, so you can export them that way.
    • CapstanRoller 3y ago
      It is possible to export iMessage threads by purchasing an Apple computer and enabling "iCloud for Messages", at which point the messages will be synced to the computer and stored locally in an SQLite database then exported using open source tools... unless you sent too many messages or attachments, at which point you also have to purchase an additional iCloud subscription based on how much storage you need. Hopefully you can accomplish all this within the return window of the computer (or purchase a used one). The iCloud subscription fees are non-refundable. You can also just give up, keep the computer, and embrace the Apple ecosystem. Thank you Tim Apple, very cool! Sent from my iPhone
      • tl 3y ago
        > It is possible to export iMessage threads by purchasing an Apple computer and enabling "iCloud for Messages" And hoping Apple's broken client actually downloads full history or by forcing it to download by scrolling up through years of chat by hand. And hoping Apple doesn't interpret a read lock on the db as malicious activity and temporary ousting you from iMessage and causing every message you send on unrelated hardware to drop to SMS until you login / logout from every device you "own".
        • paulmd 3y ago
  • Reason077 3y ago
    - Music Apps (Spotify) that properly integrate with Siri, like on Amazon and Google devices.
    • Lio 3y ago
      I'd just like to be able to get music off my iPhone to my mac without having to buy a third party app or buy a subscription to Apple Music.
      • politician 3y ago
        Your Mac has a microphone. A less analog option is Air Drop.
    • rahoulb 3y ago
      This is one thing that no-one else seems to mention (not even Spotify). When Apple Music launched it was around the time that 3rd party apps were allowed to hook into Siri - so you could say "Hey Siri, tell MyToDoApp to remind me to do X in six hours" and MyToDoApp would add the reminder. But it was only allowed for certain categories of app (strangely enough, categories where Apple didn't have a paid service). It wasn't permitted for music apps until a few years later, by which time Apple Music was established. Similarly - when I connect my iPhone to my car over Bluetooth or wired connection[1] - with Spotify I get the normal play/pause/skip controls. But I can't see the upcoming play-queue, nor browse my playlists through the car's interface. If I listen through Apple Music, I can see not only my queue, playlists, albums and artists but also podcasts from the totally separate Apple Podcasts app. Of course, the car interface is shite, but why can Apple's app do this and the third party not? Is it just that Spotify didn't bother implementing the relevant APIs or because those APIs were not available? As a long-time Apple fan, my distrust of them is so great at the moment, I suspect the latter. [1] The inbuilt head-unit doesn't do CarPlay, but I have a standalone wireless CarPlay screen. I like to connect the phone through Bluetooth (or wired) so the display unit shows my apps but I can adjust the volume and skip tracks using the steering wheel controls.
      • dwaite 3y ago
• xpe 3y ago
  > This feels like it reflects similar actions taken against companies that are dominant in a market. Not simply that a company is dominant; it is more about how and why they are dominant. Update 2:40 pm ET: After some research, the practices below may capture much (though not necessarily all) of what the Department of Justice views unfavorably: * horizontal agreements between competitors such as price fixing and market allocation * vertical agreements between firms at different levels of the supply chain such as resale price maintenance and exclusive dealing * unilateral exclusionary conduct such as predatory pricing, refusal to deal with competitors, and limiting interoperability * conditional sales practices such as tying and bundling * monopoly leveraging where a firm uses its dominance in one market to gain an unfair advantage in another Any of these behaviors undermines the conditions necessary for a competitive market. I'd be happy to have the list above expanded, contracted, or modified. Let me know.
  • Jagerbizzle 3y ago
    Thank you
  • alsetmusic 3y ago
    I’ve read a few takes on this from smart people. This is the first time I’ve seen anything that sounds like a real winnable case. Thanks for the distillation. It’s good to know this isn’t as boneheaded as I’d thought (though they still need to go after the App Store).
  • joemazerino 3y ago
    Excellent breakdown. Much more concise compared to other versions of the story. And, to boot, all entirely true.
  • bmitc 3y ago
    And that is stuff Apple absolutely does. I have been at a company for which Apple was a customer. But you'd think that Apple owned the company the way they through around their power and demands.
    • fkyoureadthedoc 3y ago
• thisfeelslike 3y ago
  [dead]
• scotty79 3y ago
  > This feels like it reflects similar actions taken against companies that are dominant in a market. Maybe they should be. Our societies are ostensibly consumer-centric. It's about time our laws and organisations strongly sided with consumers against any opposition, especially against business.
  • crabmusket 3y ago
    As a small business owner, I'm actually keen on the benefits to other businesses that antitrust enforcement and pro-competition enforcement can have. As a really specific example in the case of Apple, I really hope the DMA causes wider availability of browser choice on iOS so that we as a business that ships a web app can offer our customers features like notifications and other PWA benefits. Our customers are somewhat willing to switch browsers to get the best experience when using our app. But switching to Android? Not a reasonable ask from us. Most consumers also have jobs right? Making their lives better and easier at work, increasing competition to give their employers more opportunity to thrive, is just as important as making their groceries cheaper.
    • tpmoney 3y ago
      The flip side of this as a consumer is that I'm happy that mandating safari on iOS means I can be relatively sure any given site is going to work in Safari. I'm glad I don't live in the days where I needed 3 separate browsers on my computer (Safari, Firefox and IE) to ensure that I can use websites when I need to. In "ye olde days", even if you were using Safari for most of your browsing because it gave the best battery life on MacOS, you'd run into some sites that wouldn't work with it. You'd try Firefox maybe next, hoping that it was just some site that didn't have any developers who knew what a mac was. But even then, you'd run into sites where, no the problem was the developers just assumed everyone used IE and used a bunch of IE specific stuff. I can't remember the last time I saw a "this site only works in XYZ" message. Some of that is a lot of modern sites are all built on big frameworks, but some of that is also because only supporting Safari, or only supporting Chrome or only supporting IE is going to lose you huge swaths of customers. What if I don't want to switch browsers for the "best experience" when using your app? What if I want you to make your app the best experience on my browser of choice? As always these things are tradeoffs and balances.
• dclowd9901 3y ago
  Ironic that the worst business decisions (hardware or software lockdowns that pave the way for antitrust suits) come from the business heads.
  • dbalatero 3y ago
    Long-term thinking isn't super trendy, or even incentivized maybe?
• rmbyrro 3y ago
  Ironic that Jobs started by fighting the big, fat, corporate IBM, and now they turned the company he founded, Apple, into a big, fat, corporation with despicable practices... When are people going to stop buying Apple?
  • fennecbutt 3y ago
    Jobs turned Apple into that himself. He installed the cultlike behemoth attitude and threw famous tantrums and fits when he didn't get his way. Just look at how he reacted even back when Woz invented the universal remote.
  • briandear 3y ago
    When someone else makes a better product ecosystem.