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Providing an OS feature only to first-party programs is a plainly anticompetitive practice. Using your privileged position in one market (cell phones/cell phone

• carlosjobim 1y ago
  How is Apple withholding Samsung from making applications for Android? What kind of textbooks are you reading?
  • _2d30 1y ago
    HN has one of the largest online populations of amateur lawyers with some of the least correct legal opinions in the world. This is one of many, many examples.
• galad87 1y ago
  Only if you consider making UI text unreadable an advantage.
  • snackbroken 1y ago
    I don't think it's an improvement, but having a GUI that matches user expectations is undeniably a business advantage.
• integralid 1y ago
  I wanted to be outraged at apple, but I really can't. Read WinAPI documentation and try to count all "reserved" parameters for example. OS developers build features just for internal use all the time. Granted, this is just UI tweak so I'm not convinced it has to be private, but they probably just don't want to have to maintain that forever.
  • senkora 1y ago
    Yeah, this seems reasonable to me. The better thing to get annoyed at Apple for is being slow to implement web standards. I guess you could make the argument that they are choosing to work on stuff like this instead, but I think that’s a weak argument.
    • reaperducer 1y ago
      The better thing to get annoyed at Apple for is being slow to implement web standards. Now that Safari supports the HTML5 date picker (since iOS 14.1 - five years ago), this is more of a meme than fact-based reasoning. Unless you believe Google including something in Chrome automatically makes it a "standard." I have a list (unfortunately on a device I can't access now) of web standards that are supported on Safari and Firefox, but not on Chrome. I need it because one web site I work on is 100% Safari users (about 800 people), and another is mostly Android (about 70%). So I need a cheat sheet of which does what.
      • leptons 1y ago
        >>The better thing to get annoyed at Apple for is being slow to implement web standards. >Now that Safari supports the HTML5 date picker (since iOS 14.1 - five years ago), this is more of a meme than fact-based reasoning Apple forces all browsers on iOS to use the Safari browser engine, which they intentionally hobble by not implementing APIs that other browser engines have had forever so that Apple can force developers to create native apps for iOS which Apple then can extract 30% (or whatever they decide it is today) revenue from, where they can't do that from a web application. This is one of many reasons Apple is being sued by the DOJ for antitrust violations, and one reason they got sued by the EU and lost. https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/media/1344546/dl https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/media/1344546/dl
        • nwienert 1y ago
          Maybe 5 years ago this was a true, they accelerated development and their standards support is pretty good now, better than FF. Again, not counting Chrome's "EEE" non-standard API's, they largely move fast and implement most modern ones. Some PWA stuff is missing which is valid, while Chrome is behind on a few nice design-focused standards Safari has. Go here: https://caniuse.com/?compare=chrome+143,safari+26.0&compareCats=all https://caniuse.com/?compare=chrome+143,safari+26.0&compareC... Note the non-supported Safari API's, the vast majority are not web standards.
• ivape 1y ago
  Shouldn’t this be easily available in Electron/Tauri and React Native apps?
  • jakelazaroff 1y ago
    Electron doesn't use WebKit, so definitely not. Not sure about Tauri desktop, but how would you use it for Tauri mobile and React Native?
    • ivape 1y ago
      Woah, TIL. Chromium apparently forked WebKit in 2013. wtf? So, if you wanted webviews that could leverage this you’d basically need a native swift app with webviews to get access.
      • zamadatix 1y ago
        Even if you could get it you wouldn't be able to publish it on the App Store due to the permission it requires.
  • robertoandred 1y ago
    React Native / Expo apps can get liquid glass via the actual underlying native ui elements.
• jjtheblunt 1y ago
  Isn't the article saying they added a new css element, but it's not restricted to apple apps only really, just not in documentation yet? for example, this article is preview documentation, of a sort?
  • thefreeman 1y ago
    No, it says it is restricted. You need to set a private attribute on the webview to enable it. And if you interact with private APIs your app will be rejected in review.
    • jjtheblunt 1y ago
      I understand, though conjecture (worked at apple for years) this looks like an imminent "feature" that will become documented.
• brookst 1y ago
  Wait so are all non-standard CSS attributes "anticompetitive"? This seems like wild hyperbole. Is Google's "-webkit-tap-highlight-color" also anticompetitive? Should we ban the current practice of shipping proprietary CSS attributes while sometimes also proposing them for standardization? It's just really hard for me to read that as a legit complaint.
  • horsawlarway 1y ago
    [flagged]
  • kuschku 1y ago
    If you use this CSS liquid glass effect in your app, Apple will reject it from the App Store. If Apple uses this CSS liquid glass effect in their apps, it'll pass App Store review just fine. Do you see the issue now?
    • ezfe 1y ago
      iOS has many private APIs, this one is no different. The fact it's implemented in WebKit is a red herring.
      • bigyabai 1y ago
        So when Google creates self-serving APIs in a web browser engine, it's anti-consumer and is killing the free web. But when Apple creates self-serving APIs in a web browser engine, it's just another private entitlement, a red herring and their right as the proprietor of Safari. The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
        • cosmic_cheese 1y ago
          The difference is that Google is by far in a much more dominant position and every dev who leverages Chrome-specific APIs further entrenches that dominance. In the browser space, Apple is the long-trailing runner-up and has far less impact. It appears that this particular API is restricted to embedded webviews, too (doesn’t work in Safari), so it has no bearing on the open web, unlike APIs such as WebUSB in Chrome.
• tshaddox 1y ago
  What are your thoughts on computer hardware which is much more restrictive? Video game consoles, for example, require all code to be cryptographically signed, meaning that third parties can't publish any software whatsoever without the blessing of the console manufacturer.
  • sho_hn 1y ago
    I'm assuming they don't like that either. Apple does plenty of bad things, and many are worse than this, but it doesn't mean it's not fair to point out this one is bad, too. It all comes down to "the vendor can do things with your computer you can't do yourself" in the end.
    • Muromec 1y ago
      >It all comes down to "the vendor can do things with your computer you can't do yourself" in the end. It's not even that. A console vendor that locks down everything behind the TPM helps to not deal with cheaters is arguably fine. A console vendor that is also a game develop and caps the FPS of all games that aren't their own is abusing their monopoly position in one market to gain unfair advantage on a different market.
  • snackbroken 1y ago
    I'm generally opposed to that as well. Agreeing with Muromec's reply, I don't think it is necessarily anticompetitive in the case where the console vendor doesn't favor its first party games, but of course all three do that in practice. The situation is somewhat mitigated by the existence of a flourishing open market alternative (PC games). More broadly, and not based on antitrust grounds but on property rights grounds, I am opposed to every kind of DRM. First, it should be legal to circumvent any and all DRM/anti-copying measures. Second, it should be illegal to deprive the next owner of their property rights so that you can exert ownership control over a product past its sale. If I buy a computer, do nothing but install a keylogging rootkit on it, and sell it on to someone else, I would rightly risk jail time. "The malware is part of the product" is not a valid excuse. DRM is also malware. It should be prosecuted as such, and if existing legislation is found wanting, more specific laws need to be written.
• nashashmi 1y ago
  I think there is line that a company can cross: using a locked-down appearance setting to make an app look like it is from the company. For example, if there was a glowing light on the edge of the phone that only lights up with stock apps and company apps, and that signfies for security that an app belongs to a company, that is ok. I don't consider design/appearance to be a feature. YMD.
• shuckles 1y ago
  True, this is killing innovation in badly written settings panes implemented with web technologies.
• tgv 1y ago
  With whom is Apple competing on their own web pages and apps? And how much advantage does some shiny reflection (which, btw, could also be attained by writing the effect yourself) offer them over that competition? It must be something big and obvious, otherwise there's no way it's illegal, but I can't think of it. If you mean "anti-competitive" without referring to monopolies, then, well, every company does that.
  • isodev 1y ago
    > With whom is Apple competing on their own web pages and apps? With every other app using a web view. > without referring to monopolies Of course it’s about monopolies. Safari is still “privileged” to be forced default browser. Making an alternative, Apple ensured to be very hard and expensive. So gating any kind of first party feature is a big no.
  • cududa 1y ago
    Google or any open source map product. And actually, if we use the SCOTUS approved DOJ v MSFT consent decree as precedent, any app that can't use this private API component would be an impacted party. I'm an antitrust nerd - 20+ years since I made my first PACER account as a teenager to get documents from interesting cases.. 95% of what people call "anticompetitive" or "monopolistic" has no legal bearing. People don't know the legal definition of those words and bandy them about based on vibes. This however, is a very very clear case of violations of precedent. If we look at Microsoft's final judgement https://www.justice.gov/atr/case-document/final-judgment-133 https://www.justice.gov/atr/case-document/final-judgment-133 see F(1)(a), H(2)(b), while these stipulations haven't been applied to Apple, if I were in a market dominant position, I'd be super careful about capricious restrictions like the example undocumented API, and behavior that mimics patterns of activity that were seen as actionably sanctionable to similar market dominant forces
  • layer8 1y ago
    It’s a way they can make their webview-based apps look “native” more easily than a third party can. If you try out a third-party app and it looks less well integrated visually than a similar first-party app, then the latter has a competitive advantage because of that.
• MangoToupe 1y ago
  How does this give an advantage?
• izacus 1y ago
  Based on other Chrome threads here, we do need to make sure that Apple maintains their exclusive monopoly on browser on iOS to prevent these things from happening. Right? Right?! :P
  • robertoandred 1y ago
    This isn't available in the Safari browser.
• sitzkrieg 1y ago
  this comment is bringing out the apple blinders in force and i love it. do people really see apple as "the good guy"? tech has zero good guys left
  • brookst 1y ago
    Tech was always a business. What this comment is bringing out is the people who see preferred technical choices as some kind of morality play. They aren’t. They never were. It’s childish to believe such things.
    • sitzkrieg 1y ago
      not wanting to use something that looks like it was designed to appeal to ages 2-8 is a moral issue?
  • as1mov 1y ago
    Hey stop bullying the trillion dollar corporation! They are my favourite corporation and their actions are beyond question >:(
• ericmcer 1y ago
  Its a toss up between anticompetitive being bad and unified standards being good. Look at the m3/4 macs they are insane machines because even the hardware is unified.
  • dham 1y ago
    What do you mean by unified? Strix Halo is "unified". The M series platform isn't the only unified platform out there.
    • georgeburdell 1y ago
      The OS and hardware were developed in close collaboration
      • astrange 1y ago
        Somewhat overrated because the release cycle for an OS change can be as little as a day, but the release cycle for a CPU change is like 3-4 years.
  • mvdtnz 1y ago
    How would exposing this CSS extension impact unification of the platform?
• seanhunter 1y ago
  Not sure it is "plainly anticompetitive" in the legal sense. In the US, the laws on anti-competitive practices are the Sherman Act and the Clayton act. To be anticompetitive, the courts use the "per se" rule and the "rule of reason". "per se" rule covers things which are specifically listed in the laws as being anticompetitive (eg price fixing). This isn't in the list of per se anticompetitive practises so it would need to be covered by the "rule of reason". That would require someone to demonstrate actual harm to competition that flowed directly from the illegal nature of the practise and was not compensated by some offsetting procompetitive benefit and there is no less restrictive alternative. I don't see how a CSS property would meet the standard of actual harm to competition, especially since noone is stopping you from making your own liquid glass css if you want to (as far as I can see).
• crazygringo 1y ago
  But there's no evidence yet that it's being used by first-party programs, e.g. by GarageBand or Pages or Mail.app. It's also quite likely that it's a) not being used at all, and the private API is just for internal testing until it's ready to be made public, and/or b) used by certain OS components that aren't competing with third-party apps (e.g. somewhere in the Settings panel). And while I agree with your assertion in theory, some cosmetic styling is probably about the least important, most trivial example you could come up with... can't really get myself worked up about this one.