12 ms·

> With Apple's proclivity for proprietary standards, I'm amazed they (or others) haven't rolled their own wireless audio standard by now. Can you imagine Europ

by loeg 8mo ago

> With Apple's proclivity for proprietary standards, I'm amazed they (or others) haven't rolled their own wireless audio standard by now. Can you imagine Europe's reaction? They'd fine Apple to the moon -- no innovation allowed unless it interoperates with other products that don't exist yet.

an_guy 8mo ago
> interoperates with other products that don't exist yet. Are you claiming no other wireless earphones exist other than apples'??
- charcircuit 8mo ago
  That would implement Apple's proprietary protocol. He thinks Europe would think Apple is creating a monopoly for themselves for iPhone headphones since no other company could implement the protocol without Apple's approval.
  - raw_anon_1111 8mo ago
    iPhones work with any BT headphones.
    - charcircuit 8mo ago
      But other BT headphone manufacturers wouldn't be able to get the ultra low latency / sound quality / perfect device switching / etc.
mstipetic 8mo ago
Oh yes, Europe bad, regulation bad. Maybe add some nuance to your thinking.
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
esperent 8mo ago
> Can you imagine Europe's reaction? And they'd be right to do so. The correct approach to creating a new standard is plan interoperability from the start. If a vendor plans lock in by introducing a new standard, they should get shut down immediately and told to do better.
- roenxi 8mo ago
  That sounds like a way to not get any progress. The way I'm used to this sort of thing happening is some company brings in a new proprietary standard, makes bank, then all the competition bands together to form an open standard to try and stop them. There is a bit of a tick-tock feeling as consortiums use more open and accessible standards to slowly lever power away from incumbents. It is interesting to just glance at the history of USB [0] through that lens was originally developed, and it is interesting to see that as I would have predicted the group of companies that developed USB (MS, IBM, Compaq, etc) seem to be disjoint from the companies listed as precursor technologies (looks like that was especially an Apple-led consortium of hardware manufacturers organised around firewire [1]). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#History [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_1394#Patent_considerations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_1394#Patent_consideration...
  - sofixa 8mo ago
    > The way I'm used to this sort of thing happening is some company brings in a new proprietary standard, makes bank, then all the competition bands together to form an open standard to try and stop them. There is a bit of a tick-tock feeling as consortiums use more open and accessible standards to slowly lever power away from incumbents. And that leaves you with two standards (at least), non interoperable between them. In the case of hardware this can be really annoying, constraining and inefficient both for consumers and at large.
    - roenxi 8mo ago
      How likely is it that that can be avoided if, as in this context, the starting point is the current standard not being that great? It pretty much has to end in 2 different competing standards. Or there can be 2 different flavours of the existing standard which are quite likely to break interoperability and make reusing the name an annoyance rather than a help. A downside of existing standards is it means it is quite hard to innovate on them.
Mordisquitos 8mo ago
> no innovation allowed unless it interoperates with other products that don't exist yet Products that don't exist yet... so, future innovation? No innovation allowed unless it incentivises and streamlines further innovation? Count me in!

by loeg 8mo ago

an_guy 8mo ago

> interoperates with other products that don't exist yet. Are you claiming no other wireless earphones exist other than apples'??

charcircuit 8mo ago
That would implement Apple's proprietary protocol. He thinks Europe would think Apple is creating a monopoly for themselves for iPhone headphones since no other company could implement the protocol without Apple's approval.
- raw_anon_1111 8mo ago
  iPhones work with any BT headphones.
  - charcircuit 8mo ago
    But other BT headphone manufacturers wouldn't be able to get the ultra low latency / sound quality / perfect device switching / etc.

mstipetic 8mo ago

Oh yes, Europe bad, regulation bad. Maybe add some nuance to your thinking.

deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]

esperent 8mo ago

> Can you imagine Europe's reaction? And they'd be right to do so. The correct approach to creating a new standard is plan interoperability from the start. If a vendor plans lock in by introducing a new standard, they should get shut down immediately and told to do better.

roenxi 8mo ago
That sounds like a way to not get any progress. The way I'm used to this sort of thing happening is some company brings in a new proprietary standard, makes bank, then all the competition bands together to form an open standard to try and stop them. There is a bit of a tick-tock feeling as consortiums use more open and accessible standards to slowly lever power away from incumbents. It is interesting to just glance at the history of USB [0] through that lens was originally developed, and it is interesting to see that as I would have predicted the group of companies that developed USB (MS, IBM, Compaq, etc) seem to be disjoint from the companies listed as precursor technologies (looks like that was especially an Apple-led consortium of hardware manufacturers organised around firewire [1]). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#History [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_1394#Patent_considerations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_1394#Patent_consideration...
- sofixa 8mo ago
  > The way I'm used to this sort of thing happening is some company brings in a new proprietary standard, makes bank, then all the competition bands together to form an open standard to try and stop them. There is a bit of a tick-tock feeling as consortiums use more open and accessible standards to slowly lever power away from incumbents. And that leaves you with two standards (at least), non interoperable between them. In the case of hardware this can be really annoying, constraining and inefficient both for consumers and at large.
  - roenxi 8mo ago
    How likely is it that that can be avoided if, as in this context, the starting point is the current standard not being that great? It pretty much has to end in 2 different competing standards. Or there can be 2 different flavours of the existing standard which are quite likely to break interoperability and make reusing the name an annoyance rather than a help. A downside of existing standards is it means it is quite hard to innovate on them.

Mordisquitos 8mo ago

> no innovation allowed unless it interoperates with other products that don't exist yet Products that don't exist yet... so, future innovation? No innovation allowed unless it incentivises and streamlines further innovation? Count me in!