8 ms·

Dear Apple, please for the love of god and the good of everyone, get together with Google and iron out a common protocol for this stuff. Don't make this one of

by zmmmmm 12y ago

Dear Apple, please for the love of god and the good of everyone, get together with Google and iron out a common protocol for this stuff. Don't make this one of your competitive technologies designed to fragment the world into Apple and not-Apple. Home automation is just dying to take off and there's a pile of gold for everyone if you just show a tiny bit of cooperation to get it started ... And you can all still sue each other afterwards if you like about the design of the light switches or whatever turns you on, but can we please just let the industry move forward first?

krschultz 12y ago
I absolutely doubt that Apple will. Look at AirPlay. Look at AirDrop. Look at iMessage and Facetime. Even their original content formats were not all that portable. Some of those are for technical/licensing reasons, but many are not.
- OverlordXenu 12y ago
  Yeah, but many devices support both AirPlay and DLNA or whatever else. I bet we'll see devices that support both Google and Apple. Or someone will reverse-engineer the API, like they always do.
- aroch 12y ago
  Or at Google...Hangouts, their AIO messaging framework, is not either
  - wting 12y ago
    If you feel compelled to mention Google Hangouts, you should note that Google abandoned XMPP federation after 8 years (2005 - 2013) since other companies built walled gardens and leeched users instead. http://www.zdnet.com/google-moves-away-from-the-xmpp-open-messaging-standard-7000015918/ http://www.zdnet.com/google-moves-away-from-the-xmpp-open-me... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Talk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Talk
    - aroch 12y ago
      Yeah, that doesn't matter. They continued to use XMPP so long because it was still profitable for them to, not because of some implied ethical stand on open software. Android is "open" because it is more profitable for Google to give it away and make the ad/Play/certification money than it is for them to personally get into the hardware market like Apple.
      - nightpool 12y ago
        I can't imagine in what situation using XMPP could be construed as "profitable". Maybe for paying Google Apps users, but I don't think too many of them depended on XMPP integration (either they have their own enterprise chat solution or they're just using Google's. Or they're not allowed chat) What would be the revenue source there?
      - eevilspock 12y ago
        How can the word "ethical" ever describe a company that gets all of its money from advertising, the business of deception and manipulation, and then deepens its pact with the Devil by trading all of our privacy for more profit and control, a company whose CEO says things like, "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7767811 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7767811 -- EDIT: At least two downvotes within a minute of posting! If you're going to downvote this comment, at least have the honesty and guts to reply with a counter-argument. I wish HN gave us transparency into votes, such Quora does. But sigh... I expect these cowardly downvotes. HN seems to be dominated by Google apologists. Furthermore, much of the web is ad-supported, and as Upton Sinclair said so well, "It's difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it." HN is going downhill because those interested in reasonable discussion are overwhelmed by ideologues and religious fanatics. It's like the tech community has its own version(s) of the Tea Party to contend with
        scrumper 12y ago
        Well I'm downvoting you for your edit, which is simultaneously childishly whiny and quite funny in its lack of awareness: read your original again, and then ask yourself if you don't think you might be coming across as a bit of an ideologue yourself. I disagree with your original argument because it's a straw man. 'Ethical' was used by the parent to refer to the consideration to use XMPP, not to Google as a corporation. The parent simply posited that Google's decision to use XMPP was not motivated by ethical concerns. Supporting, in a way, your own point.
  - lstamour 12y ago
    Funny how proprietary technologies Apple make can be copied by Google if they take off? (And vice versa.) Personally I expect this to be like browser wars initially -- you'll just have to write code twice until a common standard (or wrapper) can be agreed upon.
voltagex_ 12y ago
I'm looking forward to things like the Almond+, which will use Z-Wave. I don't hold out hope for Apple opening anything up after the Darwin components started disappearing and after the broken FaceTime promise.
- simonh 12y ago
  Darwin is fair enough, but FaceTime was due to a patent held by another company. The fight cost them something like $500 million but in the end there's nothing apple could do about it.
  - m_eiman 12y ago
    Reference?
    - sbuk 12y ago
      This irritates the hell out of me. You want a reference? Before snarkily replying with 'Reference?', fucking search for it; http://lmgtfy.com/?q=facetime+patent+issue http://lmgtfy.com/?q=facetime+patent+issue
avar 12y ago
Just like mp3 players and touchscreen smartphones never took off due to Apple maintaining a walled garden around the iPod and the iPhone? If they come up with a compelling product there will be competitors and standardization.
- skeletonjelly 12y ago
  The MP3 codec already existed, and touchscreens have nothing to do with a "common protocol", unless you count being a human with a capacitance as a protocol.
  - sixbrx 12y ago
    MP3 existed but was proprietary.
    - XorNot 12y ago
      Irrelevant: free encoders were popular, and the early days of Napster meant most MP3s are CD-rips being uploaded by users. Apple made out like a bandit from that ecosystem since it was the original reason to own an iPod.
prawn 12y ago
Wonder if we'll see futures houses advertised for sale as being Apple, Google or whatever other brand supported properties. Not too keen on that concept.
- wting 12y ago
  That's happening in the auto industry. Many cars feature Apple integration while Google is leveraging Android: http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/6/5279116/google-open-automotive-alliance-android-car-announcement http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/6/5279116/google-open-automot... https://www.apple.com/ipod/car-integration/#mercedes https://www.apple.com/ipod/car-integration/#mercedes
  - _djo_ 12y ago
    Not quite the same thing. iOS's CarPlay integration is just a mechanism for mirroring your iOS device in-car and using the car media controls. The Open Automotive Alliance is about trying to get Android into the embedded car systems market. The CarPlay integration can be served just as easily by embedded Android as it can by any of the other in-car systems. The two approaches are not mutually exclusive.
- tdurden 12y ago
  Cars were either Sirius or XM before the merger
- nashequilibrium 12y ago
  An ios house, connected to an ios house platform. I can imagine the conversations, i bought a Samsung home or how to jailbreak your ios home or android malware popping up on your bathroom mirrors as you brush your teeth.
Frozenlock 12y ago
There's already a common protocol... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7836739 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7836739
- SalimoS 12y ago
  from the reply i don't think apple should use this "common protocol"
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
mcintyre1994 12y ago
Strategically it looks smarter to interoperate with Google here. Not doing so will probably lock Google out ofthe USA to some extent but it'll surely lock Apple out of anywhere Android dominate and scrap any growth ideas from emerging markets.
mantrax5 12y ago
Dear "zmmmmm", it was Apple who kept inviting Google to every party they had. Default Google search in Safari, default Google Maps and YouTube on iPhone and so on and so on. Who fucked it up? Google. The whole world sees Google has rock solid services and technology and the whole world sees Nest has some great ideas going. But Google's historical behavior shows they use all this goodness to (pardon my French) surprise-buttfuck their partners again and again. Point the fingers at Google.
windexh8er 12y ago
But... They won't. Please, if you're developing on iOS don't do this. Apple is hungry and looking for another market segment to lock out the slow, but good, innovation taking place. Today I happily control 70% of my house with full access to scene programming and enjoy no vendor lock-in other than the protocols my choice of controller supports. The biggest things here is I have access to a local API, I don't need to rely on Internet connectivity - something most everyone gets wrong. Home automation is huge. Apple mindlessly taking it down to simplistic "Xfinity home automation levels" but making it pretty doesn't help. SmartThings, WigWag, Revolv - all suck. They lock the smart home user out by not exposing an API. Why? They want to collect sit in the middle and collect data. None of these companies seem to get that there's a middle ground and the initial users are not all ones that trust a start-up 1) with their data and 2) to be around next year. There's only a few that get it right and they're not the prettiest by far or they'd, likely, rule the landscape. I've been running home automation for over 3 years now on the same platform - nothing today is anything new or different. If I want my phone to be a piece of my HA system I'll use applications specific that help me make those tie-ins, but I don't want Google, Apple or some other fly-by-night-startup to get in the middle of that. It's my home, that's personal.
- shiftpgdn 12y ago
  Can you expand on your home automation setup?
joshdance 12y ago
When was the last time Google and Apple actually worked together? Serious question.
- burkaman 12y ago
  They sort of collaborated to buy Kodak's patents last year. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-11/apple-google-deal-for-kodak-patents-approved-by-judge.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-11/apple-google-deal-f... Which is funny because two years before that, Google was absolutely outraged that Apple and Microsoft would band together in a clearly anti-competitive move to deny Google a collection of patents

by zmmmmm 12y ago

krschultz 12y ago

I absolutely doubt that Apple will. Look at AirPlay. Look at AirDrop. Look at iMessage and Facetime. Even their original content formats were not all that portable. Some of those are for technical/licensing reasons, but many are not.

OverlordXenu 12y ago
Yeah, but many devices support both AirPlay and DLNA or whatever else. I bet we'll see devices that support both Google and Apple. Or someone will reverse-engineer the API, like they always do.
aroch 12y ago
Or at Google...Hangouts, their AIO messaging framework, is not either
- wting 12y ago
  If you feel compelled to mention Google Hangouts, you should note that Google abandoned XMPP federation after 8 years (2005 - 2013) since other companies built walled gardens and leeched users instead. http://www.zdnet.com/google-moves-away-from-the-xmpp-open-messaging-standard-7000015918/ http://www.zdnet.com/google-moves-away-from-the-xmpp-open-me... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Talk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Talk
  - aroch 12y ago
    Yeah, that doesn't matter. They continued to use XMPP so long because it was still profitable for them to, not because of some implied ethical stand on open software. Android is "open" because it is more profitable for Google to give it away and make the ad/Play/certification money than it is for them to personally get into the hardware market like Apple.
    - nightpool 12y ago
      I can't imagine in what situation using XMPP could be construed as "profitable". Maybe for paying Google Apps users, but I don't think too many of them depended on XMPP integration (either they have their own enterprise chat solution or they're just using Google's. Or they're not allowed chat) What would be the revenue source there?
    - eevilspock 12y ago
      How can the word "ethical" ever describe a company that gets all of its money from advertising, the business of deception and manipulation, and then deepens its pact with the Devil by trading all of our privacy for more profit and control, a company whose CEO says things like, "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7767811 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7767811 -- EDIT: At least two downvotes within a minute of posting! If you're going to downvote this comment, at least have the honesty and guts to reply with a counter-argument. I wish HN gave us transparency into votes, such Quora does. But sigh... I expect these cowardly downvotes. HN seems to be dominated by Google apologists. Furthermore, much of the web is ad-supported, and as Upton Sinclair said so well, "It's difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it." HN is going downhill because those interested in reasonable discussion are overwhelmed by ideologues and religious fanatics. It's like the tech community has its own version(s) of the Tea Party to contend with
      - scrumper 12y ago
        Well I'm downvoting you for your edit, which is simultaneously childishly whiny and quite funny in its lack of awareness: read your original again, and then ask yourself if you don't think you might be coming across as a bit of an ideologue yourself. I disagree with your original argument because it's a straw man. 'Ethical' was used by the parent to refer to the consideration to use XMPP, not to Google as a corporation. The parent simply posited that Google's decision to use XMPP was not motivated by ethical concerns. Supporting, in a way, your own point.
- lstamour 12y ago
  Funny how proprietary technologies Apple make can be copied by Google if they take off? (And vice versa.) Personally I expect this to be like browser wars initially -- you'll just have to write code twice until a common standard (or wrapper) can be agreed upon.

voltagex_ 12y ago

I'm looking forward to things like the Almond+, which will use Z-Wave. I don't hold out hope for Apple opening anything up after the Darwin components started disappearing and after the broken FaceTime promise.

simonh 12y ago
Darwin is fair enough, but FaceTime was due to a patent held by another company. The fight cost them something like $500 million but in the end there's nothing apple could do about it.
- m_eiman 12y ago
  Reference?
  - sbuk 12y ago
    This irritates the hell out of me. You want a reference? Before snarkily replying with 'Reference?', fucking search for it; http://lmgtfy.com/?q=facetime+patent+issue http://lmgtfy.com/?q=facetime+patent+issue

avar 12y ago

Just like mp3 players and touchscreen smartphones never took off due to Apple maintaining a walled garden around the iPod and the iPhone? If they come up with a compelling product there will be competitors and standardization.

skeletonjelly 12y ago
The MP3 codec already existed, and touchscreens have nothing to do with a "common protocol", unless you count being a human with a capacitance as a protocol.
- sixbrx 12y ago
  MP3 existed but was proprietary.
  - XorNot 12y ago
    Irrelevant: free encoders were popular, and the early days of Napster meant most MP3s are CD-rips being uploaded by users. Apple made out like a bandit from that ecosystem since it was the original reason to own an iPod.

prawn 12y ago

Wonder if we'll see futures houses advertised for sale as being Apple, Google or whatever other brand supported properties. Not too keen on that concept.

wting 12y ago
That's happening in the auto industry. Many cars feature Apple integration while Google is leveraging Android: http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/6/5279116/google-open-automotive-alliance-android-car-announcement http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/6/5279116/google-open-automot... https://www.apple.com/ipod/car-integration/#mercedes https://www.apple.com/ipod/car-integration/#mercedes
- _djo_ 12y ago
  Not quite the same thing. iOS's CarPlay integration is just a mechanism for mirroring your iOS device in-car and using the car media controls. The Open Automotive Alliance is about trying to get Android into the embedded car systems market. The CarPlay integration can be served just as easily by embedded Android as it can by any of the other in-car systems. The two approaches are not mutually exclusive.
tdurden 12y ago
Cars were either Sirius or XM before the merger
nashequilibrium 12y ago
An ios house, connected to an ios house platform. I can imagine the conversations, i bought a Samsung home or how to jailbreak your ios home or android malware popping up on your bathroom mirrors as you brush your teeth.

Frozenlock 12y ago

There's already a common protocol... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7836739 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7836739

SalimoS 12y ago
from the reply i don't think apple should use this "common protocol"

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

mcintyre1994 12y ago

Strategically it looks smarter to interoperate with Google here. Not doing so will probably lock Google out ofthe USA to some extent but it'll surely lock Apple out of anywhere Android dominate and scrap any growth ideas from emerging markets.

mantrax5 12y ago

Dear "zmmmmm", it was Apple who kept inviting Google to every party they had. Default Google search in Safari, default Google Maps and YouTube on iPhone and so on and so on. Who fucked it up? Google. The whole world sees Google has rock solid services and technology and the whole world sees Nest has some great ideas going. But Google's historical behavior shows they use all this goodness to (pardon my French) surprise-buttfuck their partners again and again. Point the fingers at Google.

windexh8er 12y ago

But... They won't. Please, if you're developing on iOS don't do this. Apple is hungry and looking for another market segment to lock out the slow, but good, innovation taking place. Today I happily control 70% of my house with full access to scene programming and enjoy no vendor lock-in other than the protocols my choice of controller supports. The biggest things here is I have access to a local API, I don't need to rely on Internet connectivity - something most everyone gets wrong. Home automation is huge. Apple mindlessly taking it down to simplistic "Xfinity home automation levels" but making it pretty doesn't help. SmartThings, WigWag, Revolv - all suck. They lock the smart home user out by not exposing an API. Why? They want to collect sit in the middle and collect data. None of these companies seem to get that there's a middle ground and the initial users are not all ones that trust a start-up 1) with their data and 2) to be around next year. There's only a few that get it right and they're not the prettiest by far or they'd, likely, rule the landscape. I've been running home automation for over 3 years now on the same platform - nothing today is anything new or different. If I want my phone to be a piece of my HA system I'll use applications specific that help me make those tie-ins, but I don't want Google, Apple or some other fly-by-night-startup to get in the middle of that. It's my home, that's personal.

shiftpgdn 12y ago
Can you expand on your home automation setup?

joshdance 12y ago

When was the last time Google and Apple actually worked together? Serious question.

burkaman 12y ago
They sort of collaborated to buy Kodak's patents last year. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-11/apple-google-deal-for-kodak-patents-approved-by-judge.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-11/apple-google-deal-f... Which is funny because two years before that, Google was absolutely outraged that Apple and Microsoft would band together in a clearly anti-competitive move to deny Google a collection of patents