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I am probably extremely naive here but I just don't understand why technical companies are willing to allow one single company to slow things down just because

I am probably extremely naive here but I just don't understand why technical companies are willing to allow one single company to slow things down just because they seem to have the most "revenue" that shouldn't matter for technical standards. > The Google's "80% of the mobile market share" is misleading, when a majority of those phones don't complete with the iPhone and aren't developer targets. Are majority of these phones capable of running a browser that'd adopt support for Pointer Events or Touch Events? Yes, then they're counted, no? > Android had well over double Apple's marketshare in 2012 when FB bought Instagram for $1B, and they had yet to (or just had) released their Android app. Despite having 80% marketshare, Apple's App store generated more revenue than the Play market last quarter[1]. I still don't understand what it has to do with web standards that everyone will be using in the browsers? Are you telling me that because Apple users bought more apps, they should have more influence on technical standards for mobile browsers that has nothing to do with the apps they bought? > When Apple holds the most important card - revenue - its not hard to see that they are in the best position for stifling standards. Seems like a bad idea to allow them to keep doing this. We didn't get the best outcome letting MS pull this crap back in 90s. But then again, history tend to repeat itself.

nemothekid 12y ago
>I am probably extremely naive here but I just don't understand why technical companies are willing to allow one single company to slow things down just because they seem to have the most "revenue" that shouldn't matter for technical standards. They aren't. Microsoft submitted PointerEvents forever ago. But I'm assuming naivety is leading you to believe that standards mean much. Everyone could today agree make PointerEvents a standard. Now Android, WinMo, Opera and Firefox support PointerEvents. Now what? You still have a large number of developers targeting iOS not using the standard. You can shame Apple, but Apple always gets a free pass. Worse still, lets say Apple comes out with "iEvents". Now every developer is now using "iEvents" in web, despite PointerEvents exists. Of course Google wants Android browsers to be performant with whatever is popular, so they adopt "iEvents" as well. Now everyone is using "iEvents" even though PointerEvents is the standard. All because Apple controls a lot of developer mindshare. Remember, everyone doing "bleeding edge" mobile work is pretty much targeting iOS first - so "hyped" technologies are usually supported by Apple's platform. This is less about tech companies "willing to allow a single company to slow things down" and more about the fact a single company, because of its dominance, can and will slow things down. >Seems like a bad idea to allow them to keep doing this. We didn't get the best outcome letting MS pull this crap back in 90s. But then again, history tend to repeat itself. It IS a bad idea. Its the same position MS had in the 90s. Thats what we should be saying here and not deluding ourself into thinking that Apple's position matters less because Google has more market share.

nemothekid 12y ago

>I am probably extremely naive here but I just don't understand why technical companies are willing to allow one single company to slow things down just because they seem to have the most "revenue" that shouldn't matter for technical standards. They aren't. Microsoft submitted PointerEvents forever ago. But I'm assuming naivety is leading you to believe that standards mean much. Everyone could today agree make PointerEvents a standard. Now Android, WinMo, Opera and Firefox support PointerEvents. Now what? You still have a large number of developers targeting iOS not using the standard. You can shame Apple, but Apple always gets a free pass. Worse still, lets say Apple comes out with "iEvents". Now every developer is now using "iEvents" in web, despite PointerEvents exists. Of course Google wants Android browsers to be performant with whatever is popular, so they adopt "iEvents" as well. Now everyone is using "iEvents" even though PointerEvents is the standard. All because Apple controls a lot of developer mindshare. Remember, everyone doing "bleeding edge" mobile work is pretty much targeting iOS first - so "hyped" technologies are usually supported by Apple's platform. This is less about tech companies "willing to allow a single company to slow things down" and more about the fact a single company, because of its dominance, can and will slow things down. >Seems like a bad idea to allow them to keep doing this. We didn't get the best outcome letting MS pull this crap back in 90s. But then again, history tend to repeat itself. It IS a bad idea. Its the same position MS had in the 90s. Thats what we should be saying here and not deluding ourself into thinking that Apple's position matters less because Google has more market share.