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> It's about market share and global impact There's not some kind of, "the impact has to be as large as when company X did it" rule. Apple now has enough mark

> It's about market share and global impact There's not some kind of, "the impact has to be as large as when company X did it" rule. Apple now has enough market share, especially in mobile, that the global impact is troubling.

blumkvist 11y ago
I don't know what rules you're talking about here. The OP says that Apple has worse practices than MSFT. I say that's not true. Denying computing technology on which business, governments, factories, powerplants, etc. run is FAR worse than denying (objectively) useless apps. When has Apple hindered a break-through technology? PS: I'm a massive fan of Microsoft marketing and strategy and have owned a grand total of 1 Apple products in my life - an iphone 4. Just fyi.
- bzbarsky 11y ago
  > When has Apple hindered a break-through technology? Contemporary example: it's impossible (as in, disallowed by Apple's policies) to install a web browser with a rendering engine written in a memory-safe language on your iDevice.
  - CHY872 11y ago
    I'm not super concerned about that. In particular, no such browser exists, so it's largely a semantic argument. Furthermore, there are inherent security risks; so it's easier to just lock it down until there is actually a problem. The bigger problem is that you can't implement a JIT on iOS, because you can't take a writeable page and make it executable. This is a clear security positive for iOS, but does preclude writing a decent javascript runtime.
    - bzbarsky 11y ago
      > In particular, no such browser exists Such a rendering engine does exist (Servo), and one can build a browser around it (and that will in fact happen). Just not on iDevices. > The bigger problem is that you can't implement a JIT on iOS You're not allowed to implement an interpreter either, if the code that you're interpreting is downloaded from the internet.
      - CHY872 11y ago
        Not quite. I did consider Servo, but it's hardly ready for use in the wild. It'd fall foul of many iOS guidelines, not just the 'no browser' one. It'd also fall foul of the 'only C, C++, Objective-C, Swift' guideline, for example. I didn't know the second point, but it's clearly there for the same reason; it's an easy way to stop apps from including new functionality and bypassing the review process.
        bzbarsky 11y ago
        Sure, I understand why they have the interpreter rule in place. It just blocks legitimate apps and reduces competition with Apple's products, which is what blumkvist is asking for an example of. And I wasn't talking specifically about their "no browser" or "no interpreter" guideline, just the sum total of requirements they have for iOS apps. The actual details of which exact requirement block useful things are not that important for purposes of addressing blumkvist's original question, which was how Apple's policies are more restrictive than those of Microsoft 20 years ago in ways that block objectively useful things.
  - blumkvist 11y ago
    How does this benefit them? I'm genuinely interested. I'm not a developer and don't know what that means. It sounds bad, but how does it stifle competition? Is Safari gaining an advantage? I used Chrome on my iphone4 and was pretty happy with it.
    - bzbarsky 11y ago
      Chrome on iPhone is forced to use Apple's rendering engine, not Google's. In particular, it can't implement any HTML/CSS/JS features that Safari on iPhone doesn't implement. Apple benefits partially in terms of disallowing possibly-unsafe code (JS interpreters, for example) that they themselves did not author. But also from locking out competing browsers so their hardware is harder to commoditize... In terms of stifling competition, it means there isn't meaningful competition on iOS in terms of features browsers expose to web pages. Browsers on iOS can have different user interfaces, but they all look more or less identical as far as web pages are concerned. (I say more or less because browsers can implement a custom network stack; just not a custom CSS parser or JS engine.) So for example, if you want a browser on iOS that supports the "transform" CSS property without the "-webkit" prefix, you're out of luck. Apple's policies don't allow such a browser. This is not "break-through technology", of course. But a browser engine in a memory-safe language, with the resulting smaller attack surface, is. And it's disallowed by Apple.
      - lttlrck 11y ago
        This is true but doesn't address the question. How is this stifling competition?
        bzbarsky 11y ago
        The question was for an example of Apple preventing "a break-out technology" from existing on its platform.
        yellowapple 11y ago
        To answer your own question, it's stifling competition in the iOS browser space. The above example is precisely why Firefox (for example) is unavailable on iOS; they didn't want to make a technical compromise like using Apple's version of WebKit instead of Gecko or (eventually) Servo. Basically, the only browsers allowed on iOS are reskins of Safari. Technical competition is stifled that way.
zak_mc_kracken 11y ago
> Apple now has enough market share, especially in mobile Not really. Depending on the country, the iPhone has between 10 and 20% market share and they are shrinking month after month. Android is on its way to becoming a monopoly, for sure.
- blumkvist 11y ago
  Where do you get your data? https://gigaom2.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/screen-shot-2015-02-04-at-08-21-34.png https://gigaom2.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/screen-shot-2015... -Kantar
- pdkl95 11y ago
  This story isn't about the "mobile smartphone" market - it is about Apple abusing their control of those phones to restrict the "iOS Apps" market. These are separate markets. Customers that want to buy software for their Apple-branded general purpose computers cannot buy Android apps, so there is no overlap between the markets. Software developers may choose to participate in both, but that means the have to create two separate products. What matters is is if the customer can switch their business, and not the size of the respective markets which is what those iPhone market share numbers indicate.

blumkvist 11y ago

I don't know what rules you're talking about here. The OP says that Apple has worse practices than MSFT. I say that's not true. Denying computing technology on which business, governments, factories, powerplants, etc. run is FAR worse than denying (objectively) useless apps. When has Apple hindered a break-through technology? PS: I'm a massive fan of Microsoft marketing and strategy and have owned a grand total of 1 Apple products in my life - an iphone 4. Just fyi.

bzbarsky 11y ago
> When has Apple hindered a break-through technology? Contemporary example: it's impossible (as in, disallowed by Apple's policies) to install a web browser with a rendering engine written in a memory-safe language on your iDevice.
- CHY872 11y ago
  I'm not super concerned about that. In particular, no such browser exists, so it's largely a semantic argument. Furthermore, there are inherent security risks; so it's easier to just lock it down until there is actually a problem. The bigger problem is that you can't implement a JIT on iOS, because you can't take a writeable page and make it executable. This is a clear security positive for iOS, but does preclude writing a decent javascript runtime.
  - bzbarsky 11y ago
    > In particular, no such browser exists Such a rendering engine does exist (Servo), and one can build a browser around it (and that will in fact happen). Just not on iDevices. > The bigger problem is that you can't implement a JIT on iOS You're not allowed to implement an interpreter either, if the code that you're interpreting is downloaded from the internet.
    - CHY872 11y ago
      Not quite. I did consider Servo, but it's hardly ready for use in the wild. It'd fall foul of many iOS guidelines, not just the 'no browser' one. It'd also fall foul of the 'only C, C++, Objective-C, Swift' guideline, for example. I didn't know the second point, but it's clearly there for the same reason; it's an easy way to stop apps from including new functionality and bypassing the review process.
      - bzbarsky 11y ago
        Sure, I understand why they have the interpreter rule in place. It just blocks legitimate apps and reduces competition with Apple's products, which is what blumkvist is asking for an example of. And I wasn't talking specifically about their "no browser" or "no interpreter" guideline, just the sum total of requirements they have for iOS apps. The actual details of which exact requirement block useful things are not that important for purposes of addressing blumkvist's original question, which was how Apple's policies are more restrictive than those of Microsoft 20 years ago in ways that block objectively useful things.
- blumkvist 11y ago
  How does this benefit them? I'm genuinely interested. I'm not a developer and don't know what that means. It sounds bad, but how does it stifle competition? Is Safari gaining an advantage? I used Chrome on my iphone4 and was pretty happy with it.
  - bzbarsky 11y ago
    Chrome on iPhone is forced to use Apple's rendering engine, not Google's. In particular, it can't implement any HTML/CSS/JS features that Safari on iPhone doesn't implement. Apple benefits partially in terms of disallowing possibly-unsafe code (JS interpreters, for example) that they themselves did not author. But also from locking out competing browsers so their hardware is harder to commoditize... In terms of stifling competition, it means there isn't meaningful competition on iOS in terms of features browsers expose to web pages. Browsers on iOS can have different user interfaces, but they all look more or less identical as far as web pages are concerned. (I say more or less because browsers can implement a custom network stack; just not a custom CSS parser or JS engine.) So for example, if you want a browser on iOS that supports the "transform" CSS property without the "-webkit" prefix, you're out of luck. Apple's policies don't allow such a browser. This is not "break-through technology", of course. But a browser engine in a memory-safe language, with the resulting smaller attack surface, is. And it's disallowed by Apple.
    - lttlrck 11y ago
      This is true but doesn't address the question. How is this stifling competition?
      - bzbarsky 11y ago
        The question was for an example of Apple preventing "a break-out technology" from existing on its platform.
      - yellowapple 11y ago
        To answer your own question, it's stifling competition in the iOS browser space. The above example is precisely why Firefox (for example) is unavailable on iOS; they didn't want to make a technical compromise like using Apple's version of WebKit instead of Gecko or (eventually) Servo. Basically, the only browsers allowed on iOS are reskins of Safari. Technical competition is stifled that way.

zak_mc_kracken 11y ago

> Apple now has enough market share, especially in mobile Not really. Depending on the country, the iPhone has between 10 and 20% market share and they are shrinking month after month. Android is on its way to becoming a monopoly, for sure.

blumkvist 11y ago
Where do you get your data? https://gigaom2.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/screen-shot-2015-02-04-at-08-21-34.png https://gigaom2.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/screen-shot-2015... -Kantar
pdkl95 11y ago
This story isn't about the "mobile smartphone" market - it is about Apple abusing their control of those phones to restrict the "iOS Apps" market. These are separate markets. Customers that want to buy software for their Apple-branded general purpose computers cannot buy Android apps, so there is no overlap between the markets. Software developers may choose to participate in both, but that means the have to create two separate products. What matters is is if the customer can switch their business, and not the size of the respective markets which is what those iPhone market share numbers indicate.