Re:Apple has made it difficult to use web-based technology o...
by chongli on Friday November 08, 2019 @07:21PM
(#21488458)
False equivalency. Changing private APIs without warning is not the same as actively breaking clients.
This distinction does not matter in the public sphere. When Apple releases an update — any update — that breaks a popular app, they are blamed for it. By putting their foot down, Apple is putting the onus back on developers to play by their rules.
This situation is essentially the normalization of deviance [1]. If you do not enforce a rule, that rule becomes invalid and unenforceable. Apple does not want to lose control of their platform. If they give away all of their private, low level APIs, then cross platform frameworks like Electron will render their platform a commodity.
You know all the talk about Google or Facebook or Comcast both owning the platform and competing on the content layer with self-dealing is anti-competitive monopolistic behavior? Same goes for Microsoft Windows in the 1990s (actually litigated these very issues) and Apple today.