Re:Apple’s Universal Control
by PaulDavisThe1st on Saturday March 19, 2022 @11:02AM
(#30734308)
> Apple gear and software always has a low-level advantage, as they own the SDK, but I haven’t seen them actually use this to deliberately disadvantage competitors (unlike some other companies that I won’t mention).
Try to write code for macOS that can stream data from disk as fast as Logic Pro. Maybe there's really no magic, and I'm just an idiot, but I certainly couldn't do it.
Re:Apple’s Universal Control
by ChrisMarshallNY on Saturday March 19, 2022 @01:57PM
(#30735975)
I’m not exactly sure what that has to do with disputing the quoted sentence. It’s actually what I was talking about. Everybody knows that Apple has "internal APIs," giving them access that non-Apple software does not have. This does make it difficult for independent developers to offer competing functionality (this has happened with me), but I have not felt that Apple has deliberately targeted competition. It's just that they have the ability to deliver something that serves the user, and their internal access gives them an advantage.
As an independent developer, I can certainly understand why I would not be allowed to access some of these private APIs, and I don't feel that it is because Apple is afraid of any competition from li'l ol' me. I have always assumed that it's because access at that level may bypass some security methods.
Re:Apple’s Universal Control
by PaulDavisThe1st on Saturday March 19, 2022 @04:31PM
(#30737337)
You have just described "deliberately disadvantaging" the competition, which was what you said you did not believe Apple had done.
Re:Apple’s Universal Control
by fennecfoxen on Sunday March 20, 2022 @01:09AM
(#30740313)
The approach he described is consistent with non-malicious failure to turn a new API into something robust, reliable, external, and well documented. If you’ve got a hot new way to move bytes the long term stability of the API is a real concern. You break things if you change it.
Re:Apple’s Universal Control
by ChrisMarshallNY on Saturday March 19, 2022 @07:08PM
(#30738389)
No. "Deliberately disadvantaging" is doing something like adding code to slow down disk write operations used by a direct competitor.
Listen, I'm not gonna play this game. I said my piece, you said yours, we're done.
Apple gear and software always has a low-level advantage, as they own the SDK, but I haven’t seen them actually use this to deliberately disadvantage competitors (unlike some other companies that I won’t mention).
That said, I have seen them “Sherlock” developers, though; where they implement integrated versions of products made by independent devs. This has been fairly controversial, as they have not always paid/given credit to the developers they plowed under. That sucks, because it would, literally, cost them nothing to simply mention the product that inspired their work. I suspect that’s because lawyers.
I tend to like Apple for the same reason that other developers hate them. That “walled garden” is a big fat PItA, but it is also the reason for an enormous, lucrative, market. We need to learn to take the bad with the good, if we want to be happy.