Apple allows analytics data collection, but not for Google | Hacker News Reader

Apple allows analytics data collection, but not for Google

macrumors.com

42 pointsdanh34 comments

I'm not sure how Apple gets a free pass for this kind of stuff. Sure, they get a blog post or two written about them, but it never sticks. People grumble a bit, but in the end everyone gets back in line for the next iGewgaw.

Some nasty things Apple has done:

  * Blocks all non-licensed integration with their products (notably iTunes).

  * Banned Flash from iOS

  * Banned iOS devs from using cross-compilers

  * Blocked apps from the App Store that compete with Apple products/services

Apple has far surpassed Microsoft as abusers of the"lock-in" strategy to grow their business.

I await the day that Google decides they've had enough of this bullshit and drops support for all Apple products. I'm not sure how compelling the iPhone would be without Google Search, Maps, YouTube, Gmail, etc. The cherry on top would be for Adobe to do the same with their creative suite.

I suppose that's just a savage fantasy. The reality is that Google will simply continue to improve Android and, like a slow motion replay of the 90s, Apple will watch the iOS lineup pushed back into the luxury niche that the Mac has enjoyed for all these years.

Blocks all non-licensed integration with their products (notably iTunes).

They blocked Palm devices from masquerading as iPods, but I wasn't aware that a license was needed to read and write to (via AppleScript/COM) iTunes Music Library.xml as Nokia and BB's sync software do.

edit: spelling

No, you don't need a license to snoop around in the media library, but I'm talking about real interoperability. iTunes won't talk to anything but iOS devices and iOS devices won't talk to anything but iTunes.

I don't think they should go out of their way to support foreign devices, but releasing iTunes updates solely to squash Palm's efforts was slapping users in the face.

I don't know that "real interoperability" is a problem. I plug my Nokia E71 into my Mac, it syncs up my iTunes playlists, I disconnect and go on with my life. Yeah, it goes through Nokia's software running in the background, but that software is running anyway to handle the other Nokia sync operations.

With one exception, the user experience is not a whole lot different than syncing with my iPod Classic. The only major exception I notice is that iTunes doesn't have to be running for me to sync my E71.

It just doesn't work that way. If Apple allows it and it becomes at all popular, they are stuck in a situation where they either need to support it directly or deal with the predictable outrage from the blogosphere when iTunes X.Y breaks Pre syncing because Palm/HP hasn't updated their hacks yet, or worse they have to deal with people not upgrading iTunes until Palm/HP does update their hacks.

All because Palm would rather piggy back on iTunes than write their own playlist manager. Oh, but of course, it's Apple slapping users in the face, those dicks, how dare they.

Yeah, that was a bit snarky, but come on...

Premise 1: There is a very tiny chance that a future update could break Palm sync but not break compatibility with the legacy iPods that the Palm is simulating

Premise 2: This would be undesirable

Conclusion: We should avert the risk of breaking the device by breaking the device

Doesn't make a lot of sense. The device is broken either way.

Anyway, the problem isn't that they don't want to write their own playlist manager — it's that requiring the user to have two music managers (one for the OS and one for the device) is a bad user experience.

it's that requiring the user to have two music managers (one for the OS and one for the device) is a bad user experience.

But again, it doesn't have to be that way from a user POV. As far as my E71 is concerned, all my music management is done via iTunes.

Really? Within iTunes, how do you choose whether to sync everything automatically or manually select the ones you want?

You sync playlists to the E71, so you could set up a smart playlist that has everything, or you can use normal (or smart) playlists to select some subset of tracks.

Edit: to clarify - when I installed the Nokia software, it asks if I want to sync my music files with iTunes. Upon selecting "yes" it set up a playlist folder in iTunes that gets synced, and the user sets up playlists within that folder to sync to the smartphone.

> Conclusion: We should avert the risk of breaking the device by breaking the device

You break a handful intentionally so you don't have to risk breaking hundreds of thousands unintentionally.

Complain all you want about their "abusive" policies, but 99% the people buying an iPad every 3 seconds probably don't even know or care what Flash is.

Buying an iOS device that doesn't support all those things is actually the public giving money to Apple to support this main philosophy:

"We will tell developers that they can't make software that is hard to use."

I mean, Apple hasn't actually said that, but that's what people are getting when they buy an iOS device. And guess what? People are actually buying them by the millions.

Google will never remove themselves from iOS devices. They need the search traffic too badly. That's why Google is competing with Android. Google has a lot of smart people working there. They know the future is a mobile future and saw a potential future where consumers get all of their information from iApps instead of search engines.

Have you heard of Windows? Every one of the billions(?) of copies that it sold was, according to your theory, the public telling Apple that they hated their philosophy and supported their rival who held a diametrically opposed design philosophy.

A lot of those billions of copies are sold to corporations that don't give their employees any choice about what software to use.

4 out of 10 iPhones sold by AT&T were to enterprises:

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/at-t-exec-4-out-of-10-of-our-i...

At most companies that deploy enterprise phones, employees get a "choice" between Blackberry and iPhone now. Well, iPhone is not always available as a choice, but at my company it is now in the beta phase. Guess what people choose when they actually get a choice?

Given my experience with home computer users over the last decade who all plumped for Windows, I'd suggest that they'd stick with what they know, or buy what everyone else was buying.

Since according to the latest NPD numbers Blackberries are still selling more than iPhones in the US, and you say most companies offer a choice it appears Blackberry are better by this metric, just like Windows was better by this metric. I'm thinking it's not a very good metric.

"The reality is that Google will simply continue to improve Android and, like a slow motion replay of the 90s, Apple will watch the iOS lineup pushed back into the luxury niche that the Mac has enjoyed for all these years."

I've thought about this a lot, and I think that Android is gaining ground right now because it's across so many carriers. As soon as Apple breaks it marriage with AT&T and gets it phones into Verizon, Sprint, and all the other major carriers I think the Android growth with slow.

FWIW, I just bought an HTC EVO because I refuse to sign an AT&T contract.

I am not so sure: in Denmark Apple has an agreement with a reasonably good carrier but I still see a lot of Android phones around.

Anecdotally, here in my office in New Zealand, we have 4 HTC Magics, 2 iPhones, and then a raft of SE/Nokia devices for lesser peons such as myself ;). This is despite the fact that Android devices aren't available for retail through a large Telco (Vodafone/Telecom) and need to be parallel imported.

Corporates are scared of iPhones, because the level of control that's handed to Apple is reasonably unacceptable.

"I've thought about this a lot, and I think that Android is gaining ground right now because it's across so many carriers. As soon as Apple breaks it marriage with AT&T and gets it phones into Verizon, Sprint, and all the other major carriers I think the Android growth with slow."

Possibly.

I think Android is also growing because it can fill so many niche's in the market. It's not just across a lot of carriers, but a lot of different types of devices. The Devour seems to me to be a little bit more than a messaging phone, while the EVO is sort of a cross between a Nokia-type phone and an iPhone. The iPhone is pretty much the same device and if that isn't your cup of tea, then it is pretty easy to get a comparable phone somewhere else.

Apple's already working toward replacing Google Search with Bing. Maybe they're already planning for that eventuality. However, I don't think Google will ever completely pull out of iOS, there's too big of a market there.

Bigger than China?

It's pretty messed up I agree. But it is also their platform.

Also I was previously under the impression that Google would win taking the 'Windows' route on the mobile market but it is such a different beast. Apple really is taking the Windows approach in standard phones, common single OS and much more of a solid platform in mobile currently. It may change when phone designs are more commodities and they just looks like the iPhone.

Another thing to consider is that Steve Jobs got fired in 1985 when Apple was ahead. They lost both because Steve Jobs was fired and Bill Gates emerged and Microsoft took advantage of the lamer Apple. So I am not sure the same situation will happen this time around that happened to desktop in the 90's, maybe once Jobs gets too old.

We shall see and it will be interesting. But Apple isn't Apple anymore, they are a morphed NeXTSTEP which was Jobs reboot after he got fired from Apple. Microsoft is done as a challenger most likely and Google seems to be reactive. Apple is mostly competitive with their last product not the competition as much, where the competition will be following and reactive for some time.

I think Apple is 5-10 years ahead currently. People also ALWAYS overlook the iPod/iPad handheld market that makes up almost 60% of their market. Noone has even began to tread on that and iTunes. Now Apple it going after mobile advertising so Google can't grow as fast as they'd like in mobile.

Maybe it is inevitable but this time around there are differences.

I did enjoy Job's joke about iMovie on iPhone: "If we will approve it".

If they stick to the "do no evil", they can't stand by Apple's side for too long.

Keep in mind it took the Chinese government hacking into their computers to get Google to leave China.

Apple used to be the underdog fighting against "the man" Microsoft, but these tactics are reminiscent of Microsoft's heavy-handedness that landed it in so much hot water. It's hard not to see these things are start seeing Apple as the bad guy.

Apple has always behaved this way. The only reasons that they got away with it was a combination of cultist loyalty and being the underdog. Apple has always been considerably more evil than Microsoft.

Apple has always behaved this way.

Not before the iPhone. There were never any restrictions on what developers could do with Macs, and OS X is very hacker-friendly.

That depends on how narrowly you interpret "this way" in reality.

Apple has a LONG history of shooting customers in the back: -- oh, your brand new monitor isn't compatible with your brand new computer -- that you just purchased from an Apple store... to fix this, buy a new monitor

-- You want to use your expensive ADB printer on your new mac with USB? Buy a new printer.

-- Use Carbon to develop 64-bit apps. We decided not to support 64-bit with Carbon, use Cocoa instead. (I may have the library names backward, but this is why Photoshop CS4 wasn't available in 64-bit on the mac)

-- So you're a Logic/Shake user with Windows and want to upgrade to the latest version? Tough. Buy a mac. We know it's slower, but if you want to continue using the software you licensed from the company we just bought, buy a mac.

(It was fairly obvious that the rationale was that given a choice, no one in their right mind would have picked the mac for either of those applications at the time, so Apple had to buy Nothing Real and eMagic and take away the choice in order to force people to buy macs to run Shake and Logic Audio. It was partially successful... most Shake users were using Linux anyway, and they weren't switching. The Logic thing created a lot of new customers for a few companies like Mark of the Unicorn.)

-- Your computer is too slow? Doesn't support OpenGL? Buy a mac. Oh wait, you already have a mac. Stop complaining.

PT_DENY_ATTACH.

Good point. That was to placate the RIAA with iTunes, so I'd say that they started to go downhill with the focus on closed devices; first iPods, then iPhones to a much greater extent.

Given the Justice Department's inquiry into Apple, Google should just go ahead and press the issue by collecting the data anyway.

I would rather have nobody collect the data.

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