Hacker News Reader

Comment by mrweasel | Hacker News Reader

I'm all for openness and interoperability, but not all of these are the same category of requests. AirPlay, literally no damage to Apples business opening that protocol, because everyone still suck at creating the receiving devices, or could use the ChromeCast protocol. The only risk is having Android owners buying HomePods or an AppleTV.

The NFC, background execution and documentation for private symbols... those seem fairly specific and I feel like the competitors who've asked/demanded these, are among the last people who should have these features.

Notifications and Smartwatch integration, seems reasonable to me. AirDrop, sure I use it, but I doubt many care.

The weird missing one is iMessage.

View on HN

background execution is a pretty normal one for e.g. smartwatches. Being able to reliably have interactions with accessory devices in both directions is kind of important to a good experience. For instance, the Find My Phone feature on fitbit devices breaks if you close out of the fitbit app on your iPhone.

nfc is more niche and Apple Wallet already covers a lot of use cases so idk what the use case is there.

documentation for private symbols is because the EU is also introducing a process to request access to private APIs.

> The Commission considers that developers may benefit from having access to a high-level description of iOS and iPadOS components to enable a broad understanding of available features and functionalities, which can then be useful and sufficient for clearly identifying the relevant components within a developer’s interoperability request.

> The weird missing one is iMessage.

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/mex_24...

> the Commission found that iMessage, Bing, Edge and Microsoft Advertising do not qualify as gatekeeper services.

I wonder why AirPlay is a gatekeeper service, but iMessage isn't?

iOS is the gatekeeper. AirPlay is how iOS plays media wirelessly.

iMessage isn't a gatekeeper because it isn't popular enough in Europe. It comes with iOS, but most European iOS users don't use it for enough of their messaging for the regulators to give it that classification.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com