Comment by shagie
2 years ago
What limitations did Apple place in 2013 (or 2014 or 2015) that reduced the functionality of Pebble in light of a forthcoming iWatch?
If it was a "it worked and then Apple took away this API that we were going to use" that would be one thing. If it was "the iPhone didn't have the functionality for other devices to read messages over BlueTooth until 2015 with iOS 8" - that's a different claim.
I don't know about Pebble, but Tile got restricted really hard once Apple decided to make the Apple Tag. There's many rants/statements from the Tile CEO on this subject.
So this behavior isn't a relic of old APIs
https://www.macrumors.com/2021/05/04/tile-ceo-on-competition...
> > If you look at the history between Tile and Apple, we had a very symbiotic relationship. They sold Tile in their stores, we were highlighted at WWDC 2019, and then they launched Find My in 2019, and right when they launched their Find My app, which is effectively a competitor of Tile, they made a number of changes to their OS that made it very difficult for our customers to enable Tile. And then once they got it enabled, they started showing notifications that basically made it seem like Tile was broken.
> Prober is talking about changes that Apple made to location services permissions. For privacy purposes, Apple stopped making it easy for apps to get permanent access to a user's location. Apps in iOS 13 were not initially allowed to present an "Always Allow" option when requesting location access, and the feature had to be enabled in the Settings app. Apple also started sending regular reminders to customers letting them know their location was being used.
> Tile was not happy with these privacy changes and that privacy tweak set Tile against Apple, with Tile in 2019 calling on Congress to "level the playing field."
> > The main points of differentiation of AirTags vis a vis Tile are enabled by platform capabilities that we don't have access to.
> Apple has, in fact, launched the Find My network that gives third-party accessories some of the same access that AirTags have, and Find My network accessories will be able to access the U1 chip in the iPhone 11 and 12 models much like the AirTags, but Tile won't be able to use the Find My network unless it abandons its own app and infrastructure, which it is likely unwilling to do.
> Prober said that Tile has been "seeking to access" the U1 chip since its introduction in the iPhone , and has been denied.
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Should Apple have a "grant once for app, always allow location service?" (note: this would allow an innocuous app to turn into a tracker with a later update). Or should Apple have a "this app has accessed your location {N} times in the last 24 hours?" ... or some other functionality?
Is "grant once, always allow" a security risk for users?
For U1 chip access: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/nearbyinteraction/... and https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2021/10165/
> Should Apple have a "grant once for app, always allow location service?" (note: this would allow an innocuous app to turn into a tracker with a later update)
Users should be allowed to grant grant “always” permission, for that app version. The next time it gets updated, they get hit with the prompt again.
In fact I’d like that to happen for all permissions, so I regularly review them, and I know when an app update has occurred.
3 replies →
Does Apples own stuff have the same limitations?
8 replies →
there are many examples on this, IOS makes warning messages for other developer apps, but none for their own apps. I received warnings that google maps has used my background location, or than google photos or synology photos have access to my photos, but not a message on the same access from apple maps or apple photos.
> IOS makes warning messages for other developer apps, but none for their own apps.
This is not true. Apple's own apps, like the Weather widget, will display location permission "nag" screens occasionally just like third-party apps do.
> ... but not a message on the same access from apple maps or apple photos.
Apple Maps doesn't use your location in the background. It only uses your location while the app is open, or while you're actively navigating using it.
Apple Photos is your photos. It'd be weird to warn the user that it "has access" to itself.