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Apr 12, 2001
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At this year's annual All Things Digital conference hosted by AllThingsD, Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher interviewed Apple CEO Tim Cook, where he revealed that Apple is planning to open up additional APIs in the future, giving third party developers more control over iOS.

According to Cook, while Apple will open up more APIs, it will continue to protect customers from the "risk of bad experiences."
Always a fine line, or maybe not so fine. The customer pays us to make choices on their behalf. But you'll see us open up more.
When Facebook released its Home software for Android phones in April, Facebook director of product Adam Mosseri mentioned that the company was in ongoing talks with Apple about bringing Home (and its Chat Heads functionality) to iOS.

facebookhome-800x449.jpg
According to Cook, while Chat Heads were not the ideal choice, Apple will allow third party apps to take over some iOS features in the future, allowing developers to build better and more versatile experiences.

During the question and answer session, Cook also mentioned that Apple had no issue with porting Apple apps to Android or other platforms should the need arise in the future, though such functionality doesn't make sense at the current point in time. Full coverage of Tim Cook's comments can be found here.

Article Link: Tim Cook at D11: Apple to Open Up APIs in the Future, but No Chat Heads
 

nStyle

macrumors 65816
Dec 6, 2009
1,488
987
Who the fk cares about Tim Cook at ATD. He can't top Steve's legacy, why even try? He is trying to be too much like Steve, especially with the comment on wearable watches: "nothing good on the market right now".
 

Dulcimer

macrumors 6502a
Nov 20, 2012
891
688
This is more exciting than any UI refresh. They're still keeping iOS locked down, but will be giving app developers additional tools. One that I can think of is Siri for third-party apps.
 

portishead

macrumors 65816
Apr 4, 2007
1,114
2
los angeles
This is really great news. iOS has the capability to do some awesome things, but Apple locks it down too much. I don't want to deal with Jailbreaking all the time, and not all developers want to deal with creating Jailbroken apps. My dream would be a Bluetooth SNES like controller and Nintendo release an Emulator of some sort.
 

B.A.T

macrumors 6502a
Oct 16, 2009
840
697
Idaho
iMessage and Facetime on Android would be great imo. I am very skeptical it will ever happen.
 

xionxiox

macrumors regular
Jul 20, 2010
227
0
Hell
Who the fk cares about Tim Cook at ATD. He can't top Steve's legacy, why even try? He is trying to be too much like Steve, especially with the comment on wearable watches: "nothing good on the market right now".

Huh? ok...
 

maxosx

macrumors 68020
Dec 13, 2012
2,385
1
Southern California
I'll believe it when I see it. Lip service has been Apple's specialty for the first few months of the year. That and litigation, I wonder how long it will be before Apple sues the developer that "codes it wrong".

The aggressive stance of Apple has shown it's ugly head in recent times, which may be but one reason they aren't doing as well as they would like in China.



http://www.technobuffalo.com/2013/05/28/samsung-apple-china-smartphone-market-share/
 

jameslmoser

macrumors 6502a
Sep 18, 2011
696
669
Las Vegas, NV
Who the fk cares about Tim Cook at ATD. He can't top Steve's legacy, why even try? He is trying to be too much like Steve, especially with the comment on wearable watches: "nothing good on the market right now".

WHAT??? I can't see Steve saying half the stuff Tim says... porting Apple apps to Android?? Steve was probably rolling in his grave.
 

chrismarle

macrumors 6502
Jun 18, 2011
372
3
Canada
So then don't use it.

Also, I absolutely do not pay Apple to make choices for me. That is profoundly asinine.


Excuse me, have you ever used an Android phone with the Facebook/Messenger app? Chatheads are there even if you don't want them to be there. They are part of the apps and I haven't founded any way to shut it off.
 

Muzzakus

macrumors 6502
May 23, 2011
460
696
Yes it's time for more flexibility. One example is communications apps, e.g. Skype need to be able to run as a service, no different to the regular phone background task. Taking it further, they need to integrate into contacts. Want to contact someone? You choose - Phone, mobile, email, Skype, etc etc.

I want to choose a default browser, default mail app, default mapping app.

The list just goes on.
 

kbt1020

macrumors regular
Feb 15, 2010
138
1
So then don't use it.

Also, I absolutely do not pay Apple to make choices for me. That is profoundly asinine.

Jeez sir. I am just describing my experience with the software. No need to all agressive in telling me not to use something.

Also, HTC One is a great phone, just IMHO.

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Excuse me, have you ever used an Android phone with the Facebook/Messenger app? Chatheads are there even if you don't want them to be there. They are part of the apps and I haven't founded any way to shut it off.


Good person. If you hit the menu key, button, or how your phone is set up, then Notification > Un-check the box for Chat Heads, you will be able to turn it off. :)
 

ArtOfWarfare

macrumors G3
Nov 26, 2007
9,544
6,042
So then don't use it.

Also, I absolutely do not pay Apple to make choices for me. That is profoundly asinine.

Except you do. That's how they manage to keep the experience of using their products so simple. They go through every UI dialog and say, "Do we really need to give the user this option, or are they going to want to hit this button 99+% of the time?" and if the answer is that the user is generally going to want to hit that button, then they'll remove the dialog and just have that be the default behavior.

The alternative is to have endless popups. IE, what should happen when you download a file? The answer, 99% of the time, is it should go into downloads, TYVM, get out of my way. Other OS's and browsers will present other options when you want to download a file. You as the user may not even understand the implications of certain choices.

If you don't like Apple making the choices for you, you should ditch iOS and get pure Android, and you should ditch OS X and get pure Unix or Linux. Then you can begin to understand the choices that Apple has made on your behalf and the time and frustration they've saved you in doing so. Or maybe you really like all that control, and you don't like Apple making those choices, in which case, good for you, stick with those other platforms where you can make your own choices.

I, for one, think the choices that have been made tend to be pretty good... there's a few exceptions... Mission Control really sucks and I can no longer organize 90% of my windows because I no longer have a grid of spaces to work with... the only organization I have is Spotify is always full screen to the right of my main space, and everything else is piled up in my main space.
 

swingerofbirch

macrumors 68040
WHAT??? I can't see Steve saying half the stuff Tim says... porting Apple apps to Android?? Steve was probably rolling in his grave.

They ported Safari and iTunes under his watch to Windows.

The day iTunes came out for Windows, the Apple home page said something about Hell having frozen over.

They took it down pretty quickly because one of the schools they sold iBooks (the computer, not the ebooks) to complained about it.
 

Casiotone

macrumors 6502a
Oct 12, 2008
825
111
This is really great news. iOS has the capability to do some awesome things, but Apple locks it down too much. I don't want to deal with Jailbreaking all the time, and not all developers want to deal with creating Jailbroken apps. My dream would be a Bluetooth SNES like controller and Nintendo release an Emulator of some sort.

Apple doesn't do anything to prevent that from happening.

Bluetooth controllers are permitted (and already exist), and apps running emulators from big video game companies are already sold on the AppStore since a while ago.

It's up to Nintendo (and the companies who made the (S)NES games) to decide if they want to sell their emulated games on the AppStore.

These are actually examples of things that Apple has open to devs over the years.
 

chrismarle

macrumors 6502
Jun 18, 2011
372
3
Canada
Jeez sir. I am just describing my experience with the software. No need to all agressive in telling me not to use something.

Also, HTC One is a great phone, just IMHO.

----------




Good person. If you hit the menu key, button, or how your phone is set up, then Notification > Un-check the box for Chat Heads, you will be able to turn it off. :)

Thanks for the tip.

Anyway, I find them very intrusive and I really don't want to see that on iOS.
 
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