Need a different example. The SMS app does run in the background. Same for the phone and iPod apps. (Safari does also, at least until another app needs all its memory.) Apple apps have all the fun.
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Why does the push notification matter so much?
- Thread starter daihard
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Need a different example. The SMS app does run in the background. Same for the phone and iPod apps. (Safari does also, at least until another app needs all its memory.) Apple apps have all the fun.
+1
Actually I'm pretty sure whatever background processes are running for the iPhone to know about incoming calls also handle the SMS retrieval/notification. SMS is actually part of regular GSM traffic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_message_service#SMS_as_part_of_GSM
Yes they do. Remember way back when when Apple raised hell because Microsoft used a couple "secret" API calls in Office and didn't tell anyone else about them until they were forced to do so? Seems kind of quaint now, huh? You know Apple will never be called on for doing the same thing themselves with all kinds of apps and keeping huge chunks of the iPhone API a secret. Or if they are, Jobs will come out with some bulls**t excuse that everyone will buy because...well, I'll just stop there.
The presence of undocumented APIs is not the issue. Windows and OS X both have undocumented APIs.
Microsoft writes many applications for Windows that are sold separately. Windows's main purpose is to facilitate the use of various applications - not just those included with the OS, and not just Microsoft applications, but those from many different vendors. Using undocumented Windows APIs in Office to gain a significant advantage over the competition would have increased the use of Office in Windows. Because Windows was the dominant PC OS and these advantages weren't available to competing software vendors, this had huge anticompetitive implications for the entire PC software market.
The iPhone is not the dominant mobile phone, nor is the iPhone OS the dominant mobile phone operating system. Apple's use of undocumented APIs does not have the same malicious competition-hurting effect as some of Microsoft's actions did.
I beg to differ. iTunes can continue to play when "closed" but, last time I checked, nothing else can do that. Safari continues to run as a background process but that one browser available via Cydia (no other competition because...?) can't do that. It might not be intentionally hurting competition, but that doesn't mean it's not doing just that. Microsoft had more at stake but that aside, I don't see any real difference. Apple is ensuring that Apple is the dominate software maker for Apple systems just like Microsoft was ensuring Microsoft was the dominate software maker for Microsoft systems.
Microsoft was ensuring that it was the dominant office suite vendor for personal computers running the dominant personal copmuter operating system, which happened to be from Microsoft. And Microsoft became the dominant personal computer operating system while using anticompetitive behavior.
Windows was supposed to be a platform for which any vendor can write software for a competitive market and release it however they wished.
If Windows wasn't the dominant PC operating system, no one would have cared that only Microsoft was abe to write a good office suite for Windows. But the combination of their PC OS monopoly and the way they maintained it meant that potential office suite competitors couldn't decide to target some other operating system. They had a huge amount of control over the entire PC software market.
Apple only controls the iPhone market, which is a fraction of the mobile phone and smartphone markets.
I think the whole push thing is a waste of time that most people would never use anyway. Almost nobody is complaining about not having push or background apps anyway. Why would you waste so many resources and infrastructure just for a few IM apps? They just need to make it so when someone sends an IM and email is sent to let you know or I guess AOL should do that. This seems a lot simpler at least to me. There's not really been one time that I wish I had push on my phone. I would like to be able to run the radio apps in the background but that's the only real gripe I've had. Apple should just add radio to the iPod app so it could be run in the background.
Ok, I'll give you this one. Next time, Mr Bond. Next time. ;-) Of course, this doesn't mean I'm not irked by Apple's practices. It would be nice if Orb or Slingplayer or any of the zillion radio apps or TomTom ran as background processes legally so I could at least listen to the audio, TomTom beeps and instructions and so on while reading an email or something. I suppose if you've never used a decent high end phone before it doesn't make any difference but if you have, Apple's scheme is a big step backwards, in my opinion. Granted, most iPhone users probably never have owned a decent high end phone before, but this having to suffer the lowest common denominator is getting pretty old.
Why would you give him that? Apple's anticompetitive practices are seen all the time because Apple is controls the majority of the media player business, not just the iphone.
Well, I'd continue to disagree except that Apple isn't being non-competitive to maintain a lead, they're being non-competitive to maintain the paltry market share they have now and there is a difference between that and the days when Microsoft had like 98% market share and were hell bent on keeping it that way. That's not to say Apple isn't being anti-competitive, stealing ideas from others and pretty much everything else that Microsoft used to do, it's that it doesn't rise to the level of Microsoft's infractions because Apple's market share is minimal. I suppose you could compare it to my robbing a Quickie Mart compared to Bernie Madoff robbing the market of $50 billion. In a perfect world, who gets probation and who gets a slow, public execution?
Of course, none of this means developers don't think twice about writing for a moving target governed by nebulous rules and subject to the whims of a company run by an overbearing, egotistical a**hole.