[scarface74]

I've never understood why developers criticize OS vendors use of "private APIs". I would go so far as to say there is no such thing as a "private API". The API is a vendors promise to consuming applications that when they call a method, a certain behavior will happen. Whatever they do behind the scenes is an implementation detail that they should be allowed to change anytime without breaking consuming applications.

Apple often uses immature frameworks internally - like the extensions framework - to to polish them or to dog food them before making them official.

[AdmiralAsshat]

f.lux strikes me as a good example. f.lux came to the market first with its idea to control screen temperature. Apple decides "No, you're not allowed to do that...but that's a great idea!", kicks f.lux out of the app store, and then adds their own Night Mode into later versions of iOS, using API's only they are allowed to access.

[ballenf]

I love f.lux and have a soft spot for the very nice developer couple behind the app.

That being said, it's hard to argue that Apple (or Android) shouldn't be able to set boundaries on behaviors which are only allowed to be done by the OS as a opposed to an app. Apple's tight control of device screen characteristics makes it pretty understandable that they don't want one app able to control how another app looks on the screen.

The optics of the f.lux situation is just really, really bad. But considering the f.lux never really charged, they have a claim to fame that few can match: creating a feature good enough that Apple incorporated into both iOS and MacOS (now in beta).

[throwaway729]

> It's hard to argue that Apple (or Android) shouldn't be able to set boundaries on behaviors which are only allowed to be done by the OS as a opposed to an app

It's really not. The argument for user freedoms is almost as old as software.

[sdenton4]

The delicate balance between throwing a user a rope, and throwing them enough rope to hang themselves...

[JulianMorrison]

I'm guessing, from Apple's perspective, things that overlay the whole screen and alter the appearance of other people's apps (such as applying a colour cast), are essentially "white hat phishing". It makes security sense to hide this capability in the OS and not in apps.

[AdmiralAsshat]

You can see, I trust, how this could lead down a monopolistic slippery slope. For instance, virus-scanning is a dangerous enterprise, given that it exposes a greater attack surface if the antivirus program is poorly written. Should Apple and Microsoft remove the ability for third-party antivirus apps to exist? How about third-party firewalls?

[JulianMorrison]

I don't see that, actually, I think that's a false equivalence.

Security premise: when you are looking at Facebook, you are looking at Facebook. You are not looking at a third party app drawing over Facebook and pretending to be Facebook.

I do not see the above as a slippery slope. Phishing is a capability apps should not have. Even if they have the best of intentions.

[cwyers]

> Should Apple and Microsoft remove the ability for third-party antivirus apps to exist?

Please?

...pretty please?

[angry_octet]

Well, yes. Unless the AV is designed in a way that shows it doesn't increase the risk, it's just snake oil.

If MS had taken a harder line then at least hundreds of millions of people would have had faster computers... And arguably safer ones. But it would be hypocrisy for MS, given they gave us IE, ActiveX, DLLs, VB macros, etc.

Most third party firewalls are just GUIs using the OS API for filtering, not parsers written in C running in the kernel.

[richardwhiuk]

There aren't third-party anti-virus on iOS....

[scarface74]

And when Apple changed the private undocumented API that allows the functionality, who should get blamed? Who do you think users will blame when previously working apps that used an undocumented function breaks with a new Os?

[toyg]

> why developers criticize OS vendors use of "private APIs"

The point is not that these APIs exist; the problem is when vendors actively block others from using them, with hacks and/or policy bans. That's extremely hypocritical and anti-competitive. I can see why unofficial APIs must be discouraged (because let's be honest, developers will bitch and moan when they change -- Microsoft in particular was strong-armed into legacy support for decades by the likes of Adobe and Symantec), but it should never be an excuse to ostracize or tilt the playing field.

[oneplane]

It's not about marketing, economics or other MBA-feuled non-technical ideas. It's about a software vendor saying: this is our platform, here are API's for you to use, don't go outside it.

It is perfectly reasonable, and so far, any other interpretation seems to be a skewed view to facilitate some sort of non-compliant piece of software.

[scarface74]

And the minute scores of applications break that depend on a third party library that uses an undocumented method, the OS vendor gets blamed for releasing a "buggy OS" or they have to keep buggy work arounds in their code forever like MS does.