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by jeroenhd 2495 days ago
Knowing Apple, such an effort would likely be destroyed by an army of lawyers the moment you bring out an app that provides such features.

The Apple ecosystem is very closed and Apple will fight tooth and nail to keep it that way. Removing vendor lock-in would, after all, allow users to try switching to another brand without an enormous amount of hassle.
2 comments
michaelkw 2495 days ago
Apple's open-source mDNS/DNS-SD implementation mDNSResponder underlies Android's NSD API, so I could one day see seamless interoperability over Wi-Fi Aware being a thing. I wouldn't bet on it happening, but given Windows (which ships with an mDNS/DNS-SD stack) and Android will be doing it before too long, I wouldn't be surprised to see Apple join the party.
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kingosticks 2495 days ago
I hope we'll one day see proper support for mdns in Android. Devs shouldn't have to go out of their way to use the special NSD API to provide mdns functionally in their apps. It should just work at the system level, which to be clear, it does not. It's been years and years in this state, so I can't be as positive.
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neilalexander 2495 days ago
Incidentally, Wi-Fi Aware is based heavily on AWDL but the Wi-Fi Alliance made a number of breaking protocol changes in the Wi-Fi Aware standard. This isn’t exactly Apple’s fault - it could have been interoperable.
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est31 2495 days ago
> The Apple ecosystem is very closed and Apple will fight tooth and nail to keep it that way.

In general you are right, Apple is very adamant about keeping full control over their ecosystem (and locking users in). They even sponsor a C compiler project so that they can avoid gcc. There are exceptions though, like AirPrint which is a marketing name for open standard technologies: https://wiki.debian.org/AirPrint

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kitsunesoba 2495 days ago
The switch to llvm/clang was about more than just avoiding gcc… it was also about filling holes in gcc’s functionality. Swift for example is heavily rooted in llvm/clang because at least at the time, llvm/clang was capable of a lot of things that gcc simply wasn’t, and the arcane nature of gcc’s innards made it unnecessarily difficult to add missing features to. Of course, GPLv3 poses issues too, but that’s only a single factor among several in Apple’s decision to deeply invest into llvm/clang.
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