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>This is, to my mind, the worst continuing failing of iOS, so bad that we see a front page HN post related to it at least once per month. Apple builds its apps on private APIs, while third parties must build their apps on inferior public APIs. Apple gets to create and use new UX, while third parties must wait until Apple uses it first. On Android, Google's apps use the same APIs my own apps use. Yeah, it's called building a stable API. Not all APIs are ready for external consumption. Apple, since it controls the APIs and their internal apps can safely build on early APIs, since they can release in sync with any changes. Third party developers not so much. This is not some conspiracy or Apple "advantage", this is software development 101. In fact, instead of third parties "having to build their apps on inferior public APIs", iOS's public APIs are way better, and offering more than Android APIs. >That's funny. Apple copied wholesale the Android save and restore data bundles model that was in Android from the beginning, and said, "Look at our battery-saving multitasking." After Android emerged a full year later than the iPhone, and with the same UI and interaction model (while just days prior to the iPhone's introduction Google only had keyboard sporting, classical-looking smartphone models as their Android mockups), there's nothing that can be said that iOS "copied" from Android with a straight face. iOS/iPhone was there first, and it set the way for all the major features. Heck, Android lead members even admitted so. That Android, years after coming into life as an iOS clone, pioneered a few things here and there (most of which Apple worked on in secret anyway for years, like battery saving techniques) is not that impressive. >Even more than the private APIs issue, this is what made me jump on the Android bandwagon early on and makes it hard for me to understand why a person who enjoys software development would choose the iOS ecosystem. Because there are more things to enjoying software development than "hating closed systems" or not wanting to part with $100. |
"Yeah, it's called building a stable API. Not all APIs are ready for external consumption."
Yet Android's APIs that allow multitasking, JITs, and sharing with arbitrary apps (instead of just the apps that Apple has blessed) have been stable too and available much longer. The stable API argument doesn't hold water.
"iOS's public APIs are way better"
As a developer, I have to disagree. Even for simple things like sharing, multitasking, default handling, and multitasking Apple's APIs remain inferior.
"[A long irrelevant rant about copying]"
Technically, the LG Prada pioneered the UI and interaction model you're talking about, but that's not the point. My point was that Android didn't use a "whatever" model for multitasking but instead designed at the outset the same save/restore transparent multitasking system that Apple adopted years later that you hold in such high esteem.
"Because there are more things to enjoying software development than 'hating closed systems' or not wanting to part with $100."
$100 per year. I have never met anybody who would prefer to pay for their hobbies when there is a free option that is just as good or better for scratching their itch.