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Comment by JKCalhoun | Hacker News Reader

I play an Apple apologist online (sometimes).

Most here would agree that a public API is a liability regardless. Anything you can keep private (SPI) you should.

Opening up an API that has all manner of hooks into your Apple device is going to be (obviously, I think) one of the most challenging of API to expose. While a 3rd party watch might needs these API, a whole lot of n'r-do-wells (looking at you, Meta) will likely figure out a way to exploit it in their apps.

It's a can of worms or a Pandora's Box if you will. If Apple is forced to expose these API, but only after kicking and screaming, I would not be surprised.

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Apple has many, many tools to prevent this from being a problem. To name a few:

- They can lock the API behind entitlements that must be manually requested and reviewed by Apple

- They can lock the API behind a user approval

- They can regularly prompt the user if they still wish to share notification data with the watch (same way they do to keep giving an app localisation data)

- They could enforce that the notification is sent encrypted over bluetooth, without giving access to it to the app itself - forcing its handling to be done on-device - if they're so concerned about this.

It's also worth noting that this problem is a complete non-issue for Android, and nobody seems to believe it is an issue there...

> - They can lock the API behind entitlements that must be manually requested and reviewed by Apple > - They can lock the API behind a user approval

Not if the EU has anything to say about it. Apple is already in trouble for requiring prompts for 3rd party vendors, and you know that already.

Same for entitlements.

> Apple is already in trouble for requiring prompts for 3rd party vendors

Well yeah, they're specifically in trouble for requiring prompts *only for 3rd party vendors*. The problem is that Apple treats their own platform differently. There would be _no issue_ with a prompt if the apple watch required it too. Case in point: Apple Maps has the same localisation prompt as Google Maps, and as such, there is no regulatory problems here.

Entitlements are a lot more complicated, and here the DMA isn't very clear about whether or not it's acceptable or not - it's really up to the regulator.

Yeah, you're right. Not easy, but do-able.

Apple, probably due to their success and size, are trying "Make me!" as a response until, you know, someone makes them. But they're not willing to voluntarily offer these API up.

Apple is using closed-down features in iOS to gain an unfair advantage in Sales of accessories.

They are still fine to do that, but at the moment such a new feature/accessory is launched by Apple the necessary interfaces in iOS also needs to be available to competitors.

The result is that Apple will still be first with such features as they can orchestrate the launch of the feature in iOS with the product. They will still have a leg up in marketing and scale, as they will be able to market directly to their users and instantly sell in much larger volume.

They will JUST face a better balanced market where competitors will be able to catch up and match the experience.

The fact that this is causing any backlash at all is surprising. Apple still has the best cards in this game, they are just not allowed to change the rules in their favor all the time.

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