Apple’s Silver Bullet in scaling iOS: Open up API’s
I’ve looked up what I wrote after last years WWDC. I can repeat it this year almost exactly:
Tablets like the iPad are a combination of very capable hardware with very incapable software, we’ve discussed this already.
A big chunk of the letdown of iPadOS comes down to Multitasking — the software interaction system to handle multiple jobs at the same time.
It’s not that Apple doesn’t notice Multitasking as a glaring downside of using the iPad. Every year they tweak it a little bit. This time we got Stage Manager.
This doesn’t reform the whole concept of window management on iPadOS (or macOS), it just adds another tool besides the ones already being in use. Now we have a “bunch of stuff without coherent vision” like John Siracusa said.
Ok, we don’t get a new paradigm or the paradigm I laid out before. But is the new tool at least a helpful addition?
Steve T-S has a nice Twitter thread with GIFs why Stage Manager is not the answer to the decade long search for better multitasking.
Or take a look at Luke Miani’s video. His verdict: “iPadOS is becoming an increasingly convoluted mess.”
The point of this article is not to get into the UI/UX nitpicks about this or that implementation. I want to go deeper this time.
My frustration is not so much with the particular feature. As a Product Owner / Product Manager in a big corporate I know that (looked at it honestly) most software projects fail. For every successful feature change there are three others that made things more complicated for the user without reaching the stated goal of getting the user to do job X easier or more often.
Let’s assume that due to Apple’s uniqueness and rigorous product development process their ratio is better, like 1 out of 2 features. Still a lot of failure.
So you can be mad at Apple that they didn’t figure out the best solution or you can be, like I am, mad that they reduced the chances of us users getting good Multitasking by not allowing others to take a shot at the goal.
What is needed are public API’s for system-wide features on iPadOS.
That way we wouldn’t be dependent on Apple being the sole savior. Apple would see niches being catered do without lifting a finger. Apple wouldn’t be under this pressure to deliver. Apple itself could be more bold with its ideas. Apple could (in typical monopolist fashion) observe what enhancements gain traction and sherlock them for themselves. Or Apple could really use the opening to improve their messy developer relations: Every new API is an opportunity to make a compelling product and therefore money for developers.
I understand that in most situations opening up API’s is not the solution. Linux is open and we haven’t seen groundbreaking innovations. API development takes lots of ressources if you’re a young or struggling company. And even if you have the API published and well documented, someone needs to use it before the platform sees a benefit. That’s why it makes usually more sense for a new platform to get into vertically integrated use cases to get a critical mass of usage.
But again, Apple is unique. They have:
- a mature platform
- enough engineering ressources
- long time horizon
- tons of users (demand)
- tons of developers (supply)
They just would need to allow the supply to meet demand.
But, you say, even Apple is constrained by the lack of talented software engineers.
Then we have to prioritize: Apple’s job as the platform owner is the maintenance and enhancement of the platform. They need to do the stuff that can’t be outsourced to the developer community first. Only if those things are addressed, Apple can go into enduser App development as well.
Things like the new Freeform app are nice to have, but they are not fundamental to the platform’s prospects. There’s nothing in the app that couldn’t be done by a 3rd party development studio. (And if there is, it shouldn’t be.)
I sense that a lot of the features presented are to strengthen the integration of hardware with services revenue and not for the health of the underlying platform.
Would open API’s complicate the user experience to a degree that my mother wouldn’t want to open her iPad anymore? If done poorly, yes. But not necessarily. I bet that 90% of all iPad users aren’t using the current additional tools like Splitscreen or SlideOver. Why should it be different with stuff that isn’t installed by default.
I used Multitasking as an example because it’s obvious to most that there is a better solution out there. But with freedom to alter the OS in ways Apple doesn’t control, we could see all kinds of innovation.
In an alternate reality we would have gotten the next computing revolution already. Candidates like AR smart glasses or ubiquitous Voice frameworks aren’t possible without Apple playing ball.
Innovation happens when there is freedom to tinker and to explore. A closed-down Windows would have shut the door to everything we value today, including the iPhone.
There was a time in the earlier days of iOS where each year we saw a new API. I’m talking API’s for contacts, notifications, location or audio access in the background, geofencing etc. Those concessions date back to iOS 4. A lot has changed since then, but Apple’s pace for releasing new developer API’s has slowed down if not fizzled out in certain areas.
What are the chances of Apple opening up to a degree I would like to see? Very, very low. One level higher in the stack, Apple’s own apps get preferential treatment with private API’s. And even on the more open macOS there are no API’s for easy building. Developers and users need to jump though hoops to alter the default window management. Just like with Services, the Apple culture is a culture of walled gardens. The whole industry has become obsessed with “thin” platforms.
I don’t see Apple opening up unless they are forced to because of Antitrust regulation. I don’t see Antitrust addressing such issues down the software stack neither. But let me close with a quote from Platform Neutrality:
Platform companies wouldn’t be hurt by such regulation, they’re just pushed in the right direction they should have chosen anyway if they would see the long term consequences. This is regulation that doesn’t destroy their economics, rather it is enabling others to build on top of their platforms, therefore increasing the total ecosystem valuation.
