Apple just made your app obsolete? You've been 'Sherlocked'

https://text.npr.org/g-s1-4912

26 33 2 years ago

text.npr.org

delfinom2• 2 years ago

Ngl, but if the "app" is simply an straight forward compliment to an existing feature of the phone, I don't consider it a sustainable and viable long term business nor something the original manufacturer should shy away from implementing.

Otherwise, it's no different than trying to legitimize even more middlemen.

jamil72• 2 years ago

Just to build off this a little, there are also quite a few examples of cases in which Apple "sherlocked" an app and the original app(s) continued being successful as they offered a much more advanced feature-set than the basic version Apple introduced. In some cases app authors talked about getting more publicity as the feature or utility became more mainstream and more people searched for functionality that wasn't available from Apple.

shinycode• 2 years ago

It happened to Astropad and they wrote an interesting post about the aftermath, it made them better and stronger

devmor• 2 years ago

I'm of the same opinion, personally.

If you tie your financial interest to complementing an existing product, you should understand that your financial interest is at the whim of that product's owner.

It's no different than someone who makes accessories for cars.

BenFranklin1002• 2 years ago

Good point, some of the apps, while useful, are clearly ‘currently missing feature but almost surely will be implemented’ type of apps. As a founder, you need to be thinking about the moat.

LudwigNagasena• 2 years ago

It’s not even a novel or peculiar idea.

null_investor2• 2 years ago

That's such a nonsense argument; one could apply the same argument to Amazon's products by using their third-party sellers to do product research for them. Why even try to invent a better vacuum cleaner if both Chinese copycats and Amazon itself will eat your pie? This is clearly monopolist and anti-competitive behavior.

I'm sure we'd have many more VCs investing in such industries if they'd believe there's any money to be made there, but there isn't because Amazon will eat whatever margin there is.

It's so stupid that I recognized that this would happen more than a decade ago and had a free ride on Amazon stocks that likely most VCs never did, even with ZIRP.

Apple, Amazon, and others are clearly abusing their market position. Governments should regulate those companies so they can only operate in their area of interest.

Apple shouldn't be allowed to make apps, only to publish APIs that would make it possible to make more interesting apps. If you've ever tried making apps, you'd know how limited what they offer in comparison to the data and possibilities your phone has. Check their phone usage API as an example, it's virtually null. They'll keep using the excuse that they can handle your data better than third party apps, all their narrative is about making them bigger.

delfinom2• 2 years ago

That's such a nonsense argument; one could apply the same argument to Amazon's products by using their third-party sellers to do product research for them. Why even try to invent a better vacuum cleaner if both Chinese copycats and Amazon itself will eat your pie?

In the space of consumer retail, your business differentiation is marketing and pricing scheme. What Amazon does isn't even new, people are getting upset over it because the media is bored and they are paid off by Walmart and co. But retailers have been doing the _exact_ same thing as Amazon does for decades before, with Walmart being the biggest player. It actually gets funnier because even "bidding for the buybox" that Amazon does is just repeating "bidding for the shelf space" that all retailers have done for a long time (eye level shelves are more desirable).

And marketing and pricing applies to even beyond selling through big retailers. Tons of more unique things get Chinese copycats, it's branding, support and continued innovation that keeps those companies afloat.

Apple shouldn't be allowed to make apps, only to publish APIs that would make it possible to make more interesting apps. If you've ever tried making apps, you'd know how limited what they offer in comparison to the data and possibilities your phone has. Check their phone usage API as an example, it's virtually null. They'll keep using the excuse that they can handle your data better than third party apps, all their narrative is about making them bigger.

Ok, but I want that to apply to everything. The phone should come with absolutely nothing on it. Even the Store and Dialer are apps. Hey, you might have to pay a subscription fee to call someone now, but it'll be what you want.

elpocko• 2 years ago

Ngl

Thank you.

MisterDizzy• 2 years ago

I've been thinking as I pin & unpin browser tabs about the devs who implemented tab pinning way back before Microsoft Edge existed. Or the whole slew of WordPress plugins that are made obsolete by newer WordPress features.

richwater• 2 years ago

and they [Apple] can say, ‘Hey, that’s a great idea, let’s integrate that into our operating system, we can do a much better job,’ ” he said.

And I'm supposed to be upset about this?

The example in the article says an $80/year subscription is being provided to me free by a company I trust. Why wouldn't I be happy?

sirn• 2 years ago

There were a few cases where Apple's Sherlocking resulted in an inferior version being included in the OS, but managed to kill the original anyway. For example:

- Konfabulator vs Dashboard (only caught up to Konfabulator with widgets in Sonoma)

- Growl vs. Notifications Center (I think Growl is still more configurable even now).

seydor• 2 years ago

I call it 'entirely predictable and expected'

diego_moita• 2 years ago

When DropBox's Drew Houston presented their company's product to Steve Jobs he just smiled and said "that's not a product, that's a feature". Then Apple implemented iCloud.

Funny thing is DropBox didn't fail, they're still alive and kicking.

Yes, all appstores are just marketing research for the big platforms. You better not trust your company future on them.

Turing_Machine• 2 years ago

I recall an instance of Steve Jobs actually being a nice guy in this respect.

He was talking to a well-known third-party Mac developer (I think Panic, but maybe it was a different one) and asked what they were going to be working on next. "Well, we're thinking about doing an MP3 player". Jobs just said "Don't." (this was not long before iPod/iTunes came out).

So they didn't, no doubt saving them a lot of development time and money.

AdmiralAsshat• 2 years ago

"Sherlock" was evidently before my time. The most prominent recent example I can think of is f.lux:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F.lux

That app was doing warm-light adjustment /blue-light reduction before anyone else, and then the major OS vendors all started introducing their own "night mode" settings baked into the OS, and eliminated the APIs to let third-party apps do the same.

Veuxdo• 2 years ago

At that point I have to question what the word "app" even means. To me, this is a display setting, not an "app".

mingus88• 2 years ago

In Apple terms an app is a unit of software sold in the App Store.

F.lux had all the hallmarks of any other tweak-style standalone application. Prefs, launcher, icons, update channel, etc

It was so good and groundbreaking that it was adopted by every OS. Victim of it’s own success

orev• 2 years ago

F.lux is still available and worth it to install on Windows. It has better controls and smoother transitions than Night Light.

kjkjadksj• 2 years ago

On iOS its even more shameless. Basically every feature on the device thats new since 2007 was thanks to the jailbreak community. At one point I saw a chart that listed what came from what in iOS. Its like the designers do nothing but see what the teenagers in eastern europe making these tweaks are doing and copy that shamelessly, knowing they can’t sue for any ip theft since its jailbroken software in the first place.

joshstrange2• 2 years ago

I think it’s the job of a platform/OS to add features that lots of users want/need even if that steps on the toes of something existing. In most cases it raises the bar, clears out scummy apps (not saying all apps that are sherlocked are scummy), and lets the sherlocked apps differentiate themselves.

I use Alfred, not Spotlight.

I use CleanshotX, not the built-in tool.

I use 1Password, not Passwords.

I use Drafts, not Notes.

And the list goes on. Apple will only ever address the 80% use-case (which for most people is more than enough) and for the power users there exist apps that are updated more often or try out new things that Apple won’t.

In fact, I think Apple is shooting itself in the foot by not opening up the App Store to more types of apps that they could copy. See: early jailbreaking days, and how many great ideas came out of that which Apple “copied”. For example, I wish clipboard managers were available on iOS but it’s just not possible (yes, I know about the PiP trick, I don’t care to do that). Now clipboard managers on macOS haven’t driven Apple to implement their own version but at least on the Mac apps can prove their value since it’s more open.

gaws• 2 years ago

I use CleanshotX, not the built-in tool.

Is there an alternative that doesn't require spending money for an app that includes only one year of updates?

joshstrange2• 2 years ago

There are a number of open source tools in this area, and a few other paid as well. I haven’t exhaustively tried all of them, but I found CleanShotX and really liked it. Since I use it almost daily it’s well worth the cost for me.

magnio• 2 years ago

I hope Apple Sherlock more apps. It's 2024, and I still have to install an entire app just to change scroll direction of the mouse and the trackpad independently, another app to change volume per app, and another app to show seconds in the menu bar.

jamil72• 2 years ago

and another app to show seconds in the menu bar

I think you can do that now, at least mine does that and I don't have anything special installed.

docdeek• 2 years ago

Correct on Mac: System Settings > Control Center > Menu bar Only > Clock Options + toggle on seconds (or just search ‘seconds’ in the System Settings, it’s easy to find)

amanzi• 2 years ago

As a recent switcher to macOS, there are so many of these that are standard on either Windows or Linux machines. For the scrolling issue, I installed LinearMouse. I was originally using the Logitech software for this, but that would sometimes consume massive amounts of RAM, and the final straw was when they added AI to the mouse driver.

Another one was the ability to control volume of each app separately. I ended up buying SoundSource to fix this, which includes some additional useful features.

al_borland• 2 years ago

I decided to get used to the inverted scrolling with the mouse wheel. It didn’t take as long as I thought it would.

BenFranklin1002• 2 years ago

I genuinely sympathize with the developers. You put your heart and soul into a project (not to mention years and money), and wake up to find the rug pulled out from beneath you. It can be crushing. The only thing I can say is that this is common across all industries. Capitalism offers the potential reward of big profits, but carries big risks. There’s no way around it.

As a founder, always be thinking about that moat and plan for the day you do have competition. If you’re building something of value that demonstrates success you will have competition at some point, and probably from someone bigger than yourself. That’s the nature of life. Fortunately, a rising tide often lifts all boats, so a big competitor can help address the biggest challenge most companies face: capturing mindshare. Think of how you can survive and even flourish in this bigger ocean, be it through better marketing, more advanced features, or addressing more specific use cases in a larger market.

paulryanrogers• 2 years ago

It's more fraught when there is only one (or a few) platform(s) to build on, and the platform makers are completing with all the layers above as well. One might even call it a violating the public trust. (Since the public may otherwise not be able to resist an oligopoly that owns the means of production.)

For makers above the platform layer, it's like trying to build on sand -- or the sarlacc monster slowly digesting everything above it.

cosmotic• 2 years ago

This was a feature that should have been baked into the operating system from the start. This was totally expected that they would add call recording into the operating system as this has been a feature of operating systems in the past. At least on the android side, these apps have been hacky workarounds, so all the engineering effort was put into hacking around the permissions problems - not implementing the base feature. I'm thrilled to have a supported method to do this exceptionally simple task.

gottebp• 2 years ago

Every idea seems obvious to add to the OS in hindsight, yet we all lose. For a small shop these apps are their lifeblood and so they get constantly nourished. For a large corporation, this taking candy from babies moment constitutes a blurb in a keynote followed by minimal attention or innovation from then on.

Copyright and patent law were intended to prevent this, but software has no real moat from this. The little plants in the garden get to prove the concept just before the giant redwoods draw all the water from the soil and block the light -- and the legal system is setup to favor this.

Apple just made your app obsolete? You've been 'Sherlocked'

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