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0 pointsbabesh6y ago0 comments

Microsoft was vilified for many anticompetitive practices.

I worked on an app that competed with a Microsoft app. Our app was actually winning in the marketplace. One year they release a new version of their app with some really cool features at the same time as the latest Windows release. Those features were based on some new APIs released with that version of Windows. Just gave their app a year leap.

Another evil practice was forcing PC makers to pay for a Windows license for each computer sold irrespective of whether the computer shipped with Windows.

Microsoft was pretty evil.

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4 comments · 1 top-level

stickfigure6y ago· 3 in thread

As opposed to "here are some APIs that you can't use but we can, neener neener"?

babeshOP6y ago

You are assuming that these Apple APIs are used to give Apple a competitive advantage somehow. From what I can tell, these specific APIs don't. What they do give Apple an advantage in ironically is in forcing more developers to develop using (Apple) native APIs.

The CA prefixed ones are core animation related. Some of the others appear to be drawing frame related. I am not sure what the remote one does. None of these are giving Apple a direct advantage. I bet Electron tried to access to them to draw web pages smoothly.

The Windows API availability window gave Windows apps market advantages.

There are other private Apple APIs that do give Apple an advantage against app developers. Those advantages are in accessing physical hardware and possibly associated software, background processing, and integration (iCloud, etc...) But these aren't the bone of contention.

Mirioron6y ago

>None of these are giving Apple a direct advantage.

>I bet Electron tried to access to them to draw web pages smoothly.

How is this not a direct advantage? If these uncommented API calls provide a better performing solution than anything a third party can make then that is a direct advantage. Apps with that call could have a longer battery life or just run smoother.

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babeshOP6y ago

I was wrong about some of them being drawing frame related. See https://www.cocoawithlove.com/2008/12/drawing-custom-window-.... Apparently customizing the window frame. The CA prefixed ones are correct. Apparently, at least on a Mac, it was more about battery than performance (at least for what Mozilla did) but it was still about the amount of work they were doing per frame (for Mozilla).

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