How can you prevent, or at least make it difficult, for Apple to replicate your app's functionality within their platform?<p>* Is developing companion web and Android apps to link with your iOS app the answer?<p>* Or should you focus on making your app so advanced and sophisticated that Apple can't compete, like Procreate for iPad?<p>* Do you believe Apple will eventually absorb all features developers could create, forcing programmers to work for them or a handful of other corporations?<p>* Even if Apple creates a free, built-in replica of your app, will users still download yours?<p>This practice raises concerns about Apple's monopoly. It's similar to:<p>* A brewery constantly buying nearby bars and forcing unfair contracts on those it doesn't own.<p>* A car manufacturer copying suppliers' products and integrating them into their cars, pushing the suppliers out.<p>Isn't this a bad business decision? By squeezing out developers with each iOS version, wouldn't Apple's platform become less innovative by removing potential app ideas?
The risk always is there, but I don’t think you can blame large OS seller for it.<p>OS sellers also compete with other OS sellers, and have to keep adding features, or customers will stop buying their product.<p>For example: back in the 1970s, to draw bitmapped graphics, you used to have to buy a graphics drawing library, for a few hundred dollars. It likely shipped with fonts that you couldn’t use in a text processor that you had to buy from another vendor. The market for such products is a lot smaller today.<p>If you call any ‘adding a feature that you can buy from a third party’ Sherlocking, OS sellers cannot avoid being criticized:<p>- if they don’t add a feature, critics will say “why can’t their OS do FOO? You get that for free with Acme’s OS ”<p>- if they implement it in a basic way, they’ll say “their FOO can’t BAR”<p>- if they implement a competitive product they’ll say “Sherlocking”<p>⇒ I would limit “Sherlocking” to “largely the same feature with largely the same UI, and that UI isn’t obvious”
Sherlocking seems to be the exception rather than the rule. This year several of the features that Apple revealed do have the potential to Sherlock some apps, but most years that is not the case.<p>Look at window management. People have had to use third-party utilities for years to handle this function. Apple only provides a couple of ways to do it natively and they were very limited and rigid. People were constantly asking why Apple doesn’t include better window management. Windows has had this built in for several years. Finally, Apple did launch a window manager. Yes, it does the basics, but from what I’ve heard it is still fairly limited. It is likely that at least some of the third party tools will survive by providing more features and more options that appeal to advanced users who want more control or who don’t find the Apple solution to be a good fit.
Apple seems to try out ideas before adopting them, by observing third-party apps.<p>I'd like to say, "write cross platform apps",the way Hypercard didn't, but the web can do that portably, "write once". Can you add functionality that Apple can't? (By some internal Apple decision or strategy)<p>Using Procreate as an example, Apple may not want to offer a super feature set, or incorporate super features in their legacy apps, such as image editing, files or music apps.<p>Other than "AI".<p>Break paradigms when others are all copying each other.