iOS 11: Marking the end of 32-bit Apps

[mr moose]

I wonder if developers will leave their old 32bit apps on the store and release a new 64bit versions or whether those of us with 32bit ipads will slowly lose app support.

 

[leadeater]

8 hours ago, ionbasa said:

 iOS is derived from BSD (unix). If you want both 32 and 64 bit app support, you need a kernel that supports multi arch. For example, 64 bit Linux OSes do not natively support running 32 bit binaries. You have to manually enable multi arch support by adding additional packages, modifying kernel, adding dependencies, etc...

 

The point is, it's not native like everyone thinks, not even on Windows, look up WOW64. Its Windows 32 on Windows 64. It's the only way to run 32bit apps on 64 bit versions of Windows, via a separate subsystem/library.

 

All of this adds overhead, complexity, and uses up both storage and ram for no reason. Apps can be coded to the native architecture, and be drastically improved in terms of performance and memory usage. There's nothing wrong with leaning down a OS, especially a mobile OS. It's called optimization and makes this simpler for both Apple and devs.

And then Apple could start making processors with only 64bit instruction sets and no 32bit so it's impossible both due to software and hardware.

 

Edit:

Actually never mind, my complete lack of caring about Apple just showed . Seems 32bit apps are already being emulated.

[ionbasa]

6 minutes ago, mr moose said:

I wonder if developers will leave their old 32bit apps on the store and release a new 64bit versions or whether those of us with 32bit ipads will slowly lose app support.

 

Developers have been coding 64 bit apps since ~2015. Apple added a stipulation that year that all apps need to have at least a 64 bit binary to continue using the app store for updates. What will most likely happen is that devs will slowly stop pushing out both binaries.

 

Yes, it sucks if you have a iPhone 5 or lower or an older iPad, but to be honest, those devices are past their prime. I still have an iPhone 5s and I'm upgrading this year. I've always bought my phones upfront, no contract, loan, etc. My phone runs iOS 10 just fine. It definitely outlived the Samsung Galaxy 3 it replaced.

[Master Disaster]

9 hours ago, RedRound2 said:

Lol, you don't even have a reference, yet you go on trying to make a point.

 

Your analogy is plain stupid. Technology moves fast in phones. The CPU and GPU power on a phone in 2017 is astronomically higher that what you would have gotten in 2010. and because of that software has evolved to the point where there is a lot going on which hardware can't support. 64 bit apps is an example, so is x265 hardware acceleration, machine learning algorithms, natural language processing, new wireless standards, motion co-processor, etc

 

You can't compare this to PCs, because PCs have been so stagnated these days and frankly most people don't really require any more power than what a 2010 intel processor can do. Hence why efficiency is the focus on PC side and hence why newer OSs seems to work fine with ancient computers

 

Your argument is just hating on Apple with no real basis. Stop sticking to your old 1995 civic and get a new 2017 version, if you want to get all the new modern features.

 

And how is Android a different story? Manufacturers on Android side really only care about their current flagship phones, even if the phone in question can work absolutely fine with current technology. 

Me thinks you should learn the meaning of analogy before incorrectly throwing it around. I made a point, not a comparison.

 

I don't think I compared anything to a PC, you're the one who did that.

 

You pointed out exactly how Android is different while you were asking me what the difference is.

[mr moose]

4 minutes ago, ionbasa said:

Developers have been coding 64 bit apps since ~2015. Apple added a stipulation that year that all apps need to have at least a 64 bit binary to continue using the app store for updates. What will most likely happen is that devs will slowly stop pushing out both binaries.

 

Yes, it sucks if you have a iPhone 5 or lower or an older iPad, but to be honest, those devices are past their prime. I still have an iPhone 5s and I'm upgrading this year. I've always bought my phones upfront, no contract, loan, etc. My phone runs iOS 10 just fine. It definitely outlived the Samsung Galaxy 3 it replaced.

 

Cheers.

 

[ionbasa]

22 minutes ago, leadeater said:

And then Apple could start making processors with only 64bit instruction sets and no 32bit so it's impossible both due to software and hardware.

Its a little different on ARM architecture than x86. The reason we think of desktop/laptop CPUs from Intel and AMD as being 'backwards' compatible is because x86_64 is a instruction set extension. On ARM, not so much, AArch64 is actually not an extension of AArch32. So really, this is already happening, and has been happening. Don't blame Apple.

 

32 bit OSes on AArch64 depends on the CPU, backwards compatibility at the hardware level isn't a requirement, but merely an available option via a hypervisor, and that up to the CPU manufacturer to implement. 64 Bit OSes can still execute 32 bit binaries as long as the kernel supports it.

[leadeater]

Just now, ionbasa said:

Its a little different on ARM architecture than x86. The reason we think of desktop/laptop CPUs from Intel and AMD as being 'backwards' compatible is because x86_64 is a instruction set extension. On ARM, not so much, AArch64 is actually not an extension of AArch32. So really, this is already happening, and has been happening. Don't blame Apple. Naive hardware backwards compatibility never existed from the start. 

 

32 bit OSes on AArch64 depends on the CPU, backwards compatibility at the hardware level isn't a requirement, but merely an available option via a hypervisor, and that up to the CPU manufacturer to implement. 64 Bit OSes can still execute 32 bit binaries as long as the kernel supports it.

Yea I just edited my post, showed my very little giving a damn about Apple and also mobile devices in general. I have a Nokia 635 lol.

[RedRound2]

42 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

Me thinks you should learn the meaning of analogy before incorrectly throwing it around. I made a point, not a comparison.

1

ok, sorry if I offended you in anyway by using an incorrect term

42 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

I don't think I compared anything to a PC, you're the one who did that.

 

Lol, I'm doing that for you since PCs are the only tech that gets updated indefinitely. If you are not making any such comparison then you have zero basis for your point

42 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

You pointed out exactly how Android is different while you were asking me what the difference is.

So that isn't forced obsolescence? Wow does your vocabulary change with depending on who you support

[Master Disaster]

35 minutes ago, RedRound2 said:

ok, sorry if I offended you in anyway by using an incorrect term

Lol, I'm doing that for you since PCs are the only tech that gets updated indefinitely. If you are not making any such comparison then you have zero basis for your point

So that isn't forced obsolescence? Wow does your vocabulary change with depending on who you support

1) No problem

2) Go back and read my earlier posts, I make a comparison

3) Nope. Its different in that Apple has complete control over their hardware, they flip a switch and your phone is obsolete where as Google only make the OS, the hardware is made by multiple third parties who around 5 years ago decided that if Android phone owners wanted to unlock their phones at the cost of support then they could. When my HTC One M8 stopped receiving updates I unlocked its bootloader and flashed a custom firmware allowing me to use newer features, try and do that with your Apple phone. Oh right, you can't because Apple arbitrarily decided it was EOL.

Quote

Planned obsolescence or built-in obsolescence in industrial design and economics is a policy of planning or designing a product with an artificially limited useful life, so it will become obsolete (that is, unfashionable or no longer functional) after a certain period of time.

Oh, and before you go down the "5 years old" route, IPhone 5S still mostly function perfectly ergo there's no reason why Apple should enforce this onto them right now other than to make users upgrade to newer handsets.

[RedRound2]

1 minute ago, Master Disaster said:

3) Nope. Its different in that Apple has complete control over their hardware, they flip a switch and your phone is obsolete where as Google only make the OS, the hardware is made by multiple third parties who around 5 years ago decided that if Android phone owners wanted to unlock their phones at the cost of support then they could. When my HTC One M8 stopped receiving updates I unlocked its bootloader and flashed a custom firmware allowing me to use newer features, try and do that with your Apple phone. Oh right, you can't because Apple arbitrarily decided it was EOL.

 

So on PC side of things, do Microsoft have full control over the hardware?

Google makes updates for their own phones and Google themselves explicitly said they will only support a device upto 2 years, after which they flip the switch and label it EOL.

Third party ROMs is not a solution and I can guarantee you can't get a fully stable build in android phone that's more than 4 years old, with a few exceptions

 

Also, Android phones age very poorly and they perform like 10-year-old devices after 3 years of use, something that is not the case with iOS unless it's 6 years old. Apple gives a very reasonable life support of 5 years which is IMO a bit long considering how fast things move in the mobile world.

 

You're basically just hating Apple for doing something good, which is a very fanboy like behavior. Learn to appreciate what Apple does and you are allowed to give a constructive solid criticism rather just bitching around because the word Apple makes your blood boil. And if you are really desperate for your 5 year old iPhone, you can always jailbreak it and force never features onto it

[RedRound2]

1 hour ago, Master Disaster said:

Oh, and before you go down the "5 years old" route, IPhone 5S still mostly function perfectly ergo there's no reason why Apple should enforce this onto them right now other than to make users upgrade to newer handsets.

1

5S is supported. It was the first iPhone with 64-bit processor and touch ID.

At least get your facts right before going all nuclear when you hear the word Apple

[abazigal]

3 hours ago, Master Disaster said:

1) No problem

2) Go back and read my earlier posts, I make a comparison

3) Nope. Its different in that Apple has complete control over their hardware, they flip a switch and your phone is obsolete where as Google only make the OS, the hardware is made by multiple third parties who around 5 years ago decided that if Android phone owners wanted to unlock their phones at the cost of support then they could. When my HTC One M8 stopped receiving updates I unlocked its bootloader and flashed a custom firmware allowing me to use newer features, try and do that with your Apple phone. Oh right, you can't because Apple arbitrarily decided it was EOL.

Oh, and before you go down the "5 years old" route, IPhone 5S still mostly function perfectly ergo there's no reason why Apple should enforce this onto them right now other than to make users upgrade to newer handsets.

The lesson Apple keeps teaching and which others keep ignoring is; to create true meaningful change in a market, you need to force change. By taking bold unapologetic stances. Here’s a touchscreen smart phone without the familiarity of a physical Qwerty keyboard. Here’s a large screen tablet without a desktop OS and desktop apps and file system. I am not going to support flash on ios devices. Here’s a smart phone without a headphone jack. Here's a laptop with only USB ports. You will update your apps to 64-bit or say bye-bye to it. 

 

See the trend?

[Jito463]

16 minutes ago, abazigal said:

The lesson Apple keeps teaching and which others keep ignoring is; to create true meaningful change in a market, you need to force change. By taking bold unapologetic stances. Here’s a touchscreen smart phone without the familiarity of a physical Qwerty keyboard. Here’s a large screen tablet without a desktop OS and desktop apps and file system. I am not going to support flash on ios devices. Here’s a smart phone without a headphone jack. Here's a laptop with only USB ports. You will update your apps to 64-bit or say bye-bye to it. 

 

See the trend?

No one is ignoring it, but that doesn't mean we have to automatically accept it.  Sometimes change is just for the sake of change, and that's only good for the manufacturer, as it allows them to sell more devices.

 

Physical keyboard?  I actually miss that.  Headphone jack?  It's one of the reasons (amongst many) that I'd never use an iPhone.

 

And as for flash, don't think that was Apple trying to push some meaningful change.  That was Apple being ticked off with Adobe, and trying to cut them out any way they could.

[Commodus]

51 minutes ago, Jito463 said:

No one is ignoring it, but that doesn't mean we have to automatically accept it.  Sometimes change is just for the sake of change, and that's only good for the manufacturer, as it allows them to sell more devices.

 

Physical keyboard?  I actually miss that.  Headphone jack?  It's one of the reasons (amongst many) that I'd never use an iPhone.

 

And as for flash, don't think that was Apple trying to push some meaningful change.  That was Apple being ticked off with Adobe, and trying to cut them out any way they could.

On Flash: no, there were actually very good technical reasons for Apple refusing to run Flash.

 

Flash on mobile was a battery hog.  It was buggy.  It was a giant security hole.  And the problem is that Adobe didn't just want Flash to be a nice-to-have feature, it wanted it to be central to the mobile web.  Can you imagine the web revolving around one company's crappy plugin?  Imagine if all internet video revolved around RealPlayer instead of H.264 or VP9... you'd freak out.

 

Hell, we even have an example of a company that paid the price for making itself a slave to Flash.  Remember how the BlackBerry PlayBook's operating system revolved around it, and surely the iPad was dooooomed because it didn't have that kind of support?  Yeah.  It turns out that most people didn't actually care for Flash that badly, and it was much more important to have a complete operating system with quality apps.

 

I don't think it had anything to do with politics between Adobe and Apple.  Rather, it's because Apple has historically been picky about standards: if it's going to adopt a standard, it has to be truly non-proprietary and reasonably good quality (and Flash was neither).  I'm reminded of how some people insisted that Apple "had" to adopt WMA for the iTunes Store because that was surely the only way you'd get interoperability between stores... hah, no.  Instead, it waited until it could use a DRM-free format that was actually interoperable, and it moved the entire industry forward.  If it had given in to an Adobe-style move, you'd probably be buying copy-protected songs even now.

[LAwLz]

8 hours ago, abazigal said:

The lesson Apple keeps teaching and which others keep ignoring is; to create true meaningful change in a market, you need to force change. By taking bold unapologetic stances. Here’s a touchscreen smart phone without the familiarity of a physical Qwerty keyboard. Here’s a large screen tablet without a desktop OS and desktop apps and file system. I am not going to support flash on ios devices. Here’s a smart phone without a headphone jack. Here's a laptop with only USB ports. You will update your apps to 64-bit or say bye-bye to it. 

 

See the trend?

Don't be too quick to assume that just because "forced changed" happened in those scenarios, it would not have happened naturally.

There are also a ton of examples of things evolving in a certain way without "forced changed".

 

 

4 hours ago, Commodus said:

Rather, it's because Apple has historically been picky about standards: if it's going to adopt a standard, it has to be truly non-proprietary and reasonably good quality (and Flash was neither).

You got to be shitting me.

Apple has historically been God awful when it comes to adopting and/or creating their own proprietary standards. I agree with everything that you said, but the notion that Apple only use "truly non-proprietary" things is laughable. Just a few examples:

Metal

Swift.

30-pin Connector

Lighting connector

HLS

ALAC

AAC

H.264

HEVC

HEIF

Huge parts of iOS and MacOS are proprietary.

Thunderbolt

All their proprietary ports they add on things like SSDs.

 

 

[ionbasa]

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

Don't be too quick to assume that just because "forced changed" happened in those scenarios, it would not have happened naturally.

There are also a ton of examples of things evolving in a certain way without "forced changed".

 

 

You got to be shitting me.

Apple has historically been God awful when it comes to adopting and/or creating their own proprietary standards. I agree with everything that you said, but the notion that Apple only use "truly non-proprietary" things is laughable. Just a few examples:

Metal

Swift.

30-pin Connector

Lighting connector

HLS

ALAC

AAC

H.264

HEVC

HEIF

Huge parts of iOS and MacOS are proprietary.

Thunderbolt

All their proprietary ports they add on things like SSDs.

 

 

A bit blown out of proportion, don'y you think?

https://opensource.apple.com

^^Plenty of open source in OSx and iOS. Not saying its all open source, but then again, why should it? Windows isn't, some *nix distros aren't either. 

 

Many of the things you list have tangible reasons for why they happened.

 

Lightning was due to a deficit of reliable reversible connectors in the USB standard (until recently with USB Type C). As for the 30 pin connector, it carried video out, line level audio out, firewire and usb. It was more of a dock connector for third party peripherals. Was it necessary, maybe not. But there's an actual technical reason why they implemented it. Other devices had proprietary dock connectors too (at the time), and no one complained about those, eg: Dell/IBM laptop docking stations, I still have one lying around.

 

As for thunderbolt? Really, it was co-developed with Intel, hardly an Apple proprietary design. Apple just had first dibs at exclusivity when thunderbolt 1 launched. And look at Thunderbolt now, a good chunk of high end laptops have it available, its available on OEM systems, and enthusiast motherboards. Thunderbolt is also a registered trademark of Intel, not Apple. 

 

H.264: Apple didn't push that on consumers, the film and broadcast industry did. It was a joint effort between ITU-T and MPEG and ISO. 

 

ALAC: Open source and royalty free

AAC: Not Apple, thank MPEG, its used in radio broadcasts, to TV audio encoding. 

HEVC: Thank JCT-VC and MPEG

 

HEIF: Actually, this is really interesting. JPEG is past its prime, and again, this isn't a Apple proprietary solution,its actualy MPEG, the standard was finalized in 2015. Apple, is just one of the first to implement the new format. Adopting new, more efficient standards isn't a bad thing.

 

I wont get into the hardware side of Apple's SSDs, I don't have the knowledge to comment on that in particular.

 

TL;DR: Over half the list you posted is BS, a little research will go a long way. Not saying apple doesn't use proprietary tech, but rather, that most of the tech is industry standard and not limited to Apple products.

[Zodiark1593]

On 6/17/2017 at 4:14 PM, RedRound2 said:

Lol, you don't even have a reference, yet you go on trying to make a point.

 

Your analogy is plain stupid. Technology moves fast in phones. The CPU and GPU power on a phone in 2017 is astronomically higher that what you would have gotten in 2010. and because of that software has evolved to the point where there is a lot going on which hardware can't support. 64 bit apps is an example, so is x265 hardware acceleration, machine learning algorithms, natural language processing, new wireless standards, motion co-processor, etc

 

You can't compare this to PCs, because PCs have been so stagnated these days and frankly most people don't really require any more power than what a 2010 intel processor can do. Hence why efficiency is the focus on PC side and hence why newer OSs seems to work fine with ancient computers

 

Your argument is just hating on Apple with no real basis. Stop sticking to your old 1995 civic and get a new 2017 version, if you want to get all the new modern features.

 

And how is Android a different story? Manufacturers on Android side really only care about their current flagship phones, even if the phone in question can work absolutely fine with current technology. 

From what I'm reading, iOS 11 will do away with the ability to run 32 bit apps at all, even purchased ones that haven't been updated. This particular aspect is a feature removal, and I'm curious why anyone would approve of such a move? (forcing developers to focus on 64 bit is fine, but removing the ability to run older 32 bit only apps shouldn't be seen as acceptable). 

[abazigal]

1 hour ago, Zodiark1593 said:

From what I'm reading, iOS 11 will do away with the ability to run 32 bit apps at all, even purchased ones that haven't been updated. This particular aspect is a feature removal, and I'm curious why anyone would approve of such a move? (forcing developers to focus on 64 bit is fine, but removing the ability to run older 32 bit only apps shouldn't be seen as acceptable). 

There is a old Chinese proverb - punish one to warn a hundred. 

 

Yes, there will be apps which will disappear because they have been abandoned by their developers and will never be updated. But there will be even more developers who will be promoted to update their apps, and hopefully incorporate the newer APIs while they are at it. 

 

I am not saying Apple's way is perfect. There will be people inconvenienced by this move no doubt, but I believe the good will far outweigh the bad. 

[abazigal]

4 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Don't be too quick to assume that just because "forced changed" happened in those scenarios, it would not have happened naturally.

There are also a ton of examples of things evolving in a certain way without "forced changed".

 

 

You got to be shitting me.

Apple has historically been God awful when it comes to adopting and/or creating their own proprietary standards. I agree with everything that you said, but the notion that Apple only use "truly non-proprietary" things is laughable. Just a few examples:

Metal

Swift.

30-pin Connector

Lighting connector

HLS

ALAC

AAC

H.264

HEVC

HEIF

Huge parts of iOS and MacOS are proprietary.

Thunderbolt

All their proprietary ports they add on things like SSDs.

 

 

In a sense, I suppose it can be argued that Apple has a vested interest in shaping the direction of technology to favour itself so it always comes out on top. Take flash for example. Flash had its shortcomings, but it was still extremely popular in its heyday, and had Apple not thrown its collective weight behind HTML5 by blocking flash on its iOS devices and singlehandedly forcing the hands of all stakeholders to support HTML 5 or lose access to a very lucrative demographic, the latter may never have gotten the traction it needed to take off. 

 

We will never know what would have been had Apple never intervened and instead left it to the market to decide, but I don't think we can deny the influence Apple had in the final outcome. 

 

I think it's safer to say that Apple ultimately serves themselves (and their customers  by extension, because their business model essentially revolves around creating a great user experience for its users). Apple earns by selling at a premium, great hardware sufficiently differentiated by unique software. And Apple will use open standards when it suits their needs, but they are not above forking their own standards when the need arises as well. 

 

I find one fitting analogy as to why Apple often does things the way they do is that they see technology as ingredients to creating a dish. If they can get the parts they need to create the desired end user experience, they will. If not, then they will not hesitate to grow their own crops or make their own parts just so it can be tailored to their exact tastes. Open isn't always great, and closed isn't always bad either. It all depends on what you are trying to achieve. 

 

That's why we had reversible connectors in the form of lightning a full 3 years before USB C became mainstream in smartphones. Same with their W1 chip, because Bluetooth just wasn't cutting it for what Apple needed it to do. Or taking security to a whole new level with the secure enclave on their mobile chips. Apple creates a lot of their own technology partly so they control their own infrastructure and aren't at the mercy of a third party vendor; a lesson no doubt they learnt all too well from the google maps debacle. 

 

This is great for users who are deeply entrenched in the Apple ecosystem like myself, admittedly less so for users outside or straddling multiple platforms. 

[LAwLz]

7 hours ago, ionbasa said:

A bit blown out of proportion, don'y you think?

https://opensource.apple.com

^^Plenty of open source in OSx and iOS. Not saying its all open source, but then again, why should it? Windows isn't, some *nix distros aren't either. 

"Plenty of open source"

Yeah right... Like I said, big parts of iOS and MacOS are not open source. In fact, a large portion of the things they do have open sourced are just things they have taken from others, like OpenSSH and a bunch of bash tools.

 

7 hours ago, ionbasa said:

Lightning was due to a deficit of reliable reversible connectors in the USB standard (until recently with USB Type C). As for the 30 pin connector, it carried video out, line level audio out, firewire and usb. It was more of a dock connector for third party peripherals. Was it necessary, maybe not. But there's an actual technical reason why they implemented it. Other devices had proprietary dock connectors too (at the time), and no one complained about those, eg: Dell/IBM laptop docking stations, I still have one lying around.

Still proprietary, regardless of what excuse you might come up with (legit or not).

 

7 hours ago, ionbasa said:

As for thunderbolt? Really, it was co-developed with Intel, hardly an Apple proprietary design. Apple just had first dibs at exclusivity when thunderbolt 1 launched. And look at Thunderbolt now, a good chunk of high end laptops have it available, its available on OEM systems, and enthusiast motherboards. Thunderbolt is also a registered trademark of Intel, not Apple. 

Thunderbolt is proprietary even though multiple companies can use it. Intel will soon make it open though.

 

7 hours ago, ionbasa said:

H.264: Apple didn't push that on consumers, the film and broadcast industry did. It was a joint effort between ITU-T and MPEG and ISO. 

Apple was one of the biggest companies trying to push H.264 to become the standard for <video> in HTML5.

 

7 hours ago, ionbasa said:

ALAC: Open source and royalty free

Only several years after it was first released. It was first released in 2004, and it was not until 2011 that it became open source and royalty free, and that was after someone had already reverse engineered it and published it online.

 

7 hours ago, ionbasa said:

AAC: Not Apple, thank MPEG, its used in radio broadcasts, to TV audio encoding. 

HEVC: Thank JCT-VC and MPEG

I don't think you understand what "propitiatory" is. It is possible for something to be propitiatory, and developed by someone other than Apple. AAC and HEVC are very proprietary, and yet Apple chose to use them. As for AAC, Apple is one of the biggest players in the music industry and could easily have picked Vorbis instead. If Spotify could do it, then so could Apple.

 

7 hours ago, ionbasa said:

this isn't a Apple proprietary solution,its actualy MPEG, the standard was finalized in 2015.

It is. Apple's implementation does not allow for anything but HEVC encoding, which is proprietary.

 

7 hours ago, ionbasa said:

TL;DR: Over half the list you posted is BS, a little research will go a long way. Not saying apple doesn't use proprietary tech, but rather, that most of the tech is industry standard and not limited to Apple products.

Except 100% of my list is correct. The problem is that you seem to think "proprietary" stands for "made by Apple and nobody else uses it". The reality is that proprietary means:

Quote

Any software that is copyrighted and bears limits against use, distribution and modification that are imposed by its publisher, vendor or developer. Proprietary software remains the property of its owner/creator and is used by end-users/organizations under predefined conditions.

and I also listed some things which used to be proprietary but has since become free, but those still apply to my point because my point was that Apple has plenty of times implemented proprietary things.

[LAwLz]

4 hours ago, abazigal said:

In a sense, I suppose it can be argued that Apple has a vested interest in shaping the direction of technology to favour itself so it always comes out on top. Take flash for example. Flash had its shortcomings, but it was still extremely popular in its heyday, and had Apple not thrown its collective weight behind HTML5 by blocking flash on its iOS devices and singlehandedly forcing the hands of all stakeholders to support HTML 5 or lose access to a very lucrative demographic, the latter may never have gotten the traction it needed to take off. 

Except you know, Apple was one of the biggest players who made <video> so hard to implement. In fact, Ian Hickson, the author of the HTML5 specifications, at one point said "I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that there is no suitable codec that all vendors are willing to implement and ship".

Flash was on its way out anyway. It was designed to replace Flash and it had been in the works for a long time (I think it started in 2004).

Apple was actively trying to work against having a free and open standard for web video, and web video was one of the key reasons why Flash lived on for as long as it did.

 

Apple were both contributing to the death of Flash (by dropping support on iOS), but also contributing to the longevity of Flash (by refusing to support free and open ideo standards).

Microsoft was another company which sided with Apple and wanted propitiatory codecs to be part of the web standards. Luckily for us, Microsoft has come to their senses and are now working together with everyone else (except Apple) to develop a proper video codec (AV1).

 

4 hours ago, abazigal said:

Open isn't always great, and closed isn't always bad either. It all depends on what you are trying to achieve. 

I agree.

What I disagreed with was the statement that: "if it's [Apple] going to adopt a standard, it has to be truly non-proprietary and reasonably good quality".

I think Apple don't give a damn of something is propitiatory or not. I would not be surprised if Apple statistically has more proprietary things than open things (in the cases where they actually have a choice).

[RedRound2]

9 hours ago, Zodiark1593 said:

From what I'm reading, iOS 11 will do away with the ability to run 32 bit apps at all, even purchased ones that haven't been updated. This particular aspect is a feature removal, and I'm curious why anyone would approve of such a move? (forcing developers to focus on 64 bit is fine, but removing the ability to run older 32 bit only apps shouldn't be seen as acceptable). 

If Apple does that, then 32 bit apps which have been proven to be more disadvantageous than 64 bit apps will still continue to exist indefinitely and we will never switch to a fully 64 bit app economy system. And if important apps get only 32 but version, then Apple will be stuck supporting 32 but version, like how it is like on windows

 

Second this allows Apple to get rid off apps that haven't been supported by developers for years thereby removing clutter and buggy apps that wouldn't work properly on never versions of ios in the first place. It's a win win situation and it doesn't take developers much time to convert an existing 32 bit app to 64 bit

[RedRound2]

11 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Don't be too quick to assume that just because "forced changed" happened in those scenarios, it would not have happened naturally.

There are also a ton of examples of things evolving in a certain way without "forced changed".

 

 

You got to be shitting me.

Apple has historically been God awful when it comes to adopting and/or creating their own proprietary standards. I agree with everything that you said, but the notion that Apple only use "truly non-proprietary" things is laughable. Just a few examples:

Metal

Swift.

30-pin Connector

Lighting connector

HLS

ALAC

AAC

H.264

HEVC

HEIF

Huge parts of iOS and MacOS are proprietary.

Thunderbolt

All their proprietary ports they add on things like SSDs.

 

 

Apple has historically taken whatever is available on the market proprietary or not to enhance their platform experience. 

30 pin connector was superior and at the time most phones had proprietary connectors. Lightning is vastly superior than micousb and now since type c is which they've proudly adopted for Macs, I believe it's just a matter of time before Apple makes the switch to type c, although I can see why they are reluctant as there would be huge consumer backlash when they abandon lightning

 

Apple made swift open source as soon as it was ready along with health api apps

 

Thunderbolt to be honest is the best and the most versatile connector out there. You can't blame Apple for not adopting it, rather be glad they did

 

Metal allows Apple to take full control of their GPU especially on iOS devices with AX chips. And apple here isn't expecting game devs to take advantage of it rather make their own platform for content creation like how they showed off VR, FPX, etc

 

Can't comment on HLS, AAC, ALAC but HEVC has been a format that I personally use to convert all my media to reduce file size. It's quite frankly amazing and I was really excited when they announced a system wide support. As of this moment, it probably is the best format supported by most platforms. 

HEFIF also seems interesting, and you yourself pointed out the benefits in your own post

 

I don't see what there is to complain about here. If all the best and the versatile formats were available as open source I'm pretty sure Apple would've adopted it

[LAwLz]

12 minutes ago, RedRound2 said:

I don't see what there is to complain about here. If all the best and the versatile formats were available as open source I'm pretty sure Apple would've adopted it

Where was I complaining? Why are defending their decision to use all of those proprietary things?

Maybe you did not read the conversation, but it went like this:

Person: Apple only implement truly non-proprietary standards.

Me: No they don't. Here is a list of proprietary things they have used.

 

I was absolutely not attacking them or questioning their decisions. I was merely pointing out that Apple have used, and continues to use, several proprietary standards. To me, it seems like they do not give a damn about whether or not something is proprietary.

[Commodus]

14 hours ago, LAwLz said:

You got to be shitting me.

Apple has historically been God awful when it comes to adopting and/or creating their own proprietary standards. I agree with everything that you said, but the notion that Apple only use "truly non-proprietary" things is laughable. Just a few examples:

Metal

Swift.

30-pin Connector

Lighting connector

HLS

ALAC

AAC

H.264

HEVC

HEIF

Huge parts of iOS and MacOS are proprietary.

Thunderbolt

All their proprietary ports they add on things like SSDs.

 

AAC, ALAC, H.264, HEVC, HEIF and Thunderbolt are all true standards.  Apple doesn't have a lock on them (even ALAC is open source); anyone can use them, even if they need to get a license from a standards group... heck, Intel finally loosened the spec on Thunderbolt, so AMD and others can implement it.

 

Also, I need to clarify: if Apple adopts someone else's technology, it's usually a real standard.  It's not averse to using technology it doesn't directly control.  What it doesn't like is adopting someone else's proprietary tech.  That makes it beholden to another company's whims.  And the whole Adobe Flash mess was a classic example of that: Adobe basically wanted to dictate the future of the web and make companies dependent on its software.  Apple wasn't going to have any of that, especially not when mobile Flash was pretty crappy.