back to article Apple frees a few private APIs, makes them public

Apple, by necessity, fatigue, goodwill or accident, is becoming slightly more open in how it allows developers to interact with its software. In the wake of the company's Worldwide Developer Conference last week, software developers are reporting that some previously private APIs have been opened to the public. Private APIs …

  1. aberglas

    Microsoft stoped doing this 20 years ago

    It was a big deal then. Special APIs that could only be used by MS Office to entrench a monopoly. I think the courts thumped them by vague memory, or were going to.

    Yet Apple is now as dominant as MS was and seems to be able to get away with anything.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Microsoft stoped doing this 20 years ago

      MS had "undocumented" (and "barely documented") APIs - but at least when you found them and understood how to use them it didn't block your applications (some made money from "Undocumented xxxx" books - no Internet to look for those APIs easily)

      It was still a way to get an unfair advantage over competitors (because having an early access to new APIs was not enough).

      EU antitrust ruling forced it to open and document a lot of APIs and protocol specifications to third parties, but there could still be some undocumented ones lurking around...

      1. Alan Sharkey

        Re: Microsoft stopped doing this 20 years ago

        Undocumented DOS - my bible when I was developing DOS software. It was amazing what you could do.

  2. Geoff Johnson

    Which APIs

    Does anyone have a list (or know where to find a list) of the APIs we're now allowed to use?

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: Which APIs

      I was thinking along similar lines. Without a list of "don't go here", how is one supposed to know if you are doing something not allowed by Apple? Doing something new, unique or just different is primary part of making your work stand out from the crowd

  3. Nifty Silver badge

    Will I finally be allowed to use an iPhone to survey my local WiFi environment for congested channels?

    1. Alan Sharkey

      Ha ha ha

      Don't be silly. Of course not. I'd also like to have an API to look at what networks are out there and their strengths. No such luck.

  4. Ian Joyner Bronze badge

    Nothing New

    Undocumented features have always been in software products. Developers think ahead and thus put in what we call 'hooks' for future requirements. These are then tested over a few releases. They might be changed, or even dropped.

    If they were released to developers early without testing, then removed, developers would have to spend a lot of money updating - there would be screaming all round.

    But this also works the other way. There might be feature which they want to deimplement. In this case, APIs go through a 'deprecated' phase. This allows developers to remove dependence on APIs that will disappear in the future.

    So you don't want APIs appearing and disappearing quickly - you want to have a deal of stability. The only reason to have less stability is to have progress.

    This is all nothing new. It is good software development practices actually being practiced. There is nothing devious about this - there will always be APIs that are for low-level OS use only. Anything else that attempts to use these APIs is probably a hacking attempt. Security is the most important consideration in 2017.

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