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Tim Cook at D11: Apple to Open Up APIs in the Future, but No Chat Heads

Tuesday May 28, 2013 7:51 pm PDT by Juli Clover

At this year's annual All Things Digital conference hosted by AllThingsD, Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher interviewed Apple CEO Tim Cook, where he revealed that Apple is planning to open up additional APIs in the future, giving third party developers more control over iOS.

According to Cook, while Apple will open up more APIs, it will continue to protect customers from the "risk of bad experiences."

Always a fine line, or maybe not so fine. The customer pays us to make choices on their behalf. But you'll see us open up more.

When Facebook released its Home software for Android phones in April, Facebook director of product Adam Mosseri mentioned that the company was in ongoing talks with Apple about bringing Home (and its Chat Heads functionality) to iOS.

According to Cook, while Chat Heads were not the ideal choice, Apple will allow third party apps to take over some iOS features in the future, allowing developers to build better and more versatile experiences.

During the question and answer session, Cook also mentioned that Apple had no issue with porting Apple apps to Android or other platforms should the need arise in the future, though such functionality doesn't make sense at the current point in time. Full coverage of Tim Cook's comments can be found here.

Tag: Tim Cook

Top Rated Comments

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ArtOfWarfare

80 months ago

So then don't use it.

Also, I absolutely do not pay Apple to make choices for me. That is profoundly asinine.

Except you do. That's how they manage to keep the experience of using their products so simple. They go through every UI dialog and say, "Do we really need to give the user this option, or are they going to want to hit this button 99+% of the time?" and if the answer is that the user is generally going to want to hit that button, then they'll remove the dialog and just have that be the default behavior.

The alternative is to have endless popups. IE, what should happen when you download a file? The answer, 99% of the time, is it should go into downloads, TYVM, get out of my way. Other OS's and browsers will present other options when you want to download a file. You as the user may not even understand the implications of certain choices.

If you don't like Apple making the choices for you, you should ditch iOS and get pure Android, and you should ditch OS X and get pure Unix or Linux. Then you can begin to understand the choices that Apple has made on your behalf and the time and frustration they've saved you in doing so. Or maybe you really like all that control, and you don't like Apple making those choices, in which case, good for you, stick with those other platforms where you can make your own choices.

I, for one, think the choices that have been made tend to be pretty good... there's a few exceptions... Mission Control really sucks and I can no longer organize 90% of my windows because I no longer have a grid of spaces to work with... the only organization I have is Spotify is always full screen to the right of my main space, and everything else is piled up in my main space.

Rating: 27 Votes

TennisandMusic

80 months ago

I have a HTC One. Chat head sucks. Facebook ruins things.

So then don't use it.

Also, I absolutely do not pay Apple to make choices for me. That is profoundly asinine.

Rating: 26 Votes

Amacfa

80 months ago

best thing I read all day

Rating: 23 Votes

kbt1020

80 months ago

I have a HTC One. Chat head sucks. Facebook ruins things.

Rating: 19 Votes

jameslmoser

80 months ago

Who the fk cares about Tim Cook at ATD. He can't top Steve's legacy, why even try? He is trying to be too much like Steve, especially with the comment on wearable watches: "nothing good on the market right now".

WHAT??? I can't see Steve saying half the stuff Tim says... porting Apple apps to Android?? Steve was probably rolling in his grave.

Rating: 12 Votes

jk111

80 months ago

I would love to see a screenshot of this. Surely there is one somewhere on the web.