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Apple

Apple Gave Zoom Access To Special API to Use iPad Camera During Split View Multitasking (macrumors.com) 85

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
AmiMoJo writes: Zoom, a hallmark platform used by millions during the global health crisis, has been given access to a special iPadOS API that allows the app to use the iPad camera while the app is in use in Split View multitasking mode. This case of special treatment was first brought to attention by app developer Jeremy Provost, who, in a blog post, explains that Zoom uses a special API that allows the app to continue using and accessing the iPad camera while the app is being used in Split View mode. Zoom can do this thanks to an "entitlement," which grants developers the ability to execute a particular capability with an API. As Provost notes, Apple publicly documents the ability for developers to apply for several different entitlements, such as ones related to CarPlay, HomeKit, and more. However, the special API that Zoom has been given is not offered to other developers by Apple, nor is its existence acknowledged by the company itself. On the Zoom Developer Forum, a staff member for the video conferencing platform had confirmed earlier in February that Zoom has access to the "com.apple.developer.avfoundation.multitasking-camera-access," or iPad Camera Multitasking entitlement. Further reading: Apple Offered Special App Store API Access To Hulu and Other Developers.
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Apple Gave Zoom Access To Special API to Use iPad Camera During Split View Multitasking More

Apple Gave Zoom Access To Special API to Use iPad Camera During Split View Multitasking

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  • So the question is why is this not public... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Tuesday May 11, 2021 @09:46AM (#61372990)

    I guess access to the camera in split-screen multi-tasking may be limited for security reasons, but I do wonder why it's not a permission that is at least acknowledged so that other companies might apply to use it.

    You have to think that Apple has given similar access to at least a few other companies though, at the very least Microsoft for Teams.

    • Re: So the question is why is this not public... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by UnknowingFool ( 672806 ) on Tuesday May 11, 2021 @10:07AM (#61373064)
      Maybe Zoom is a closed test for Apple before they release the API publicly. Personally I think it is a good test as Zoom is widely used. With Teams the number of actual users vs installed users is not as definitive. Like most people, I have Teams installed on my work computer but I barely use it. I use Zoom multiple times a day.

      • Teams does release DAU counts. As of April it was 145 million.

        Back in April of last year Zoom said they had 300 million daily meeting participants.

        For comparison also back in April of last year Teams had 75 million Daily Active Users but 200 million meeting participants.

        • Teams does release DAU counts. As of April it was 145 million.

          Back in April of last year Zoom said they had 300 million daily meeting participants.

          I'm not sure if you can compare those numbers though, since Teams is much broader in scope many of those DAU users are probably chat / messaging only for most days, whereas Zoom DAU are all video users.

          • If only you had read my next sentence.. :P

            For comparison back in April of last year Teams had 75 million Daily Active Users but 200 million meeting participants.

            So using a little bit of math. 75m DAU => 145m DAU = 1.9x DAU. 200 million daily meeting participants * 1.9x = 380 million meeting participants. vs Zoom - April 2020 of 300 million. Those ratios may have changed and zoom may have picked up additional daily users. But I suspect Zoom lost much of its concentration of users as it did at the beginning of the pandemic when companies just had people use free sessions of Zoom until they bought a real solutio

            • Ummm no. MS reported 145M Daily Active Users for Teams. MS did not define DAU as using Teams for video meetings only as Teams is also messaging. If I log into Windows, by default I am shown as "Active" in Teams. A few coworkers use Teams so I leave it running. Am I counted as a DAU even though I only message every few months? Even rarer than that so I use Teams for meetings.

      • AHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, you actually think it's a closed test? How many times do they have to be caught doing this before you finally realize it's not a level playing field?
        • Yes because Apple should treat companies within millions of daily active users exactly the same as every other company. And Apple should not be allowed to do any testing they want because you are entitled to something they have not released to the public.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by guruevi ( 827432 )

      It's available, just not well documented. Ask Microsoft as to how many API's are barely or not documented.

      They're not "secret", just lazy dev work or sometimes just things they don't want publicly acknowledge due to support issues. You can go down the list of entitlements in Xcode and yes, if you talk to your Apple support person (which you have access to with your paid developers account), you too can ask about it being available.

      • LMFAO, "available but not documented". You go submit an app that tries to use that object / class and get back to me if you get through the review process

    • I guess access to the camera in split-screen multi-tasking may be limited for security reasons, but I do wonder why it's not a permission that is at least acknowledged so that other companies might apply to use it.

      Maybe there's a perceived "user experience" reason. How well does the iPad perform in multi-tasking mode? Maybe Apple doesn't really want people using it for multi-tasking as they may realize they can be productive enough w/o having to buy something more expensive (from them). It's Apple, I can thing of several non-technical reasons for things like this. On the other hand, the API could just be relatively untested and or undocumented at this time...

    • I'm curious about the rationale of having *any* special permissions needed for split-screen mode.

      It totally makes sense for background apps that can be running without you noticing, but for split-screen it's presumably obvious the software is running, so why does it need different permissions than for full-screen mode?

      Unless... I don't actually do iToys - does split-screen mode have the option for software to decide how much screen it takes up? Like, one pixel wide, or zero? If split-screen mode could be

  • Antitrust (Score:4, Insightful)

    by lessSockMorePuppet ( 6778792 ) on Tuesday May 11, 2021 @09:49AM (#61372996) Homepage

    Owning the company store AND deciding who is allowed to compete.

    • Well it's a step up from the old accusation that Microsoft was using special APIs to make their software work better. At least Apple is sharing.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by K. S. Kyosuke ( 729550 )
        At least Microsoft didn't prevent you from running whatever you wanted to, including software hooking into whatever non-public APIs you wanted to use.
        • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by khchung ( 462899 )

          At least Microsoft didn't prevent you from running whatever you wanted to, including software hooking into whatever non-public APIs you wanted to use.

          You are just too young to remember "Dos isn't done until Lotus won't run".

          MS applications routinely use undocumented API in Windows to gain an advantage vs its competitors, and when their competitors reverse engineered those API and used it themselves, the next version of Windows will change the API and break it (MS's own application, of course, would be properly changed to not break).

          I can still remember the merry-go-around in Win32s, when MS made update after update to break Win32s running in OS/2 until I

          • No, I'm not too young for that, and that is *still* different from Microsoft outright banning you from running anything that Microsoft doesn't want you to in the same way that Apple does it with its own hardware. Apple represents an entirely new level of assholery.

      • No, they are not sharing. They are acquiring. Privileges for obedience.

    • Re: (Score:1, Offtopic)

      by ArchieBunker ( 132337 )

      Hows the Pine phone working out for you?

      • > Hows the Pine phone working out for you?

        Mine came with Arch, so I thought the phone was broken, but then I installed Mobian and now it's quite usable. Hotspot and everything.

        Not hating on Arch, just the phone version on this hardware, which didn't work (fully updated) to make phone calls.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by King_TJ ( 85913 )

      I hardly think it's a case of "antitrust" for a manufacturer to have private/closed APIs that it decides to make an exception to let a third party use one of them after they presumably requested it and made a good case for why they needed it?

      If you make a competing videoconferencing product and need the same thing, what's stopping you from contacting Apple privately about it and negotiating to get the same access? This article doesn't claim others already tried in the same situation and were turned down.

      • I think you missed the bit about the APIs being secret.

        Very similar to the secret Windows calls that MS Office could use to be fast, but WordPerfect couldn't.

        • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Wordperfect was primarily written by a non-diverse group of white developers and contributed to systemic racism. Microsoft Office code is maintained by Indian developers and therefore supports a woke agenda. By not supporting closed secret calls for Microsoft Office you are a bigot perpetuating white privilege.

          --
          const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
          Woke, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC

        • Secret =~ unpublished. So far there is nothing indicating that there is something nefarious or monopolistic with the decision.

      • Re:Antitrust (Score:5, Interesting)

        by devoid42 ( 314847 ) on Tuesday May 11, 2021 @10:47AM (#61373172)
        Exactly, I suspect that this grant was the result of a support reachout from Zoom. Zoom noticed they couldn't do something they wanted and contacted Apple and likely after discussing the security and needs of the request, the grant was given. This was likely not secret just not advertised, other products with the same requirements and willingness to work with Apple with the security ramifications would likely be afforded the same permissions. This "story" feels like clickbait trying to apply nefarious underpinnings to something actually quite standard.

        • Right, I noticed i couldn't do some things and reached out.

          I'm still waiting for them to get back to me. I'm sure it will be any day now....

          • Large corporate customers frequently get a dedicated representative. When you have a person like that designated to your account you're probably going to be able to get your questions answered or get that extra hidden entitlement. If you're a smaller developer who is relying on the generic email account to get an answer then you probably will have about as much success emailing a brick wall.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by khchung ( 462899 )

            Right, I noticed i couldn't do some things and reached out.

            I'm still waiting for them to get back to me. I'm sure it will be any day now....

            And Apple is also probably waiting for your blockbuster app to have as many downloads as Zoom got. I wouldn't hold my breath though.

        • That is the funny thing with suspicions. They are a reflection of your biases. One could just as easily assume Apple did this to help create competitive pressure for its competitors like Microsoft or Google
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Unfortunately the editors of /. doesn't care.

          For a site that calls it "news for nerds" only to have it completely fuck up code (it eats consecutive whitespace because someone was too stupid to figure out the CSS style that emulates the "pre" tag via: white-space: pre;) it is an embarrassment. Even reddit doesn't fuck up code snippets.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by dgatwood ( 11270 )

            Unfortunately the editors of /. doesn't care.

            For a site that calls it "news for nerds" only to have it completely fuck up code (it eats consecutive whitespace because someone was too stupid to figure out the CSS style that emulates the "pre" tag via: white-space: pre;) it is an embarrassment. Even reddit doesn't fuck up code snippets.

            It's not that. Slashdot used to support the <pre> tag, but that ended because of ASCII goatse.

    • You keep banging that drum, but you still ain't got no rhythm.

  • The ÃOEiPadÃOE camera (Score:5, Funny)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Tuesday May 11, 2021 @10:01AM (#61373026)

    I wonder if Slashdot has a special API to display unicode properly...

    • I wonder if Slashdot has a special API to display unicode properly...

      Is the backend Perl?

    • Yes, a simple Greasmonkey script should do the back and forth conversion. Used to do this when I still had my old setup and cared for Shashdot. Even had my own comment editor with shortcuts ans automatic HTML entities and everything.

      Unless you're using a retarded browser (in terms of progess and literally mentally regressing), where something so simpleand obviois as easy user scripting is not possible.

  • Somebody explain the implication to me (Score:5, Insightful)

    by chispito ( 1870390 ) on Tuesday May 11, 2021 @10:02AM (#61373034)
    I'm having a hard time figuring out exactly what the problem is from TFA (which is a not exactly a news outlet). Is the problem that no app should have this access? Is the problem that the user does not know Zoom has this access? Or is the problem that other apps are not given the same access?

    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      the problem is Apple (you can finish the sentence with whatever reasoning you made up this morning)

    • The last option.

      • The last option.

        But isn't that how a walled garden operates? Apple trusts some developers more than others and the users trust Apple?

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          But isn't that how a walled garden operates? Apple trusts some developers more than others and the users trust Apple?

          Tim Cook: "We treat every developer the same."

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by teg ( 97890 )

            But isn't that how a walled garden operates? Apple trusts some developers more than others and the users trust Apple?

            Tim Cook: "We treat every developer the same."

            Has he said that? They obviously don't... in just a couple of weeks from now they will show off all the cool new things the next versions of their platforms can do. Some of those things are shown with apps made by third parties, who obviously have gotten information and support not available to every developer... just to name one obvious example. I don't think it will be Epic demonstrating Metal this time, though...

          • Yes. They treat every developer the same with regard to policies. Last time I checked, "policies" and "API" are not synonymous of one another.

        • Yes, it is, but at least, they should be more transparent about the criteria they use for rejection.

          For instance, do you need a certain minimum of users? And how much do you have to pay per user for that kind of extra API access?

          • Yes, it is, but at least, they should be more transparent about the criteria they use for rejection.

            For instance, do you need a certain minimum of users? And how much do you have to pay per user for that kind of extra API access?

            I think you'd have to know who requested this API access and was rejected for it to be an issue.

            • Well, no one could request that API access. Apple claimed it didn't exist.

              It's only through a Zoom spokesperson that we learned of its existence.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Maybe, but this kind of thing got Microsoft in trouble back in the day. Other browsers couldn't use the secret Windows APIs that Microsoft could, preventing them from replacing IE fully.

          • Maybe, but this kind of thing got Microsoft in trouble back in the day. Other browsers couldn't use the secret Windows APIs that Microsoft could, preventing them from replacing IE fully.

            Does Apple have a stake in Zoom?

      • I see I'm being modded Troll for an on topic reply to a comment in the story.

        Seriously, what is wrong with you mods?

        • I see I'm being modded Troll for an on topic reply to a comment in the story.

          Seriously, what is wrong with you mods?

          I don't know. Some people get it worse than others. The submitter, for instance.

    • Re:Somebody explain the implication to me (Score:5, Insightful)

      by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) * on Tuesday May 11, 2021 @10:22AM (#61373118) Homepage Journal

      In Apple's court filing they reportedly claim that every developer has full and equal access to everything in the ecosystem. This API isn't super-important - it's that Epik et. al. will use this to discredit their testimony.

    • Second option. Additionally, this kind of hidden APIs usually have a lot of calls that have no performance penalties, so the owner (Apple) can make "fast" apps. I learned this in the 90s, while developing for Windows. The reason why I've switched to Linux and never looked back.

  • a special API that allows the app to continue using and accessing the âOEiPadâOE camera

    Sounds special to me.

  • Get Apple in the title of your article. Get clicks. Get paid.

    As far as I am concerned Apple is running their own OS and app marketplace. They should be perfectly within their rights to pick and choose the 3rd party apps they sell, what they sell them for and what payment methods they accept for such sales. They should also be free to provide favored treatment to any vendors as they see fit.

    • Sure, that's all fine and good. But to lie to a judge / court / the populace saying that the app store is a level playing field? I mean, that's expected of them to lie through their teeth... but still...

  • The real issue is basically when rules change and how.

    If the rules change only when you win, but never when you lose.... you are a slave. You shouldn't actually follow the rules. They are an excuse to keep you losing.

    The idea here is that rules are equal and we should follow them because everyone else has to.

    If we find out rules are just there to "justify" letting someone else win constantly, it's not really fair and thus the rules are actually a thin-veiled proclamation that you lose. You'll find out once

  • When certain apps accessing services are used by *all* teachers and students in America, and they can do something special like screen sharing while video broadcasting on PC and Android, then Apple makes that functionality available to them as soon as possible because it's a competition issue with Chromebooks and Windows laptops.

    When does it make it available to Facebook or Amazon / Twitch or Google Chat whatever for their game / app streaming? I don't know. Maybe this is because Apple internally also uses

    • Also quite possible that the API was established for Zoom based on a need, and that it was not a final product ready for broader release.

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