Chinese Internet companies may join forces to give Apple an embarrassing problem

How do I evaluate the article I am about to write? I think it will be a prophecy.

The story begins on November 16. On that day, Sogou Number Lite updated its iOS client and added an anti-harassment feature. Officials claimed that they had achieved anti-harassment for non-jailbroken iPhone users for the first time, just like what they do on Android. If you receive a harassing call, it will prompt the user how many people have marked the number as a harassing call, thus helping the user decide whether to answer or not.

Few people know about the sandbox mechanism of the iOS system, so at first, not many people cared about the significance of the so-called "first implementation" of Sogou Number Connect. But in fact, there is a mystery behind its silent launch, and the mystery lies in its method of implementing anti-harassment.

Sogou Number Connect's method is very simple. It uses the iOS system's address book interface to select 20,000 nuisance calls and divides them into 7 contacts and stores them in the user's address book. In this way, if the user happens to receive a nuisance call from this "local number library", it will naturally be displayed. Sogou Number Connect uses this method to bypass the iOS sandbox mechanism and defeat Apple.

As expected, careful Zhihu netizens discovered the "trick" in the address book and fully explained and exposed the implementation method of this function. The next day, it was published in Zhihu Daily, and netizens began to discuss it. It was already November 28th, and the anti-harassment function of Sogou Number Lite had been online for 12 days.

There are two main opinions among netizens. One is that this implementation method is so genius that it can even be described as cute, and it strikes a balance between user needs and Apple's closed system. The other is that they cannot tolerate storing such a number library in their address book, and that Sogou Number Connect is being too clever.

On December 2, 360 Mobile Security followed up with the same function using the same technical principle. Things started to deteriorate here. 360's intervention turned what was originally an individual behavior of Sogou Number Tong into an eye-catching quasi-group event.

Soon, Sogou Number Pass' official Weibo published a statement titled "Run on the road of anti-harassment, brothers!", stating that Sogou will share the intellectual property rights of this technology with peers free of charge, and publicly disclose the number identification library API for peers to call, in addition to providing technical experience and assistance to peers. At the same time, Sogou Number Pass mentioned that it has communicated with companies such as WeChat and Baidu to form a strong alliance and share resources.

These are the relevant facts, and now we can start reasoning.

Inference 1: A large amount of data may be written into the iPhone user's address book

Sogou Number Pass and 360 Mobile Security both have a considerable market share. Due to the previous closure of the call record interface of iOS, the anti-harassment function with Chinese characteristics has never been able to be integrated into the iOS system. Now Sogou Number Pass has taken the lead in circumventing the technical barriers in a seemingly clever way, and has attracted 360 to follow up. It is not difficult to imagine that companies such as Tencent and Baidu will also actively join this team, because iPhone users do have a long-term rigid demand in the field of anti-harassment, and there is huge room for user growth.

Just imagine, if Sogou, 360, Tencent, and Baidu all make this feature standard, how many numbers will be stuffed into iPhone users’ address books?

Reasoning 2: Several reactions from Apple officials

Under the same principle, the combined efforts of these companies will definitely cause abnormal access to iPhone users' address books, and Apple will pay attention to it sooner or later. Tracing back to the source of this incident, it comes from the "unconventional use" of Apple's interface, which is actually a small bug for the proud Apple.

How will Apple respond to this situation?

1. Shut down the address book interface. This is equivalent to cutting off the way out for companies like Sogou, and the anti-harassment function will once again be out of reach for iPhone users. However, from Apple's perspective, if the address book interface is shut down, it may hit a boat with one stick, and many address book application developers will also be hurt. Apple will not lose the big picture for the small, so this possibility is extremely low.

2. Default. This approach is quite consistent with Apple's usual approach. It leaves a comment of "I know" and no longer pays attention to it, leaving this function to the market and users to choose. But at the same time, we have to think about whether the needs of Chinese users are worthy of further attention in the eyes of Apple, which is paying more and more attention to the Chinese market. So it is possible that Apple will take a more positive "default" attitude, which can not only prevent excessive malicious access to the address book, but also meet the user's anti-harassment needs, and keep a group of technical personnel from companies such as Sogou within the controllable range of Apple.

3. Recruitment. This method is also very likely. Apple may make some choices within the open framework. One is to open the call record interface, so that Chinese companies such as Sogou have a better way to implement anti-harassment functions and optimize Apple's user experience. It is also possible to put the number database accumulated by Sogou and other companies on Apple's servers, which is equivalent to bringing these gangsters under the jurisdiction of our big Apple.

4. Independent development. This is consistent with Apple's consistent tone. If it wants to do it, it will acquire a company in this field and then develop it on its own. So it is not ruled out that Apple will use the developer policy to defeat companies such as Sogou and take full control of the development of this function in its own hands. Apple, a perfectionist, has done a lot of similar things.

Ha, I am really curious when I write this. If the prophecy comes true, what move will Tim Cook make? Facing the collective pressure from the Chinese Internet giants, this is really an embarrassing problem.
Link to this article: http://www.leiphone.com/news/201412/Bd06VPOY2atFsfAB.html