Apple Caught Sherlocking (Again)

Photo by Clément Falize on Unsplash

Apple are some company. They are a complete contradiction.

The largest company in the world (by revenue) is a firm shorn of innovation and ideas to keep its revenue healthy.

So rather than producing “new” products that are really facsimilies of their existing product lineup, Apple have gone a stop further. Apple are borrowing the core functionality of popular third-party apps and implementing it in their own version. 

The latest victim is Partiful, a popular event-planning app, and the offender is Apple’s new “Invites” app. It’s wrong, but this is a constant theme of copying in software development which has gone from small-scale “borrowing” to wholesale corporate theft.

The Contradiction

The Partiful team wasted no time calling Apple out, highlighting a little nugget from Apple’s own App Store guidelines that discourages copycat behavior. 

It’s almost poetic.

“Come up with your own ideas. We know you have them, so make yours come to life. Don’t simply copy the latest popular app on the App Store, or make some minor changes to another app’s name or UI and pass it off as your own.” Apple’s App Store Guidelines, Rule 4.1

That rule must have gotten lost in Tim Cook’s spam folder, and Craig Federighi must have slept through that meeting.

How Apple Plays the Game

For those unfamiliar, when Apple “borrows” the core functionality of a third-party app and integrates it into its ecosystem, it’s called “Sherlocking”. The term dates back to Apple’s old “Sherlock” search tool, which suddenly gained all the best features of a third-party app called Watson, effectively making it obsolete.

Since then, we’ve seen this play out time and time again. 

Some classic examples:

Google Maps

Sherlocked. Apple Maps was born.

Dropbox

Sherlocked. Hello, iCloud Drive.

F.lux

Sherlocked. Now we have Night Shift.

Tile

Sherlocked. AirTags exist now.

BeReal

Well, Instagram, Snapchat, and Apple’s iOS camera have that covered now.

Now

Partiful gets Sherlocked.

How Similar Are They?

On the surface, Apple’s “Invites” and Partiful serve the same purpose. 

They help users plan events with minimal hassle. Apple’s version lets you send invites to Apple and non-Apple users alike (but only if they provide an email address), while Partiful offers a more seamless cross-platform experience.

The biggest kicker? Apple ties “Invites” to an iCloud+ subscription, making it a paid feature. Partiful, meanwhile, remains free. Because of course, Apple wouldn’t just copy an app, that wouldn’t fit their plan at all.

No Apple would copy an app and stick it behind a paywall.

Competing Against the Referee

Developers who create something innovative and succeed on the App Store always run the risk of Apple deciding their app is too good to be left alone. And when that happens, Apple isn’t simply a competitor. Apple is the referee, the rule maker, and the app reviewer.

If Partiful were to launch today, would it even make it past Apple’s review process? Would it be rejected for “duplicating existing iOS functionality”? Probably.

This is a frustrating reminder that innovation from apple is something from the past. As for app developers, they need to enjoy their success until Apple decides to take their own bite of the … apple.

Is Apple in the Wrong?

Event planning apps have existed long before Partiful. Evite, Punchbowl, and a dozen others have been around for years. So, is Apple copying Partiful specifically, or just jumping into a category that was always going to be a target? Can you even defend simple features that are part of an app (or set of apps) that everyone can see?

Legally, to the letter of the law, Apple is probably in the clear. 

Ethically there is a full debate to be had.

There’s a bigger problem here too. As developers are rewarded for their innovation in the app space it’s galling to have the platform owner take those ideas and monetize them. Apple loves great ideas, especially when they can claim them as their own.

Innovate at Your Own Risk

If you’re a developer building on Apple’s platform, here’s the real takeaway: If your app does something cool, Apple might “borrow” it. And when they do, there’s not much you can do about it.

Conclusion

Partiful might make some noise now, but in a few years, will anyone remember this moment? Probably not. Users will just accept Apple’s Invites app as if it always existed.

The real question is: Who’s next?