Success Quote by Rob Glaser

Glaser’s line is corporate diplomacy with teeth: a public critique framed as helpful concern, delivered just loudly enough to be heard by customers, developers, and Apple itself. The phrasing matters. “We tell anybody who asks” signals restraint and inevitability at once. He’s not “attacking” Apple; he’s merely answering questions. But he’s also advertising that people are asking, that compatibility is already a live issue in the market. It’s a neat way to turn press interest into leverage.

The real payload sits in “big mistake.” That’s not a technical disagreement; it’s a prediction about future regret. Glaser positions his company as the pragmatic adult in the room: open, interoperable, on the side of user freedom. Apple, by contrast, becomes the aesthetic tyrant, choosing control over convenience. For a business leader in the software/platform wars era, “compatible” is shorthand for everything: standards, market reach, developer mindshare, and the ability to become the default layer everyone else has to live with.

Contextually, this belongs to the long history of Silicon Valley battles where “openness” is both principle and strategy. Glaser isn’t pleading for the common good; he’s trying to make Apple’s closed stance look anti-consumer and ultimately self-defeating, while nudging partners and customers to bet on his ecosystem. The subtext: if Apple won’t play, they’ll be blamed when users hit friction - and friction is where loyalties break.