Facebook Hit by Apple’s Crackdown on Messaging Feature • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook Hit by Apple’s Crackdown on Messaging Feature

#81

Post by skinnymuch » Wed, Aug 07, 2019, 4:21 AM UTC

familysized wrote: post #44

codeulike wrote: post #19

I've noticed something sneaky about Facebook on my phone. I refuse to install their apps but I do use Facebook a bit so I use it via the phone Browser (in my case, Chrome on Android). I've noticed that sometimes Facebook shows a fake 'youve got a message' icon to try and trick you into installing their messenger app. To re-produce this behaviour: (this works best if you dont get a lot of facebook messages. Also you n…

The exact same thing happens to me. Hate their messenger app too. The bad UI makes it so easy to send a message to the wrong person, and the app feels so slow and sluggish overall.

How can you easily send a msg to the wrong person?

Re: Facebook Hit by Apple’s Crackdown on Messaging Feature

#82

Post by skinnymuch » Wed, Aug 07, 2019, 4:25 AM UTC

jacobsenscott wrote: post #78

2arrs2ells wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Siri works just fine for setting reminders.

"Siri, remind me to buy milk tomorrow." - "Ok. Calling mom" or some other random action is more typical of siri.

Anecdotally that has rarely been the case for me or people I know for simple requests like that. At least in 2019 with devices from the past couple of years

Re: Facebook Hit by Apple’s Crackdown on Messaging Feature

#83

Post by smallbigfish » Wed, Aug 07, 2019, 4:32 AM UTC

buzzert wrote: post #64

airstrike wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just install SwiftKey. The native iOS keyboard is absolutely appalling, I don't wish it upon my worst enemy...

Why is it appalling? Can you be more specific?

That even today many European languages don't even have a basic dictionary. I'm not talking about the "guess the next word" feature. All I want is a dictionary that could suggest a correction to a misspelled word.

Use two languages at once? No way! I guess they need to invent a new chip or something.

Swipe to type? Hehe.

The keyboard in itself is fast and good but it lacks features.

Re: Facebook Hit by Apple’s Crackdown on Messaging Feature

#84

Post by rhacker » Wed, Aug 07, 2019, 4:34 AM UTC

bubble_talk wrote: post #71

Facebook engineers know exactly what is going on, and I don't think they actually care. If you want to see exactly how creepy the whole thing is going to get in the future, you just have to take a look at the transcripts from the Software Engineering Daily podcast where a group of engineers from FB were interviewed recently. The interviewer never once mentioned the word privacy in the entire interview across all the…

Probably edited, and FB kept editorial rights as part of the agreement to do those.

Re: Facebook Hit by Apple’s Crackdown on Messaging Feature

#85

Post by dijit » Wed, Aug 07, 2019, 4:34 AM UTC

jacobsenscott wrote: post #78

2arrs2ells wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Siri works just fine for setting reminders.

"Siri, remind me to buy milk tomorrow." - "Ok. Calling mom" or some other random action is more typical of siri.

This is a really bad example because I do that one myself a lot and it works perfectly well with siri.

Google assistant is better with more context “give me cycling directions to work, avoid going down Lexington”

Re: Facebook Hit by Apple’s Crackdown on Messaging Feature

#86

Post by dannyr » Wed, Aug 07, 2019, 4:39 AM UTC

codeulike wrote: post #19

I've noticed something sneaky about Facebook on my phone. I refuse to install their apps but I do use Facebook a bit so I use it via the phone Browser (in my case, Chrome on Android). I've noticed that sometimes Facebook shows a fake 'youve got a message' icon to try and trick you into installing their messenger app. To re-produce this behaviour: (this works best if you dont get a lot of facebook messages. Also you n…

I get something like this but on Instagram. I get a badge on Instagram saying that I have pending notifications on Facebook and there's an "Open Facebook" item in the Settings menu of the Instagram app.

Re: Facebook Hit by Apple’s Crackdown on Messaging Feature

#87

Post by medecau » Wed, Aug 07, 2019, 4:45 AM UTC

tjpnz wrote: post #80

bubble_talk wrote: post #71

Facebook engineers know exactly what is going on, and I don't think they actually care. If you want to see exactly how creepy the whole thing is going to get in the future, you just have to take a look at the transcripts from the Software Engineering Daily podcast where a group of engineers from FB were interviewed recently. The interviewer never once mentioned the word privacy in the entire interview across all the…

>Facebook engineers know exactly what is going on, and I don't think they actually care. I know of founders who would need to think carefully about even interviewing someone with Facebook on their resume. And I totally get these concerns given the attitude Facebook has towards the privacy of users.

> think carefully about even interviewing someone with Facebook on their resume

Good, engineers need to be accountable for their complicity.

Re: Facebook Hit by Apple’s Crackdown on Messaging Feature

#88

Post by saagarjha » Wed, Aug 07, 2019, 4:50 AM UTC

> The impact on battery life briefly made it into the headlines back in 2015 when it was discovered that the main Facebook app was using the voice-calling feature to run in the background.

I thought they were just running silent audio?

Re: Facebook Hit by Apple’s Crackdown on Messaging Feature

#89

Post by medecau » Wed, Aug 07, 2019, 4:50 AM UTC

_bxg1 wrote: post #6

It's a shame that in today's world we have to choose between platforms that are open-ended and platforms whose software respects its users. But given that choice, I support this outcome.

It's very hard to provide both as abusive software (malware) tends to take advantage of the open-endedness of platformas to abuse the users.

Re: Facebook Hit by Apple’s Crackdown on Messaging Feature

#90

Post by comex » Wed, Aug 07, 2019, 4:51 AM UTC

makomk wrote: post #46

acdha wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has nothing to do with end-to-end encryption: they’re abusing the VoIP feature to stay running in the background, which is trading battery life for better surveillance of your activities. Apple is doing it to _protect_ privacy by closing one of the ways unscrupulous app developers keep trackers running.

It has everything to do with end-to-end encryption. Prior to iOS 10, the only way to display notifications for end-to-end encrypted chat without giving Apple a plaintext copy of everything in the notification was to abuse the VoIP feature. More specifically, the "PushKit VoIP API" Facebook's spokesperson mentioned allowed services to push down an opaque blob of data and have their apps immediately wake up in the back…

> It might be possible for companies like Facebook to rewrite their code to use an iOS 10+ Notification Service app extension to decrypt the notifications instead, but that requires major code changes and has additional limitations.

Perhaps, but iOS 10 is now 3 years old; Facebook has had plenty of time to make those major code changes, as opposed to continuing to use VoIP push notifications for things other than VoIP.