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Apple Change Causes Scramble Among Private Messaging App Makers

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Re: Apple Change Causes Scramble Among Private Messaging App Makers

#101

Post by floatingatoll »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #95
floatingatoll wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, I’m going to translate this because it will sound different in another phrasing. This will sound judgmental, but I want to present the contrasting view that Apple likely holds here, rather than a sympathetic ear (as many others have provided that service already). No insult or harm is meant, and I have made no effort to look up what your app does, so this isn’t personal at all. Here goes. You’re willfully circumv…

TLDR: you know nothing. Longer explanation: You do not know how XMPP works. XMPP is a federated protocol that requires a persistent connection between a client and a server. XMPP consist of multiple independent servers. Client developers and server owners are usually different parties. To send a push notification to JabberChat app some XMPP server (say, xmpp.org ) must post a notification update to appserver hosted b…

I am sad to hear that didReceive(_:withContentHandler:) is not sufficient for you to implement end-to-end encryption of the content of user-visible push notifications using an encryption key exchanged prior to APN delivery. I hope someday Apple extends their support for preprocessing received display notifications to users to ensure that the intermediary only knows the receiver’s destination address at most.

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/usernotifications/...

Re: Apple Change Causes Scramble Among Private Messaging App Makers

#102

Post by azinman2 »

crummy wrote: post #65
EGreg wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a developer of a messaging app downloaded so far by 5 million users around the world. I was very concerned about this news and looked into it. Apple is simply doing away with silent push notifications through the VoIP API. Apps can still register an extension that will process arbitrary push notifications that result in a visible notification to the user. If the application needs to silently send something to th…

Could Apple have slowed down VoIP notifications before, to negatively affect FB messages vs iMessage?

While I don’t work on this at Apple, I’ve never once heard of anything being designed to punish a competitor like that.

Re: Apple Change Causes Scramble Among Private Messaging App Makers

#103

Post by laythea »

I'm not an expert here, but if the problem is battery life (?), then surely the apps that abuse this will be outed by the users who will, by definition, see the battery getting drained faster.

Apple, how about a battery-energy per app usage display so the users can detect apps that call home/abuse battery usage, and then they can remove them? Is this something that already exists? I would suspect not, as then apple's own apps may get outed! The user could set an energy usage threshold and be told/warned that an app is misbehaving.

Re: Apple Change Causes Scramble Among Private Messaging App Makers

#104

Post by colejohnson66 »

laythea wrote: post #103

I'm not an expert here, but if the problem is battery life (?), then surely the apps that abuse this will be outed by the users who will, by definition, see the battery getting drained faster. Apple, how about a battery-energy per app usage display so the users can detect apps that call home/abuse battery usage, and then they can remove them? Is this something that already exists? I would suspect not, as then apple's…

I don’t understand the cynicism; That feature already exists. It’s under Settings > Battery. And users really don’t care. Facebook uses a ton of battery and people keep using their app.

Re: Apple Change Causes Scramble Among Private Messaging App Makers

#105

Post by laythea »

colejohnson66 wrote: post #104
laythea wrote: post #103

I'm not an expert here, but if the problem is battery life (?), then surely the apps that abuse this will be outed by the users who will, by definition, see the battery getting drained faster. Apple, how about a battery-energy per app usage display so the users can detect apps that call home/abuse battery usage, and then they can remove them? Is this something that already exists? I would suspect not, as then apple's…

I don’t understand the cynicism; That feature already exists. It’s under Settings > Battery. And users really don’t care. Facebook uses a ton of battery and people keep using their app.

The article says "Apps that exploited PushKit could drain iPhone batteries, Apple said." and "The basis for doing this is battery savings"

Re: Apple Change Causes Scramble Among Private Messaging App Makers

#106

Post by pseudalopex »

saurik wrote: post #93
saurik wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly correct: because average users are dumb, it is our duty as software developers to make decisions for them, and to use whatever practical encryption or legal copyright means available to us to ensure that users do not have the ability--by any means that could plausibly be under the control of the user--to access and modify (or even see!) the behavior of the software running on the hardware they think t…

So, I really wonder if the reason I am getting so many downvotes (I am only at 0 right now, but I have been as high as 3, so this comment has been pretty controversial so far) is because people are somehow failing to get my over-the-top / so-exaggerated-it-hurts sarcasm (which is a bit sad), or if people so truly agree with the premise that upstream developers are smart and users are dumb that they are angry at my st…

Maybe they just think your sarcasm detracts from the conversation.

Re: Apple Change Causes Scramble Among Private Messaging App Makers

#107

Post by dang »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #97
p2t2p wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s is what I expect. If I kill your app for whatever reason I expect it to remain killed, not to override my decision. If your protocol is so bad it can’t handle intermittent connection, well to hell with this protocol.

Oh. You know nothing too. A protocol can handle the intermittent connection. A user can't handle instant message not delivered instantly, and it has nothing to do with a protocol, only with Apple's restriction. Oh, there ARE ways to deliver a meaningful message, but they require transmitting full unencrypted message text over APNS! (this also results in app developers being capable to snoop on this traffic too - whil…

Yikes! Attacking another user like this will get you banned on HN. Can you please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here?

Re: Apple Change Causes Scramble Among Private Messaging App Makers

#108

Post by oneplane »

freeone3000 wrote: post #64
oneplane wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that would be a problem if having 'is typing...' and 'was read' notifications had to be pushed realtime to an app that was in the background. What is the point of those notifications arriving in the app when the user isn't using it.

The sender of these notifications doesn't know that the user has closed the app. What this means is that the message send from the sender through the server now has to include whether this is a message or a non-message, which has to be a flag in plaintext.

But why use background notifications for this type of data in the first place?

Re: Apple Change Causes Scramble Among Private Messaging App Makers

#109

Post by oneplane »

saagarjha wrote: post #63
oneplane wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why is it a problem that the app must be running to decrypt the silent notification? The user doesn't know about it and won't know about it until the app is opened, but then the app is already open and can process the notifications. As a user I really would not care if the 'read receipt' or 'is typing' notification is unavailable to an app while I'm not using it anyway. And when I'm using it, I don't see a proble…

The complaint is that that the server now needs to know the difference between the types of messages passing through it.

Well yes, but that's only the case if the app insists on communicating this type of data using the background push api.

Re: Apple Change Causes Scramble Among Private Messaging App Makers

#110

Post by pdimitar »

scarface74 wrote: post #100
pdimitar wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagreed. I don't want apps working in the background. If I want to see what changed in an app, I'll open it and I expect it to request the changes then and only then. If I have no network then I'll see no changes. Easy. Your perspective is very foreign to me and definitely seems hostile to the battery life of my device.

Background app refresh on iOS is one of the few features that Apple automatically allows but you can disable on an app by app basis.

And I did. That's not related to my parent commenter's point, I think.
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