iMessage for Windows: A labor of love that will never see light of day (2018) • Hacker News Board

Re: iMessage for Windows: A labor of love that will never see light of day (2018)

#121

Post by lhjn » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 4:16 AM UTC

spideymans wrote: post #38

ceocoder wrote: post #16

I came across this article[1] and this thread quoted[0] in article some time ago. I don't think of iMessage as a walled garden, it is almost like a low fence you can see across with a sign that "you must be this cool to participate". iMessage is literally the only reason I have not tried an android phone because I don't want to deal with the fallout of all of my chat threads going back to 2011(?) getting disrupted. I…

Vendor lock is real, but would that not be rendered moot of other players could offer a superior user experience? Especially when you consider that Facebook, Google and others have a far larger base of potential users than iMessage. As far as I understand, the only iMessage feature that competitors couldn't emulate due to first-party entitlements is the SMS fallback functionality, which while nice, is definitely a fe…

Nobody seems to mention Signal, which does offer sms fallback, at least on Android (don't really know on iOS).

Re: iMessage for Windows: A labor of love that will never see light of day (2018)

#122

Post by hnick » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 4:17 AM UTC

harpratap wrote: post #87

philistine wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know, for a tech site, people sure do love to forget that iMessage is preferred because it brings features instead of mere social status.

Whatsapp brings the same features, if not more. iMessage craze is a purely American phenomenon, the rest of the world has moved on to other IMs

My mid-30s colleague went back to Tinder in recent years and he mentioned he got questioned by his target market about not having a blue bubble. They were all Asian (but mostly Chinese) women in their late 20s who moved to Australia.

Re: iMessage for Windows: A labor of love that will never see light of day (2018)

#123

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 4:17 AM UTC

spideymans wrote: post #38

ceocoder wrote: post #16

I came across this article[1] and this thread quoted[0] in article some time ago. I don't think of iMessage as a walled garden, it is almost like a low fence you can see across with a sign that "you must be this cool to participate". iMessage is literally the only reason I have not tried an android phone because I don't want to deal with the fallout of all of my chat threads going back to 2011(?) getting disrupted. I…

Vendor lock is real, but would that not be rendered moot of other players could offer a superior user experience? Especially when you consider that Facebook, Google and others have a far larger base of potential users than iMessage. As far as I understand, the only iMessage feature that competitors couldn't emulate due to first-party entitlements is the SMS fallback functionality, which while nice, is definitely a fe…

[deleted]

Re: iMessage for Windows: A labor of love that will never see light of day (2018)

#124

Post by judge2020 » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 4:20 AM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #108

aantix wrote: post #48

SendBlue will be launching soon. They support sending iMessages at scale, similar to Twilio's SMS service. Not sure how they're doing it. https://sendblue.co/

Guessing that they are using Apple Business Chat. We've looked at using it, too.

Apple Business Chat doesn't seem to be Blue though, at least in my experience with Apple Card Support. Messages seem to be Black, unless that's exclusive to talking with Apple (maybe businesses can have configurable color schemes).

Re: iMessage for Windows: A labor of love that will never see light of day (2018)

#125

Post by battery_cowboy » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 4:20 AM UTC

AnonC wrote: post #113

harpratap wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatsapp brings the same features, if not more. iMessage craze is a purely American phenomenon, the rest of the world has moved on to other IMs

No, WhatsApp does not bring the same features. WhatsApp is very different. You can react to messages in iMessage, which is just one among other features WhatsApp doesn’t have.

You're saying some people exclude others from their friends group because of fucking smiley faces on a message? God that would be stupid if true.

Re: iMessage for Windows: A labor of love that will never see light of day (2018)

#126

Post by battery_cowboy » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 4:21 AM UTC

elliekelly wrote: post #100

kelnos wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> iMessage motivates people to people buy iPhones instead of Android Why, though? Does your average iPhone user actually care if the bubbles they see in their chats are blue or green? If so, why? Note that I'm talking about average users. Sure, there are likely a bunch of privacy-conscious users who believe in Apple's commitment to security and privacy and prefer iMessage on those grounds. But otherwise, why? > It wo…

They absolutely should care. I’m not adding you to a group text if you have an android. Life is too short to read green text bubbles.

You're a moron, I don't even care about any temp ban for saying that, too. Anyone who thinks like you do is a moron.

Re: iMessage for Windows: A labor of love that will never see light of day (2018)

#127

Post by the_snooze » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 4:26 AM UTC

harpratap wrote: post #117

AnonC wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, WhatsApp does not bring the same features. WhatsApp is very different. You can react to messages in iMessage, which is just one among other features WhatsApp doesn’t have.

Yeah I mean there will little tiny things different on each app, but it's not a big deal breaker for many. Whatsapp is the biggest IM on the planet for a reason. People could easily ditch iMessage in favour of Whatsapp if they wanted to, but for some reason Americans don't do that.

The idea of moving to a different chat platform won’t even come up if your current system has the features you need and everyone you want to reach is on it. What would nudge a group to collectively move to WhatsApp if iMessage is the default and works well for them?

Re: iMessage for Windows: A labor of love that will never see light of day (2018)

#128

Post by paxys » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 4:26 AM UTC

judge2020 wrote: post #118

paxys wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does it matter if the spam message is blue or green when it's going to the same app? I get the most amount of SMS spam on iMessage BY FAR. Have never seen one on WhatsApp, Signal or Telegram.

> SMS spam That's just SMS though - unless you mean blue bubbles being spam. I haven't received any of those, but if you do there's always a "report spam" link at the top of the conversation for senders you've never seen before.

That was my point with "when it's going to the same app". Messages from SMS and iMessage both show up in the same "Messages" app, and are indistinguishable from each other. So it doesn't matter if you're getting spam only from SMS when the app is still lighting up all the time.

Re: iMessage for Windows: A labor of love that will never see light of day (2018)

#129

Post by harpratap » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 4:28 AM UTC

klodolph wrote: post #102

harpratap wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatsapp brings the same features, if not more. iMessage craze is a purely American phenomenon, the rest of the world has moved on to other IMs

Every part of the world has its own messaging apps. Depending on where you live, it might be WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, WeChat, LINE, or I’m sure others. In Europe I know for a fact that the popular app varies from country to country. So you could just as easily dismiss LINE as a “purely Japanese phenomenon” but the fact is each app is popular in a certain part of the world. Because network effects are more import…

Sure it does, but cross platform IMs are not so socially discriminating. You can easily download LINE and move on with your life in Japan. But getting iMessage is an economic barrier for many, for which they end up being socially ostraostracized

Re: iMessage for Windows: A labor of love that will never see light of day (2018)

#130

Post by schoolornot » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 4:28 AM UTC

013a wrote: post #101

harpratap wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why, though? Does your average iPhone user actually care if the bubbles they see in their chats are blue or green? If so, why? They definitely do. Not sure what your age or demographic is, but young folks do care a lot about higher social status which is tied to blue bubble because of iPhone prices. It has nothing to do with privacy though.

People definitely do. The worst part is, an excellent upgrade exists. The RCS experience between Android users is pretty much as good as iMessage. Apple could support this; not to replace iMessage, but to upgrade SMS conversations. My tech-illiterate mom's Galaxy S negative 12 has it. Of my contacts, every single Android user I text (maybe a dozen) has RCS. Its standard. When I put my iPhone XS and my S20 Plus side-b…

RCS: no e2e, multi-device support, or any 3rd party application APIs on Android. In other words, gimped by Google.

Google's messaging department has been chasing it's tail for 10 years. Unless they clone iMessage from the inside out, RCS has no hope. Personally, I want to see RCS fail. It's a lousy spec with few privacy protections built-in. I had it enabled on my phone for a while and there was no indication as to whether my messages were passing through my carrier's servers or Google's RCS endpoint.