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

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

#221

Post by risyachka »

klodolph wrote: post #170
jvolkman wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is confusing about Duo? It's a phone-number-based video caller. It's one of the simpler messaging apps that Google has made.

Duo: A simple app with a confusing name, released four years ago to compete with another app that Google made that did the same thing but more, and released as a matched set with a different app which also had a confusing name but is now discontinued. Forgive me if I’m getting old and can’t keep up with this shit. I make video calls through four different apps depending on who I’m talking to, and I just can’t be both…

Duo is great comparing to others, and for cross-platform group calls. I do use it when I need to call on Android devices.

But Facetime is still superior on iOS and MacOs. When it comes to calls in apple ecosystem - it is a no-brainer.

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

#222

Post by sradman »

> As someone that has never embraced the mobile craze, I sorely missed the ability of texting (or “iMessaging”) from my PC, and came to absolutely despise having to drag my phone out of my pocket and text from its cramped display, constantly fighting autoincorrect and embarrassing myself with typos and misspellings.

An alternative solution is to use a Bluetooth keyboard, possibly with multi-device support and device switching shortcuts, attached to an iPhone or iPad sitting on a stand.

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

#223

Post by forgotmypw17 »

> the pure simplicity and sheer genius of iMessage’s “SMS backwards-compatibility” approach that upgrades iPhone-to-iPhone communications to iMessage while transparently falling back to SMS or MMS where iMessage was not an option.

This "simplicity" comes with a price. If your primary SMS device is non-Apple and you sign into iMessage from an Apple device, iMessage will start eating your SMSes from anyone texting you from an Apple device.

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

#224

Post by nxc18 »

VMisTheWay wrote: post #109
est31 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iMessage motivates people to people buy iPhones instead of Android when everyone else in a social circle has it. Why should Apple give up on that? What will Apple gain from making it ubiquitous? It would in fact disappoint many people as now they can't use their phone to distance themselves from the people who don't have that blue circle. Note that I'm arguing from Apple's perspective here. From my own I believe they…

If you have ever talked to an iPhone user, you will know performance, features, and quality are the last things on their mind. The phone must be pretty and have the Apple logo on it. They might repeat the marketing about privacy and security, but if the person actually cared about either, you'd never use Apple products.

Can you name a single android phone that is superior in performance with last year’s iPhone? Can you name an android phone that will be stable and up-to-date 5 years after it was released?

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

#225

Post by crgt »

gt2 wrote: post #135
jamescostian wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm 22 and live in a mid-sized city, and I've seen people trying to get into a relationship (or even something more casual, but not a platonic friendship) get rejected because of the dreaded "green bubbles" - and really, I'm not exaggerating. And not from rich people who have the latest iPhone either. In addition, I have been in friend groups that would exclude Android users because if you have even 1 Android user in…

One of the most disappointing anecdotes I've read recently.

Wow. There’s been a lot going on lately?

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

#226

Post by jan_g »

pottertheotter wrote: post #156
aphroz wrote: post #141

It is really interesting to see the difference between countries, I travel between Asia and Europe and I knew that iMessage existed, but I thought people dropped it like SMS, years ago. Interesting to see that in a globalized world some differences still persist. I have asked around me to Iphone owners if they used iMessage and they almost never use it. It must be something specific to the US. Please do not downvote…

So people don't use SMS outside the US? I knew WhatsApp was big in other countries, but didn't realize no one even uses SMS not iMessage. What do people use in Europe?

I use SMSes for communication with people I don't know. For example, when buying/selling used stuff. For known people it's mostly FB messenger and WhatsApp, but sometimes also Skype and Viber. And then Slack for job related communication.

Different people use different channels, so I use different apps to be able to talk to anyone I need to.

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

#227

Post by bboygravity »

rhlsthrm wrote: post #192
pottertheotter wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So people don't use SMS outside the US? I knew WhatsApp was big in other countries, but didn't realize no one even uses SMS not iMessage. What do people use in Europe?

In the Netherlands people use WhatsApp and iMessage, in my about one year living here.

In The Netherlands (and most of Europe probably) for normies Whatsapp is definitely number 1, although most people will simultaneously use Facebook/messenger. Within businesses Microsoft Teams is starting to get popular, whereas Zoom seems to be more of US thing.

Wealthier "normie Apple families" use IMessage, but they'll always have a Whatsapp account on the side to talk to "the others".

Dutch nerds/early adopters will sometimes use Signal, but it's definitely not a thing most people know about. Telegram is even rarer in my experience.

French government uses Matrix/Riot.im

There are exceptions to the above though. I don't use Whatsapp or IMessage at all and never used it for more than a few days total in my entire life. My main messaging app is Signal and I'm totally fine. Got about 50 contacts on there and that's more then enough :D

Nightmare scenario for me: Google successfully integrates whatever there newest messaging brand is into the Android messages SMS client (now rebranded to Google messages) and all Android users switch to that because it's default. Result: Google messages becomes IMessage for Android, including the vendor lock-in with added tracking as a bonus. I feel this is happening.

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

#228

Post by Nextgrid »

VMisTheWay wrote: post #109
est31 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iMessage motivates people to people buy iPhones instead of Android when everyone else in a social circle has it. Why should Apple give up on that? What will Apple gain from making it ubiquitous? It would in fact disappoint many people as now they can't use their phone to distance themselves from the people who don't have that blue circle. Note that I'm arguing from Apple's perspective here. From my own I believe they…

If you have ever talked to an iPhone user, you will know performance, features, and quality are the last things on their mind. The phone must be pretty and have the Apple logo on it. They might repeat the marketing about privacy and security, but if the person actually cared about either, you'd never use Apple products.

Maybe the marketing and “coolness” is what initially attracts them but once they try it they stay because of the user experience.

I had a non-technical friend with an Android phone (full of malware btw). She didn’t care about Apple, never used any of their products nor need it for the “social status” or anything (her friends are all on WhatsApp so no issues with iMessage). I gave her an old iPhone 7 to try out, a couple weeks later she would never consider going back to Android ever.

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

#229

Post by mjmasn »

harpratap wrote: post #157
the_snooze wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social dynamics are subtle. For example, group SMS doesn’t support contact names. If you add someone to a group SMS, the other people only see a phone number unless they go out of their way to add the new guy to their contact list. Likewise, the new person has to add everyone else to see names. Decades of research in behavioral economics show just how powerful defaults are, so most people probably won’t bother to add…

Your argument fails when you consider Whatsapp - the biggest messaging platform, where you need to add people's number in your contact to be able to see their names. I agree with power of defaults though. Only reason iMessage took off, and so did other Apple services.

You definitely don't... Unknown contacts show as e.g. "+1234567890 ~Bob" (their WhatsApp display name). When you save them to your contacts it switches to the name you added instead.

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

#230

Post by bobthepanda »

Larrikin wrote: post #219
saagarjha wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As has been mentioned many times in the other comments, those force you to download something, perhaps make an account, make sure everyone has it…whereas 90% of the people might already have an iPhone, which might be better than the number for anything else.

I'd argue that that is irrelevant. What's the point in having anything other than a flip phone if you refuse to download apps. It's not a barrier to entry in every other case and it's never been a barrier to entry with my friends.

Why would you download an app for the basic functionality of a phone? Texting is an integral part of phones and I haven't met a person in the US without unlimited texting in years.

I know a lot of friends who use WeChat to avoid things like international texting rates, but Americans talking to Americans generally do not need this.

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