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)

#331

Post by scarface74 » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 11:22 AM UTC

kelnos wrote: post #40

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…

> 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…

It’s not about Blue/Green bubbles. Everything messes up once you have one person in a group that isn’t on iMessage - including reactions to messages. Instead of getting an icon on top of message you get “John Doe liked ‘We will be there soon’”.

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

#332

Post by erikbye » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 11:22 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

> Message craze is a purely American phenomenon

This is mistaken. I'm in the EU and do not know a single person using SMS, nor Whatsapp, they use iMessage, however, bigtime.

Whatsapp used to be a thing, but that has been over for some time. Now, most are using Messenger, Snap, and Telegram.

And iMessage is not a craze or a phenomenon, it is a simple convenience; it's on your phone already. For most people using it, it is not even a deliberate choice. The younger generation grew up with it, they do not even really know the difference between SMS and iMessage, except that if the bubble is green, the other user does not have an iPhone.

The older generation remembers SMS, so they still tend to call it SMS, even though they are using iMessage.

Android users are in the minority around here, well, at least between family, friends, and at work.

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

#333

Post by scarface74 » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 11:24 AM UTC

Larrikin wrote: post #198

saagarjha wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The parent comment mentioned some of the reasons why it goes beyond the normal "lol you're too poor to buy an iPhone". SMS chats are majorly crippled compared to iMessage ones, and this is technical functionality, not just bubble color. You can't really change the people in an SMS chat, iMessage features don't work (in some instances hilariously: you'll get a text like "so-and-so liked this message" instead of a reac…

But people can just use LINE, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Instagram, messenger, etc and get all the features and more which in my experience as an android user is what actually happens than this weird shallow world of green and blue bubbles I've heard about on the internet. Different friend groups may prefer different platforms, but it's pretty rare where someone new to the group refuses what the group is already using, whic…

Blame Google for never getting messaging right and having multiple chat apps at the sane time.

I’m buying my parents an iPad just because every other type video chat is more convoluted than just clicking on FaceTime from contacts.

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

#334

Post by jedieaston » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 11:27 AM UTC

kelnos wrote: post #40

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…

> 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…

MMS and SMS are extremely unreliable, especially if you were out of the coverage area when a message was sent (half the time I only receive some of a conversation and have to try to interpret what happened). RCS is supposed to fix this, but no carrier seems intent on sunsetting SMS to force Apple’s hand. At least with iMessage, I’ll eventually get the message (they’ll hold it server side, encrypted, until I get back online).

I still use SMS a lot, because it’s more important to me that I can talk and send pictures to people than worrying about them being on a certain platform or app (Discord’s notifications aren’t great on mobile if you haven’t opened the app for a while). But it’s super annoying, and if Apple made iMessage an open standard (they probably won’t, since people buy iPhones for it), I think many people on Android would move to it.

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

#335

Post by scarface74 » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 11:31 AM UTC

0xCMP wrote: post #172

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…

There are two reasons which together make it all make sense: tldr; It's pre-installed and way better than SMS 1. iMessage is leagues more reliable and faster than SMS/MMS on even horrible connections allowing a real-time cadence to conversation with indications if messages were actually received and possibly if they've already been seen. Its features are also not crippled so simple things like sending photos between…

iMessage and FaceTime audio. There are occasions where T-mobile’s voice network won’t let a call through, but I can use the data network to do FaceTime audio.

I’ve had to use FB Messenger at times to contact my one or two relatives who just refuse to by an iPhone.

I wanted to do a group video chat with relatives and we all had to use Facebook Messenger because one person didn’t have an iPhone. We just left the person out a few times because we didn’t want to bother with lower quality messenging.

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

#336

Post by scarface74 » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 11:33 AM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #166

collegeburner wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HS senior here. Maybe a little, but it's mostly status/class. It's the twenty-first century equivalent of wearing expensive clothes to school.

I don't see how it conveys status when used iPhones are cheap, and brand new ones start at $400 now. My lowest paid hourly employees all have iPhones, even the ones who don't speak English.

And in the US, all of the major carriers have 0% interest payment plans. The cost difference is basically nothing over 2 years.

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

#337

Post by sys_64738 » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 11:33 AM UTC

dhosek wrote: post #23

sys_64738 wrote: post #7

Steve said iMessage would be an open standard way back in the 2000s. Still waiting.

IIRC, it was Facetime he said that about. I believe it ended up there were legal obstacles (plus he allegedly made the statement off the cuff), but I could be wrong.

You probably are. He was on stage during a presentation so no 'off the cuff’ pretense occurred.

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

#338

Post by scarface74 » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 11:36 AM UTC

the_snooze wrote: post #131

battery_cowboy wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

Exactly this about excluding names. I was sent a group message and didn’t reply because I didn’t recognize the number. I started another chat, deleted the number and then responded.

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

#339

Post by scarface74 » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 11:41 AM UTC

harpratap wrote: post #46

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…

Because tying your company to one product is an economic disaster. It's very clear that drop in iPhone sales causes a very direct impact on Apple and the reason why they started moving towards SaaS model. But their SaaS isn't big enough yet. If today China retaliates with ban on Apple, the company is pretty much dead because no other country is capable of manufacturing at the scale Apple needs it to.

According to their last earnings - 50% of their revenue was outside of the iPhone.

You also have to remember even the Mac by itself brought in higher revenue than all but the top 100 companies in the US and it’s only 10% of Apple’s revenue. The watch is a bigger revenue generator than the iPod ever was.

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

#340

Post by harpratap » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 11:46 AM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #333

Larrikin wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But people can just use LINE, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Instagram, messenger, etc and get all the features and more which in my experience as an android user is what actually happens than this weird shallow world of green and blue bubbles I've heard about on the internet. Different friend groups may prefer different platforms, but it's pretty rare where someone new to the group refuses what the group is already using, whic…

Blame Google for never getting messaging right and having multiple chat apps at the sane time. I’m buying my parents an iPad just because every other type video chat is more convoluted than just clicking on FaceTime from contacts.

Never understood this argument. My parents from a 3rd world country who barely understand English are able to use 3rd party apps like Whatsapp, Duo, Skype just fine. And Duo works directly from your contacts app too (at least in Pixel and Samsung phones), in fact you can see options like "Video call xxx Message XXX with a logo of the apps that support it right in the contacts apps.