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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)

#351

Post by williamdclt »

erikbye wrote: post #332
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

> 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, i…

Well, I'm in the EU (France/UK) and do not know a single person that doesn't use Whatsapp. I'm also not even completely sure what iMessage is, nobody ever mentioned it.

All I mean is: anecdotal evidence and social bubbles

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

#352

Post by jmull »

anoncareer0212 wrote: post #232
saagarjha wrote: post #206

Ok, so a comment on the actual content of the article rather than iMessage in general: I do the kinds of things that the author describes in the article (digging into private implementations of things) and I while I believe all of iMessage is a bit obfuscatory it's not nearly as bad as the author has described it. Really, it's one of the places where Hanlon's razor actually applies: the AppleScript bridge sucks becau…

I've been developing for Mac and iOS before the App Store was released, and have experience the author names - in broad strokes, your argument is valid, but it's not correct - errors slip in when describing the Applescript interface as just a reflection of Applescript sucking, describing his issue with Apple having _fragile_ private APIs when his conclusion is the problem is _private_ APIs, and reducing the problems…

> the problem is _private_ APIs

There's nothing wrong with private APIs.

There's a very significant difference between releasing an API publicly, and having a few internal users.

Public APIs have a high communication burden, but "fixed cost" if done right -- it shouldn't go up much as the number of users increases. They also have strict compatibility requirements that greatly slow, prevent, or complicate changes. They require more stringent security review and comprehensive tests, etc.

Private APIs can have a low, informal communication burden, but it tends to increase exponentially with the number of clients. They can be changed quickly, but clients have to be changed or and/or tested as well, so again the number of clients is limited. Tests only need to cover use cases the limited set of known clients actually need. It works best when clients are part of the same release cadence, since the price of managing branches is high.

Also, you can't separate the idea of fragile private APIs from private APIs in general. Private APIs are fragile. That they can change quickly, including breaking changes, is the whole point.

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

#353

Post by lotsofpulp »

saagarjha wrote: post #184
lotsofpulp wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But iPhones sell themselves as expensive, and that's really what lingers in people's consciousness, doesn't it?

No? Something serves as a status signal when the person who has it has a high probability of being different from someone who doesn’t. A private jet is a status symbol because you have a high probability of assuming the person who owns it has a level of wealth or influence that most don’t. A degree from Caltech has status compared to a degree from random college because there’s a high probability the Caltech degree holder is more competent.

An iMessage chat tells me nothing about the socioeconomic characteristics of the owner of the iOS device, unless I am missing something.

Edit: although, now that I have read this whole thread, I am thinking that maybe it’s not the economic status people are looking for, but are somehow deriving some assumption about their “socio” part of “socioeconomic” status, as a non iOS user is perceived to be maybe “different” or “weird” in some way for not conforming and having an Android versus an iOS device.

I personally have never thought that, since I use Signal/WhatsApp/iMessage, and if you don’t have iMessage, I just use one of the other two, and I don’t care. But evidently, some people do.

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

#354

Post by erikbye »

williamdclt wrote: post #351
erikbye wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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, i…

Well, I'm in the EU (France/UK) and do not know a single person that doesn't use Whatsapp. I'm also not even completely sure what iMessage is , nobody ever mentioned it. All I mean is: anecdotal evidence and social bubbles

> All I mean is: anecdotal evidence and social bubbles

Sure.

However, there is usage data available if one's interested.

https://www.digitalinformationworld.com/2019/02/whatsapp-fac...

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

#355

Post by psychometry »

Kronen wrote: post #301
sgt wrote: post #254

"The looming demise of macOS as a developer platform". There's some sentiment these days on HN about this but personally I think it's hogwash. No platform is perfect, but macOS to me is as close as you can get to a developer's dream workstation / laptop. Remember all those years when we dreamed of a Unix with a proper UI? Well, it exists. Windows doesn't even come close. I'd rather go Linux before Windows as a develo…

Yep, it absolutely depends on industries and countries, because 100% of developers I work with use Windows.

Well, that's a kind of Stockholm Syndrome, if you ask me. I've never personally known of a developer who's switched from MacOS to Windows without immediately going back.

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

#356

Post by nailer »

sgt wrote: post #254

"The looming demise of macOS as a developer platform". There's some sentiment these days on HN about this but personally I think it's hogwash. No platform is perfect, but macOS to me is as close as you can get to a developer's dream workstation / laptop. Remember all those years when we dreamed of a Unix with a proper UI? Well, it exists. Windows doesn't even come close. I'd rather go Linux before Windows as a develo…

> Remember all those years when we dreamed of a Unix with a proper UI? Well, it exists. Windows doesn't even come close.

You should reconsider Windows. A full Linux kernel and apt-get is way better than Homebrew will ever be.

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

#357

Post by nailer »

psychometry wrote: post #355
Kronen wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, it absolutely depends on industries and countries, because 100% of developers I work with use Windows.

Well, that's a kind of Stockholm Syndrome, if you ask me. I've never personally known of a developer who's switched from MacOS to Windows without immediately going back.

They definitely exist - just on any of the WSL2 threads on Twitter

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

#358

Post by patentatt »

ajconway wrote: post #281
joshspankit wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple set up colocated servers across the world and changed the Facetime protocol significantly to work around a single patent (a patent for direct device to device communication of all things). I can’t imagine a patent dispute actually stopping them if they were firm on making FT an open standard.

I come from a land where patents don’t really work. I often wonder, are there any examples of patents in the field of software engineering that worked like they supposed to, protecting small collectives from powerful corporations?

Many of the troll cases actually do trace back to a small time inventor, very often a failed small startup. They then sell their patents to various intermediaries which winds up in the hands of a ‘troll.’ So the original inventor does get paid, even if it’s an NPE doing the actual litigation against the big companies. The reason these trolls are so abhorrent is that they seek to maximize their economic value in the patent by trying to extend it as far as they can go, which gives them a bad reputation, but they play an important role in the system which can reward small time inventors. Big companies don’t really buy patents from small inventors any more, so the only route to monetization for an invention is through NPEs.

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

#359

Post by patentatt »

saagarjha wrote: post #177
joshspankit wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple set up colocated servers across the world and changed the Facetime protocol significantly to work around a single patent (a patent for direct device to device communication of all things). I can’t imagine a patent dispute actually stopping them if they were firm on making FT an open standard.

A lawsuit that they paid out $400 million for, even after rearchitecting how FaceTime worked to avoid the patent?

Speculation, but the settlement could be for past damages while the workaround would avoid future damages.

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

#360

Post by jki275 »

harpratap wrote: post #50
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…

> 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.

It’s a bit more than that though - try to send a picture to an Android user. It will work sometimes. Sometimes it won’t. No rhyme or reason and no way to control it. Send a picture to another iPhone - works exactly as expected every time.
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