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Eddy Cue wanted to bring iMessage to Android in 2013

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Re: Eddy Cue wanted to bring iMessage to Android in 2013

#61

Post by jmt_ »

decafninja wrote: post #46
peruvian wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely depends on where you live AND also your social bubble. That's why these threads are often repetitive in nature. Everyone's different. Here in NYC, I can count the number of Android users I've met in one hand... but I know that tons of people have Android phones. Most chatting happens on iMessage and maybe Instagram chat (people seem to exchange IG usernames rather than phone numbers nowadays).

I'm actually in NYC too. Definitely see tons of Androids here. I've never seen or heard of people exchanging IG information - is that really a thing? Maybe I'm getting old.

Mainly a Gen Z thing I believe (speaking as a member of said generation). Many people my age see their phone numbers as being more private information that should be given to those you trust, so may not want to give out to someone you just met at a bar for example. Instagram can be used as a sort of barrier. Also, each party gets more insight into the others lives by checking out their Instagram account which is usually interesting information if you're establishing some sort of relationship with another

Re: Eddy Cue wanted to bring iMessage to Android in 2013

#62

Post by kop316 »

sodality2 wrote: post #23
ForHackernews wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (protip: its affecting your life and relationships) Haha, what? Anyway, joke's on them, I use Signal.

Group MMS is terrible (group chats in general) and you can't really expect a group of people to all download and install a new app because one person has it. In all likelihood, you will simply be excluded or if it's important, you will be forced to use something like facebook messenger, google hangouts, instagram, etc which is worse than SMS.

I'm curious, why do you say it is terrible?

Re: Eddy Cue wanted to bring iMessage to Android in 2013

#63

Post by sodality2 »

kop316 wrote: post #62
sodality2 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Group MMS is terrible (group chats in general) and you can't really expect a group of people to all download and install a new app because one person has it. In all likelihood, you will simply be excluded or if it's important, you will be forced to use something like facebook messenger, google hangouts, instagram, etc which is worse than SMS.

I'm curious, why do you say it is terrible?

It becomes terribly low-res. The MMS media limit means each video, if longer than a few seconds, has its bitrate crippled to fit in the limit. Photos too have their resolution lowered, less so than videos but if you send a bunch at once it gets worse.

Re: Eddy Cue wanted to bring iMessage to Android in 2013

#64

Post by lemonade5117 »

vmception wrote: post #3
exabrial wrote: post #2

They would have captured 100% of the messaging market. Reminds me of '90s *Nix companies with sales bros wanting to sling around overpriced hardware, preventing expansion of the company in other fronts.

Agreed. They could probably monetize that better than hardware sales too, most likely via Apple Wallet payments and data. And the whole blue/green bubble pretentiousness would have never happened, which is funny because so many Android users still have no idea that's even happening to them or just assume they don't need to care about anybody that cares about that. (protip: its affecting your life and relationships)

Doesn't the green bubble mean that it's sent over SMS? I'm pretty sure the reason it exists isn't because of some "pretentiousness"

Re: Eddy Cue wanted to bring iMessage to Android in 2013

#65

Post by Sodman »

ibero wrote: post #38
slfnflctd wrote: post #10

Like many others, I switched from iOS to Android during a time when it (edit: this transition process) was most fraught with very unexpected failure modes. I remember being absolutely incredulous that anyone thought this experience reflected positively on Apple in any way-- it seemed incompetent at best, and had a strong stink of maliciousness to boot. I've always seen this as major bungle on their part, and it's one…

i honestly don’t remember what period of time you are referring to. could you elaborate on examples from the period of time iOS was “fraught with very unexpected failure modes?” edit: i just saw your edit to specify iMessage the app.

For folks switching to iOS for the first time from Android the experience can be incredibly frustrating, if you don't know that you're supposed to do things "The Right™" way.

Examples from personal anecdotes include:

- My first Macbook pro several years ago was the cheapest one at the time, and basically got stuck in a boot loop when I opted out of creating an apple ID on setup. Needed to boot into safe mode and factory reset it to start again.

- Setting up an iPad (in the last year) for a first time iOS user, required two 2FA challenges and needed the apple ID password ended no fewer than 7 times in the first 5 minutes of operation. The App Store didn't work for a few minutes for reasons unknown, and then with no changes, started working. (I'm guessing the creation of a new apple ID takes a few minutes to propagate to the app store or something?)

I'm sure everything goes smoothly when you just log in with an apple account and import all of your existing settings from iCloud etc, but if you're jumping in for the first time and press the wrong buttons it's rough!

Re: Eddy Cue wanted to bring iMessage to Android in 2013

#66

Post by kop316 »

afavour wrote: post #13
musingsole wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I quite literally don't need to care about the blue bubble nonsense. It's a great flag for a person I can happily ignore.

I have a family, small children, relatives. Grandparents loves to see videos of their grandchildren. Sharing a video via group MMS is fraught with problems, it often doesn't work, or the resolution is garbage. iMessage works every time. I'm not dismissing your experience but the green vs blue bubbles do make a big difference for many of us.

> Sharing a video via group MMS is fraught with problems, it often doesn't work, or the resolution is garbage.

FYI, this is carrier related. Many carriers have a hard limit on how big attachments are, and will silently reject them if you go over that limit.

What the limit is varies based on the carrier, but it seems that a "safe" limit is ~1.1 MB (This is the hard limit that Android enforces for the largest MMS attachment it allows). T-Mobile seems to allow higher (I think I got up to 10 MB?), but I do not know what would happen if you sent an MMS to another carrier that is that big (they probably silenty drop it).

So you have two options: either reduce how big it is (which Android Messaging silently does), or flat our reject it. So the video is problem is silently reencoded to accomedate the 1.1 MB limit.

Why doesn't this happen on iMessage? Probably because you can set your MMSC (the Server that sends/recieves MMS) to Apple's MMSC, so you can standardise how big it is.

Re: Eddy Cue wanted to bring iMessage to Android in 2013

#67

Post by kop316 »

sodality2 wrote: post #63
kop316 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious, why do you say it is terrible?

It becomes terribly low-res. The MMS media limit means each video, if longer than a few seconds, has its bitrate crippled to fit in the limit. Photos too have their resolution lowered, less so than videos but if you send a bunch at once it gets worse.

I posted a longer explanation here of why that's the case if you're curious why:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26970035

TL;DR: This is carrier related.

Re: Eddy Cue wanted to bring iMessage to Android in 2013

#68

Post by Nextgrid »

kop316 wrote: post #66
afavour wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a family, small children, relatives. Grandparents loves to see videos of their grandchildren. Sharing a video via group MMS is fraught with problems, it often doesn't work, or the resolution is garbage. iMessage works every time. I'm not dismissing your experience but the green vs blue bubbles do make a big difference for many of us.

> Sharing a video via group MMS is fraught with problems, it often doesn't work, or the resolution is garbage. FYI, this is carrier related. Many carriers have a hard limit on how big attachments are, and will silently reject them if you go over that limit. What the limit is varies based on the carrier, but it seems that a "safe" limit is ~1.1 MB (This is the hard limit that Android enforces for the largest MMS attac…

> Why doesn't this happen on iMessage?

Because iMessage is not MMS - it uses a custom protocol and works completely independently from the carriers.

Re: Eddy Cue wanted to bring iMessage to Android in 2013

#69

Post by aryonoco »

vmception wrote: post #3
exabrial wrote: post #2

They would have captured 100% of the messaging market. Reminds me of '90s *Nix companies with sales bros wanting to sling around overpriced hardware, preventing expansion of the company in other fronts.

Agreed. They could probably monetize that better than hardware sales too, most likely via Apple Wallet payments and data. And the whole blue/green bubble pretentiousness would have never happened, which is funny because so many Android users still have no idea that's even happening to them or just assume they don't need to care about anybody that cares about that. (protip: its affecting your life and relationships)

I'm in Australia, and here iPhones have about 50% of the smartphone market, with the other half being Android of course.

I obviously know many iPhone users, including my wife and many close friends. I know of no one who uses iMessage. Here everyone uses Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp (and to a lesser extent Telegram and Signal).

Is this iMessage fascinating a US thing? Why?

Re: Eddy Cue wanted to bring iMessage to Android in 2013

#70

Post by kop316 »

Nextgrid wrote: post #68
kop316 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sharing a video via group MMS is fraught with problems, it often doesn't work, or the resolution is garbage. FYI, this is carrier related. Many carriers have a hard limit on how big attachments are, and will silently reject them if you go over that limit. What the limit is varies based on the carrier, but it seems that a "safe" limit is ~1.1 MB (This is the hard limit that Android enforces for the largest MMS attac…

> Why doesn't this happen on iMessage? Because iMessage is not MMS - it uses a custom protocol and works completely independently from the carriers.

Fair enough, I admittedly haven't looked the iMessage protocol so I don't know much about it.

I just know that if you have an iPhone, you have to set your MMSC to Apple's servers versus the carrier's servers.

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