“It’s time for Apple to fix texting” • Hacker News Board

Re: “It’s time for Apple to fix texting”

#231

Post by XorNot » Tue, Aug 09, 2022, 10:43 PM UTC

kelnos wrote: post #162

dymk wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never heard this issue ever raised by anyone in real life. I've only seen it brought up in internet tiffs about how Apple is using green message bubbles to "shame" non-Apple users. Which is similarly straw-graspy.

Given how cruel and capricious children tend to be, it would not surprise me in the least that iPhone-using US teenagers ostracize peers with Android devices because of the green bubbles.

While it doesn't surprise me, if it wasn't one thing it would probably be another.

Conversely if you're a parent with a distraught teenager being teased about this, I imagine that's cold comfort.

Re: “It’s time for Apple to fix texting”

#232

Post by rootusrootus » Tue, Aug 09, 2022, 10:43 PM UTC

ivoras wrote: post #205

This is a US thing, right? Haven't received an SMS from a real person (in other words, all SMSes I get are 2FA etc) for, at least 5 years, maybe 10. Even people who use iPhones don't send SMSes, MMSes or anything as obsolete (including RCS). Everyone just seems to use WhatsApp and Telegram (or if they don't know any better, Viber). Locale: Central Europe. So, why would anyone stick to the obsolete stuff? Are there re…

Network effect. SMS works everywhere, all phones support it out-of-the-box. WhatsApp is opt-in. Almost nobody I communicate with regularly has a WhatsApp account.

Re: “It’s time for Apple to fix texting”

#233

Post by chizhik-pyzhik » Tue, Aug 09, 2022, 10:44 PM UTC

ivoras wrote: post #205

This is a US thing, right? Haven't received an SMS from a real person (in other words, all SMSes I get are 2FA etc) for, at least 5 years, maybe 10. Even people who use iPhones don't send SMSes, MMSes or anything as obsolete (including RCS). Everyone just seems to use WhatsApp and Telegram (or if they don't know any better, Viber). Locale: Central Europe. So, why would anyone stick to the obsolete stuff? Are there re…

For some reason whatsapp/telegram/etc haven't taken off nearly as well in the US as they have in the rest of the world.

NYT had an article about this recently- https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/02/technology/sms-whatsapp.h...

Re: “It’s time for Apple to fix texting”

#234

Post by pwpw » Tue, Aug 09, 2022, 10:44 PM UTC

This is such a weirdly US specific issue. It's hard to understand why people in this country refuse to adopt a data-based messaging service such as Signal or WhatsApp like the rest of the world has. Why are US citizens so set on having a terrible experience when messaging half of the population? How did other countries decide that using platform agnostic messaging services are better? I believe the UK has a similar split in Android/iOS users, yet they largely use WhatsApp.

In a way, it feels perfectly inline with America. We use Imperial when everyone else uses Metric. We use Fahrenheit when everyone else uses Celsius. But in this case, it's not as if our government led us down this path. The problem was entirely created by our market of users.

Ultimately, poor communication stifles society and innovation. It's in all of our best interests to improve the current situation. Sure, better alternatives such as Signal exist, but we will have to move mountains to convert everyone onto a new service. For now, I think it's best if we all apply pressure to Apple to adopt RCS. It's significantly better than where we are now, and that's a good thing.

Re: “It’s time for Apple to fix texting”

#235

Post by bagacrap » Tue, Aug 09, 2022, 10:44 PM UTC

ivoras wrote: post #205

This is a US thing, right? Haven't received an SMS from a real person (in other words, all SMSes I get are 2FA etc) for, at least 5 years, maybe 10. Even people who use iPhones don't send SMSes, MMSes or anything as obsolete (including RCS). Everyone just seems to use WhatsApp and Telegram (or if they don't know any better, Viber). Locale: Central Europe. So, why would anyone stick to the obsolete stuff? Are there re…

basically it's the lowest common denominator. There are so many chat apps out there (signal, sms, fb, ig are popular in my circles) and the default app is the only one everyone has installed.

For people close to me, I insist on the use of signal, but I don't have that kind of social capital with every single acquaintance.

Re: “It’s time for Apple to fix texting”

#236

Post by cgrealy » Tue, Aug 09, 2022, 10:44 PM UTC

radiojasper wrote: post #122

I still don't get why people use SMS/MMS anyway? I've been using WhatsApp for ages now and so does everybody else in my country - and every country I've been in, apart from China and Japan. My friend who's from the US once said "I've paid for those text messages, so I'm going to use them!" But if I send him a text from Europe to the US, I pay 1 damn euro per delivered text. WhatsApp is free! Is there any viable reaso…

> Is there any viable reason why Apple users use SMS so much?

They don't. At least not in my experience. I have an iPhone, but there's about a 50/50 split ios/android in my friends and family.

Group chats are almost entirely WhatsApp, and single messages are a blend of WhatsApp, iMessage and SMS.

I probably use SMS/MMS once a week

Re: “It’s time for Apple to fix texting”

#237

Post by RussianCow » Tue, Aug 09, 2022, 10:44 PM UTC

ivoras wrote: post #205

This is a US thing, right? Haven't received an SMS from a real person (in other words, all SMSes I get are 2FA etc) for, at least 5 years, maybe 10. Even people who use iPhones don't send SMSes, MMSes or anything as obsolete (including RCS). Everyone just seems to use WhatsApp and Telegram (or if they don't know any better, Viber). Locale: Central Europe. So, why would anyone stick to the obsolete stuff? Are there re…

The US market standardized on mobile plans with unlimited texting a long, long time ago, so I think this caused people to mostly stick to SMS/MMS for communication since it was the path of least resistance. I don't know what the situation in Europe is like now, but in the past I remember it being difficult to find plans without very small SMS caps when traveling. That could be why Europeans naturally gravitated towards other messaging platforms.

Re: “It’s time for Apple to fix texting”

#238

Post by etchalon » Tue, Aug 09, 2022, 10:45 PM UTC

015a wrote: post #201

etchalon wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Green is historical, not a specific decision by Apple to hinder reading texts. Before iOS 5, and the release of iMessage, all messages on iOS were green. That Google is painting this as something else speaks to how disingenuous this whole conversation has gotten, in all corners.

So, you're asserting that the color choice of the bubbles ten years ago was unintentional? That whatever developer coded it had no instruction, Jony Ive & Steve Jobs were silent, and they used a random number generator to pick the hex code? And additionally, you're asserting that its impossible to change or improve? That its just such an intractable problem which we inherited, and changing it would be such a herculea…

I'm asserting that a decision was made that SMS messages were green.

Then a decision was made that iMessage messages would be blue.

I'm asserting this was not done with animosity. It was a decision by Apple's UX team to make it easy to visually identify the difference between the message mechanics and capabilities of the end-user.

It is remarkably simple, effective and easily understood.

If Apple chose to make it so there was no visual distinction between the message sending mechanisms, that would be a worse, and more confusing, user experience.

If Apple changed the colors, whatever the new colors they chose to use would just be the new focus of the debate. It would become "Orange Bubbles vs Blue Bubbles" or "Purple Bubbles vs Blue Bubbles". People would argue that Apple chose the new color based on some secondary negative characteristic of the new color, just as they do today with green.

Re: “It’s time for Apple to fix texting”

#239

Post by rootusrootus » Tue, Aug 09, 2022, 10:45 PM UTC

angryasian wrote: post #49

equalsione wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really is god-awful. RCS is a technology that benefits mobile operators, not users. Also, Google really aren't in a position to lecture anyone on this topic, given their N+1 approach to messaging services.

Its definitely a compromise, but Google is ultimately at the mercy of the carriers. We can sit back behind our keyboards and criticize but it is a way to get something going. I don't think carriers have any incentive to improve this area, and probably nothing would happen

> Google is ultimately at the mercy of the carriers

Yet again I recall the deal with the devil Apple did with AT&T, giving them a year or two of exclusive rights to sell the iPhone in return for having exactly zero control over the device. That was an excellent trade. Before 2007, carriers were intrusively involved with all aspects of a mobile phone.

Re: “It’s time for Apple to fix texting”

#240

Post by jeroenhd » Tue, Aug 09, 2022, 10:45 PM UTC

nneonneo wrote: post #64

Right now Apple is facing quite a lot of regulation in various places to open up their platform: open up app loading, open up repairs, etc. It’s hard not to imagine this being yet another salvo in forcing Apple to open up their messaging platform (and it aligns with recent regulatory efforts). Except, unlike app stores and repairs, the standard being pushed here, RCS, is not a good solution by comparison. It’s locked…

Apple will probably be forced to open up their iMessage implementation once the Digital Markets Act will be adopted, forcing large messenger companies to make their messaging services interoperable.

If they're smart, they work together with Google and other large messenger providers to form some sort of secure standard. If they keep being stubborn, they'll be forced to either stop selling iMessage in Europe or accept consequences to their technology much worse than cooperation. I'm no fan of breaking E2EE for interoperation, but since none of the big market players seem interested in working together, I think this will be unavoidable. It's a shame, really, that it had to come to regulation to get the market to work in the users' favour.

This probably won't matter to users outside the EU but big changes are coming over here.