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“It’s time for Apple to fix texting”

android.com

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

#291

Post by ryandrake »

rootusrootus wrote: post #248
jabbany wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it interesting how many HN'ers now don't think consumer protection is a good thing. (Actually, in hindsight it isn't that surprising. Tech companies only make the money they do because of the lack of consumer protections... so definitely in most HN'ers interest to keep the status quo.

European legislators are why I now have a cookie banner on every website I visit. It is hard to be enthusiastic for more of that. I could support basic antitrust actions that actually promote competition, but when it gets into actually writing technical requirements, the outcome seems less than ideal.

Web developers’ deciding to use cookies, knowing the regulation exists, is why you now have a cookie banner on every website you visit.

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

#292

Post by macintux »

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…

WhatsApp was appealing before it got sucked into the FB vortex. Thanks, but no thanks.

If there were a single 3rd-party messaging platform that I trusted, and my friends started using it, sure. But since 75% use iPhones/iMessage, and the rest SMS, why in the world would I use WhatsApp?

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

#293

Post by altairprime »

rootusrootus wrote: post #158
frumper wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely get iMessage spam

If you're 100% sure it's iMessage and not SMS, report it to Apple. They can ban that account.

They’ll ban the entire device used to send it, not just the one account. But see also elsethread “wait, how do I know this was delivered over iMessage”, since MMS allows the From field to be an email address.

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

#295

Post by asdff »

pwpw wrote: post #234

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 s…

Because of historical reasons. Americans had free texting for decades. Entire segments of phones were released dedicated to the texting experience with full keyboards. When the iphone came out it had unlimited data, but it was the exception not the norm, and it was slow as hell. People don't want to use data for something they already got for free, plus there's the whole network effect issue. Everyone has a phone number, not everyone is going to be on whatever chat platform you insisted on using. Imo I think its better this way, using this do it all technology that works on a modern phone or the flip phone my dad has, versus being reliant on whatsapp and therefore Meta.

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

#296

Post by abawany »

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…

I've seen this position a lot throughout this thread and I have a question: all of these apps (whatsapp, signal, etc.) appear to be "free" - how do you suppose they will make money? In the US, the users of sms/mms/imessage paid in some way for this service and can have some reasonable expectation for delivery and availability.

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

#297

Post by kelnos »

cgrealy wrote: post #236
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

As counterpoint, I am an Android user in the US, and 90%+ of my contacts are US-based iPhone users. While I do use Signal, WhatsApp, or GChat for nearly all of my group chats, I have 1-on-1 conversations over SMS daily, with quite a few people.

I've managed to move a few of the 1-on-1 chats to Signal, but not many.

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

#298

Post by altairprime »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #173
altairprime wrote: post #59

Most businesses, consumers, and developers universally continue to ignore the primary reason that iMessage is a closed platform, rather than an app on every platform as iTunes is: Apple is using device serial numbers for anti-spam, supported by a fully-authenticated hardware and software stack that does not allow user modification. This permits Apple to simply “console ban” any Apple device that spams on iMessage. Th…

This is a lawyer excuse. I've had Signal for years and the number of spam messages I've received over it is none. It's not a real problem. SMS on the other hand... but iPhones receive SMS too, don't they?

Signal is not a profitable target for spammers. Those using it are least likely to be caught by spam.

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

#299

Post by robbomacrae »

altairprime wrote: post #59

Most businesses, consumers, and developers universally continue to ignore the primary reason that iMessage is a closed platform, rather than an app on every platform as iTunes is: Apple is using device serial numbers for anti-spam, supported by a fully-authenticated hardware and software stack that does not allow user modification. This permits Apple to simply “console ban” any Apple device that spams on iMessage. Th…

And yet I get plenty of spam via text on my iPhone. What is more, I cannot block numbers from texting me (unless there's an option I haven't found). What is more, a clearly spam text will stay as an alert number grabbing at my attention until I open up and see whatever spam image text was sent my way to dismiss it which is surely a security risk.

I used to work at Apple but this messaging stuff is really damning.

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