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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”

#691

Post by mjevans »

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…

A good enough and low hanging fruit solution to spam is an allowed list. Generally allow contacts (initially at least). Track spam feedback by age against contacts.

If someone does end up in a spam list (and they don't rack up a high score across multiple targets), let them know they're in such a list and where to start looking to resolve that issue. A good enough solution for this is to have number carriers attest to have verified the government issued ID of the individual in question; and if spam happens shortly after that to yield the government ID number of that individual.

An alternate form I've considered, for email, is to pay a postage (transfer + storage) micro-transaction fee, and possibly an attention fee for prompt review. The custom might be to refund these in cases of legitimate messages.

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

#692

Post by snowwrestler »

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…

> Are there regions of the US which have cell phone signals but no Internet access?

Yes, there are huge swaths of the U.S. that are lightly covered and don’t support Internet applications. I was in Marin County, CA (just north of San Francisco) last year and regularly saw 0 bars of 4g. At those times only SMS got through to friends and family (Messages app falls back to SMS if there is insufficient bandwidth for iMessage).

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

#693

Post by nucleardog »

eek2121 wrote: post #592
smoldesu wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s really oppressive that Apple doesn’t let you install WhatsApp, Secret, Telegram, FB Messenger or any other communications app beyond their own. They fully control those app's access to their store; Apple has full say over which communication apps you install on your iPhone, full-stop.

You say this like it is a bad thing. I used Signal, which is an open-source messaging app. If Apple were censoring messaging apps I would agree with your seemingly negative sentiment, however, as someone who has pushed out apps to the Apple and Mac app stores, I can say they absolutely do not do that. There are many reasons many IT folks actually prefer an iPhone over Android. The two biggest ones are privacy and sec…

> There are many reasons many IT folks actually prefer an iPhone over Android. The two biggest ones are privacy and security.

I've been downvoted to hell for it before, but I'll add mine to this list because I don't _think_ it's all that uncommon either: I don't want another PC to administer and support.

I've had a lot of Android phones over the years (started with the ADP1!). Taking my last one as an example--it stopped receiving updates way too soon. Once apps started breaking, I ended up updating it by putting LineageOS on it. But then my camera never worked right again because apparently there's a driver issue. One time I updated and my microphone stopped working in phone calls so I had to wipe the thing and install an older OS on it...

You know what that sounds like to me these days? _Work_. That's literally the same sort of stuff I'm doing all friggin' day. Between work and my kid I'm lucky if I've got a couple hours a day to portion out to chores around the acreage and maybe whatever I could do ostensibly for fun. The last thing I want is to be obligated to work more because my damn phone is being a PC and doing PC things.

The fact that it's not customizable, not open, and just generally an appliance _is a feature to me_. My five year old phone is still receiving regular updates. I install them, it keeps working. I can't mess with it (and and up breaking things) even if I want to. I don't have to think about how I want the phone to work because it just works the Apple way and if I don't like it I can just get a different phone. If anything ever does go wrong, I don't need to fix it because I _can't_, reimage the phone if that doesn't work then well you're screwed.

Basically, I treat it the same way I do a toaster. It does what it does, there's a single big knob that makes my options clear. If that knob can't make it do what I want then I either learn to live with it or find another toaster. It's never gonna cook a steak for me, and that's fine. I'd rather not have steak or use another device to cook my steak than shun the toaster and try and pan-fry myself toast every morning.

I pay a premium to get an appliance instead of a PC because I _want_ an appliance. I'm happy I can outsource all the decisions and work and keep the brain space free. Sorry if I'm contributing to the downfall of society and freedom or whatever, but I just don't have the time to do anything else anymore.

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

#694

Post by altairprime »

howinteresting wrote: post #677
altairprime wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Giving apps access to a unique device identifier shared across apps is a privacy leak Correct: 'Non-heuristic antispam' and 'Private device identifiers' are incompatible requirements, unless you introduce another expensive obstacle to overcome. Spamming depends on cheap/free sock puppet accounts. The cost per account is inversely proportional to the value it holds to spammers. That cost can be in Apple's iMessage t…

I mean, maybe expensive dongles should be a thing of the past and Apple should invest in machine learning a bit more. My Pixel does a great job filtering out SMS spam, with 2 false positives (both automated messages) and zero false negatives in the last month.

I have received a single iMessage spam message in ten years, total. You would have, statistically, received at least 240 false positives in that time assuming current heuristics technology. I don’t think heuristics are the answer if your goal is Project Zero Spam.

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

#695

Post by soperj »

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…

“I am concerned that the iMessage on Android would simply serve to remove and obstacle to iPhone families giving their kids Android phones,” Craig Federighi, Apple software senior vice president, wrote in 2013."

They'll find another reason not to implement it on other platforms.

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

#696

Post by altairprime »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #384
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 about adopting RCS, NOT about pushing iMessage to other platforms.

This post is about Google pushing RCS to other platforms. I’m pointing out why their competitor, Apple, has not done the same with RCS’s competitor, iMessage. It’s an apples-to-apples comparison, and I consider it relevant to be mindful of this particular difference when considering RCS.

Google could have implemented crypto-signed device identifier attestation as a mandatory requirement for RCS, which would have given them considerable leverage against iMessage. Why wouldn’t they? What was more important to them than stopping texting spam?

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

#697

Post by [deleted] »

0x457 wrote: post #524
etchalon wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

While true, prior iMessage it was only green bubbles. However, iMessage was released with iOS5 and iOS5 and every iOS prior apple went flat, used very different green: https://www.zdnet.com/a/img/2014/10/04/9ddbf98c-4b94-11e4-b6... Now compare it to green bubbles today. Anyways, when I had iPhone, flat green bubbles annoyed me. Not because "hurr-durr I have a iPhone and you don't" but because SMS lacked many features…

[deleted]

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

#698

Post by Anunayj »

egwynn wrote: post #88
frizlab wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most operators do cellular over wifi now (because 4G/5G sucks indoor). Not all of them though.

I’m curious about how this works, can you link me someplace where I can read more about it? I tried searching for “cellular over wifi” but wasn’t about to find anything promising. EDIT: I searched harder and found “VoWiFi”. It looks like this can support SMS and is supported by iOS. TIL.

For someone more curious, I tried to learn more about this tech, and this [1] is the best resource I found about someone explaining how it works.

Essentially VoWifi connects to your ISP via a IPSec VPN using secrets derived using your sim card as a smart card, then connects to a internal SIP server and voila.

I spent a lot of time trying to connect to the IPSec server from a computer, but couldn't figure out how to get the challenge solved by my sim. Gosh I wish I could make normal calls from my computer.

1. https://worthdoingbadly.com/vowifi/

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

#699

Post by atonse »

jvolkman wrote: post #681
MBCook wrote: post #561

RCS itself does not support E2E encryption. That’s an extension Google developed. It only works if BOTH people are using Google’s Messages app. Group chats? Totally plain text in the clear. No encryption at all. RCS is not good enough. Fix the issues, develop something better, I don’t care. Only E2E is good enough.

SMS/MMS, which is the only iMessage fallback today, is not E2E.

Not that I'm a proponent of keeping SMS around, but then what's the incentive to move to RCS?

The actual "open" parts of RCS don't seem any better.

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

#700

Post by dataexporter »

rootusrootus wrote: post #194
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…

Almost nobody I know uses WhatsApp. On the other hand, a significant number of people I meet do have iMessage. There's no incentive for me to install WhatsApp. Even my friends internationally all have iPhones. I don't install third-party apps unless there is a very good reason. SMS is an inferior but acceptable fallback for edge cases.

This comment comes from a position of privilege and power. Not everyone can afford iPhones and neither is a value-for-money at those prices. If all your international friends are also using iPhones, then you are definitely in a very special bubble.
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