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“It’s time for Apple to fix texting”

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

#981

Post by mynameisvlad »

mongol wrote: post #742
mynameisvlad wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why, exactly, would Apple and Google not be able to fallback to SMS? Without involving carriers at all? It's not like there's any real benefit to having the carriers in that conversation, you can already text from either device just fine. That would continue into the future.

SMS is not transferred over the internet. It is transferred over a telecoms network. Only the carriers can deliver a SMS message. I guess it is possible to deliver a message over the internet to a SMS gateway somewhere, but as SMS is telecoms technology, only internet is not enough.

First of all, SMS is based on a common protocol used across carriers. Each carrier does not need to individually support each model of device, and vice versa-- as long as both the phone and the carrier support the decades-old standard, your messages will get routed to a SMSC and from there to the recipient. The carriers are not involved in this process at all aside from setting up the industry standard protocols involved. It's also all or nothing, there's no identifying characteristic on a message saying "this was sent by that iPhone we don't want to support anymore".

Additionally, 5G SMS does generally go over IP as SMSoIP: https://www.iplook.com/info/what-are-the-changes-of-sms-in-5...

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

#982

Post by inferiorhuman »

int_19h wrote: post #979
simonh wrote: post #960

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is none of the 'more modern' open alternatives to SMS actually seem any better.

How exactly RCS is not strictly better than SMS?

Turn that on its head. What does RCS bring to the table? RCS brings two types of features: those that carriers will try to monetize (file transfer, VoIP, visual voice mail) and those that seek to drive "customer engagement" (chatbots, carousels, branding, quick-reply suggestions, "rich" cards).

From the Wikipedia page:

  RCS Business Messaging (RBM) is the B2C (A2P in telecoms terminology) version of RCS.
  *This is supposed to be an answer to third-party messaging apps (or OTTs) absorbing 
  mobile operators' messaging traffic and associated revenues*. While RCS is designed to 
  win back Person-to-Person (P2P) traffic, RBM is intended to retain and grow this A2P 
  traffic. … RBM is expected to attract marketing and customer service spend from 
  enterprises, thanks to improved customer engagement and interactive features that 
  facilitate new use cases.  *This was the primary reason for the development of RCS by 
  the GSMA*.
No. Thanks. As I said, I don't really care if Apple implements RCS support in their Message app. If they do it's just one more thing I'll disable.

My take is that carriers should be dumb pipes. Voice, SMS, and data routing and that's it. Part of the reason RCS is already fragmented is because the carriers are trying to monetize it, you can bet your ass they're going to continue to drag their feet with E2EE – which is why Google's stood up their own separate RCS infrastructure.

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

#983

Post by tonymet »

Victerius wrote: post #613
tonymet wrote: post #503

RCS rollout has been a mess with a poor UX , unclear consent etc. Apple definitely doesn't want to inconvenience users with that garbage. There are tons of great cross-device messaging apps e.g. Whatsapp , Signal, Telegram. The market has provided solutions.

How does have RCS have poor UX?

onboarding and distinguishing feature support

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

#984

Post by TheKarateKid »

oneplane wrote: post #246
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…

This is indeed a US thing (culturally). Most countries seem to have chat culture revolve around Whatsapp, Telegram, Signal, WeChat or LINE. On top of that, most people don't really care and read whatever comes in regardless of the format. MMS was a failed concept, and so is RCS. Not because the technology is fundamentally bad, it's the implementation that is fundamentally flawed by keeping telcos in the loop. The onl…

MMS wasn't a failed concept. It was successful at what it was designed for at the time - to share a photo or short video on 2G/3G phones. Not bidirectional conversational messaging.

MMS was never designed to be used for group chats. It was a clever implementation by Apple which made it become the standard for cellular group chats once every other platform copied it.

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

#985

Post by School-Cotton »

_abox wrote: post #903
rootusrootus wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it interesting how many HN'ers now think bureaucratic control of technology is a Good Thing(tm).

It's a different world view I think. In Europe with our more socialist history, we view government regulations mainly as a protection of civil rights. Whereas in the US it seems to be viewed more as a kerbing of freedom. It's not as black and white of course but this seems to be a recurring theme.

Another way to put it might be that Americans fundamentally do not trust the state, and Europeans (or at least Western and Northern Europeans) do.

Of course, this is painting with a very broad brush, and people in both places believe in all sorts of different political ideologies, but I think it generally tends to be true. Europeans are more likely to reason along direct lines like "this is a good policy, therefore it should be enacted" whereas Americans will think in more abstract terms like "this may be a good policy, but do we really want the state to have the power to enact such a policy? How may this power be abused in the future?"

I don't have a good explanation for _why_ this is the case; intuitively, you'd expect the opposite, since the US has never had a totalitarian regime, and most of Europe has within the last 100 years. My only guess is that nowadays the US is way more corrupt, undemocratic, poorly run, etc. than most countries in Western and Northern Europe which leaves a bad taste in people's mouths.

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

#986

Post by School-Cotton »

DennisAleynikov wrote: post #318
rootusrootus wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it interesting how many HN'ers now think bureaucratic control of technology is a Good Thing(tm).

It's only funny when you break up a bad faith company like apple. In most other cases it's government overreach, but ruining iOS would make the tech ecosystem better.

The hundreds of millions of people who freely choose to use iOS would disagree with you.

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

#987

Post by xcskier56 »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #898
xcskier56 wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will agree that one of the few places that the imperial system is hands down better than metric is that on the highway it's roughly 1 mile per minute. That and it's just barely possible to run a mile in under 4 minutes, so makes for a nice clean time barrier. But these are just coincidences and are the exception not the rule

IMO the imperial system is full of these coincidences, and if you look at history, you can see how they emerged: from historical people changing the size of the units until they had enough useful coincidences. A mile is about 1000 steps for a marching army, about 20 minutes of walking, or about 1 minute by car. Comfortable Farenheit temperatures roughly run from 0 to 100. A foot is about the length of a foot or a for…

There are a few coincidences in the imperial system that make life easy. That highway driving speed is around 1 mile per minute is a pure coincidence.

Most/all of the other examples you list are pretty useless to me for daily life:

- A mile is closer to 2100 paces for me, a 6’2” guy

- 20min/mile walking is just as useful as 12min/km which is about equivalent speed

- Temps, sure it’s a nice 0-100 witch is symmetric but not much else

- 1/1000th of an inch doesn’t impact my daily life

- height and weight are similar to temperature. A pleasant range that doesn’t make anything in my life easier

- imperial volumetric measurements are actually insane and actively make my life worse. It doesn’t matter that they’re readily divisible by common numbers bc it’s impossible to remember what number to divide by to go between them.

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

#988

Post by gofreddygo »

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…

So the reason to track and identify every app on every device and have a switch to remotely brick it is to reduce spam ?

My BS detectors just tripped.

Would you be ok if your home had the same "security" features? Say BigCo home builders install a front door, sensors, cameras and scanners in your home that allow them to monitor track and remotely lock you out of your home, your water and power supply ? Their reason? ... so that they can shutdown "bad neighbors" and keep the neighborhood "clean". And remember there's no fkin way you can get rid of those scanners, cameras and other control mechanisms.

But ya'know they gave you a piece of paper that says "we respect your privacy" with BigCo logo on it ?

I don't get why Apple, MS or anyone should be able to get away with this.

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

#989

Post by samat »

tcfhgj wrote: post #492
kelnos wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Defaults matter. I too have WhatsApp, Signal, Google Chat and a few others on my phone, but the fragmentation is annoying to deal with, and getting social groups (or even individuals) to move to a single consolidating messaging platform turns out to be much more difficult than I expected. If the default chat app is featureful and universally supported, people tend not to stray toward non-default alternatives unless t…

Matrix solved federated messaging already

As did email with PGP before it /sarcasm off

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

#990

Post by musicale »

smoldesu wrote: post #912
musicale wrote: post #676

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple also collects timestamps for app usage (iOS and MacOS), tracks Spotlight usage and tracks your iPhone with Find My by default Hmm, as I understand it: "Timestamps for app usage": notarization checks happen the first time you start a new app, basically like OCSP to enable certificate revocation: https://support.apple.com/guide/security/gatekeeper-and-runt... I dislike online validation and would prefer a revoc…

> What I'd like to know is: Is there any evidence that Apple is retaining this information and using it for other purposes Sure; all sorts of data leaves your iPhone in the form of encrypted channels to Apple servers, whether you have telemetry/analytics enabled or not. When you fully power-down your iPhone with Find My disabled, your Baseband modem is still sending and receiving information from nearby cell towers.…

> There is nothing besides marketing that suggests Apple has a commitment to privacy or security

That is not what I hear from people who work there.

> you should look into some of the more recent PRISM revelations (eg. how iMessage and Find My can be used by law enforcement), or the ways that the CCP uses the data Apple collects for them

I'd be interested in references/citations if you have them.

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