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Microsoft somehow brings iMessage to Windows – will it last?

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Re: Microsoft somehow brings iMessage to Windows – will it last?

#71

Post by itake »

pupppet wrote: post #67
eertami wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having lived all over the world, but not the US, I don't think I've sent or received an SMS/text message once in the last decade (except for bad 2FA implementations). Apple's weird and semi-transparent (to the user) hybrid system of mixing a proprietary web protocol and SMS in the same app is obviously problematic, and the rest of the world moved on to other messaging services, but it's weird that the US is still stu…

If I have to trust any company with my data, I'll take Apple over Facebook any day. WhatsApp is not the answer.

That’s not the point. If you use SMS (which isn’t encrypted) you’re trusting everybody.

Do you trust no encryption vs whatever Meta/WhatsApp claim to use?

Re: Microsoft somehow brings iMessage to Windows – will it last?

#72

Post by kipple »

Enginerrrd wrote: post #66
afavour wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a little odd that the US is so iMessage-heavy when the rest of the world isn't but IMO relying on another proprietary protocol (i.e. WhatsApp) really isn't great either. I kind of think everyone is in an awful place.

Signal was starting to gain some traction here IMO because it was open source and therefore a bit more trustworthy, and it gracefully fell back to SMS so people could adopt it without risk and interruption to their existing network. Then they decided they were going to shoot themselves in the foot and drive off a cliff. Unbelievably frustrating.

> Then they decided they were going to shoot themselves in the foot and drive off a cliff. Unbelievably frustrating.

Wait I missed this, what did Signal do?

Re: Microsoft somehow brings iMessage to Windows – will it last?

#73

Post by shagie »

saiya-jin wrote: post #24
afavour wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a little odd that the US is so iMessage-heavy when the rest of the world isn't but IMO relying on another proprietary protocol (i.e. WhatsApp) really isn't great either. I kind of think everyone is in an awful place.

I agree that proprietary protocols suck and users are harmed long term, iMessage due to reasons described is by far the worst : it doesn't even bother to tell senders reliably if recipients received it, not even going into read status. Due to Apple's desperate need to keep all their inventions to themselves only regardless of long term effects (lightning port say hi and bye in quick succession), its worse than useles…

https://support.apple.com/guide/messages/change-imessage-set...

> Send read receipts

> Turn on read receipts so that people who send you messages see when you’ve read them.

> You can also send read receipts for a conversation only. The per-conversation setting overrides the global setting.

---

Note that some people don't enable this. One member of my family has read receipts off and I don't see anything on that one. Another member has them on and I can see 'delivered' and 'read' show up.

Many people who are security conscious have that setting off by default because, well, security conscious.

I would contend that not having read receipts as an option is important functionality for some.

Re: Microsoft somehow brings iMessage to Windows – will it last?

#74

Post by mostlysimilar »

partiallypro wrote: post #26
bmitc wrote: post #4

Having switched back to Android, it can be infuriating dealing with iPhone users. I get slammed with "messages" when someone reacts to a message and oftentimes, messages just don't show up or messages go to my iPad and not my phone. Apple makes this extremely confusing. The iPhone users never know of their message goes through or what they're actually sending to (my iCloud account or my phone number).

My biggest gripe is when iPhone users share video or images, they are grainy nonsense. If Apple just moved to RCS this would be solved, but they refuse simply because they know it handicaps their competitor. The react thing has largely been fixed by Google on newer versions of messenger. It's impossible to fix the video stuff. People outside the US don't get it. They say everyone should switch to Whatsapp, etc, but g…

It's equally frustrating for iPhone users. iMessage sends and receives and full, beautiful quality. Meanwhile an Android user will send a photo and it comes through with about 10 pixels total. Don't even bother with video it's not worth trying, impossible to watch.

Re: Microsoft somehow brings iMessage to Windows – will it last?

#75

Post by stonemetal12 »

eertami wrote: post #8
bmitc wrote: post #4

Having switched back to Android, it can be infuriating dealing with iPhone users. I get slammed with "messages" when someone reacts to a message and oftentimes, messages just don't show up or messages go to my iPad and not my phone. Apple makes this extremely confusing. The iPhone users never know of their message goes through or what they're actually sending to (my iCloud account or my phone number).

Having lived all over the world, but not the US, I don't think I've sent or received an SMS/text message once in the last decade (except for bad 2FA implementations). Apple's weird and semi-transparent (to the user) hybrid system of mixing a proprietary web protocol and SMS in the same app is obviously problematic, and the rest of the world moved on to other messaging services, but it's weird that the US is still stu…

Why is it weird that people expect the default preinstalled message app to work?

Especially when it is from Apple, famous for it just works, and being the largest company on the planet.

Re: Microsoft somehow brings iMessage to Windows – will it last?

#76

Post by rootusrootus »

viggity wrote: post #40

If someone at Apple is reading this, please, for the love of god, let me pay to have iMessage on my windows machine. I'd easily pay $100/year.

A year or so back there was an HN discussion about a service that offered an all-in-one messaging app for most of the major services (including iMessage), but for the life of me I'm having trouble remembering their name. As I recall, they were using a pile of older iPhones that could still be jailbroken and a custom shim to get messages from the phone to their server. Clever, though that method would eventually hit a wall if jailbreaking stopped being feasible.

Re: Microsoft somehow brings iMessage to Windows – will it last?

#77

Post by oaththrowaway »

kipple wrote: post #72
Enginerrrd wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Signal was starting to gain some traction here IMO because it was open source and therefore a bit more trustworthy, and it gracefully fell back to SMS so people could adopt it without risk and interruption to their existing network. Then they decided they were going to shoot themselves in the foot and drive off a cliff. Unbelievably frustrating.

> Then they decided they were going to shoot themselves in the foot and drive off a cliff. Unbelievably frustrating. Wait I missed this, what did Signal do?

Removed SMS support from the app

Re: Microsoft somehow brings iMessage to Windows – will it last?

#78

Post by WorldMaker »

Steltek wrote: post #48
viggity wrote: post #40

If someone at Apple is reading this, please, for the love of god, let me pay to have iMessage on my windows machine. I'd easily pay $100/year.

I can't see them loosening access to iMessage willingly. It's like the App Store: a moat to keep users confined to the Apple ecosystem. Allowing users choice and freedom is anathema to Apple's business model.

Apple seems to be on friendlier terms with Windows these days. Their apps are getting better on Windows, and they are looking to support their PassKey infrastructure on Windows. With paid subscription services like Apple TV and Apple Music they have an increasing reason to support all of a user's devices and mixed ecosystem devices are statistically the norm.

iMessage is not its own subscription service yet, but the days where it was explicitly an Apple hardware moat may be drawing to a close the more that Apple finds increased relevance (and shareholder appeal) in software as a service. I expect that if that were to happen, Apple might try to make a good marketing effort of "works best on Apple hardware" and Apple might never support iMessage on Android, but Windows support sounds oddly plausible in 2023.

Re: Microsoft somehow brings iMessage to Windows – will it last?

#79

Post by jtmarl1n »

rhaway84773 wrote: post #25
bmitc wrote: post #4

Having switched back to Android, it can be infuriating dealing with iPhone users. I get slammed with "messages" when someone reacts to a message and oftentimes, messages just don't show up or messages go to my iPad and not my phone. Apple makes this extremely confusing. The iPhone users never know of their message goes through or what they're actually sending to (my iCloud account or my phone number).

All this BS Apple has been doing is why my family and friends have largely switched exclusively to WhatsApp, although unfortunately that’s a little more troublesome now with Meta’s privacy issues.

Facebook bought WhatsApp in 2014. You make it sound like Facebook's involvement and their known issues are something new.

Re: Microsoft somehow brings iMessage to Windows – will it last?

#80

Post by itake »

saiya-jin wrote: post #24
afavour wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a little odd that the US is so iMessage-heavy when the rest of the world isn't but IMO relying on another proprietary protocol (i.e. WhatsApp) really isn't great either. I kind of think everyone is in an awful place.

I agree that proprietary protocols suck and users are harmed long term, iMessage due to reasons described is by far the worst : it doesn't even bother to tell senders reliably if recipients received it, not even going into read status. Due to Apple's desperate need to keep all their inventions to themselves only regardless of long term effects (lightning port say hi and bye in quick succession), its worse than useles…

I think you might be confused why Apple exists. Apple exists to make money for its shareholders.

Lightening port will bring in more revenue than USB-C.

iMessage creates social pressure for people to buy iPhones to match their friends.

iMessage access to non-Apple products doesn’t increase their revenue.

Apple is not an altruistic not for profit organization.

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