Earlier quoted context omitted.
God I really wish we Americans would get on whatsapp
No thanks, iMessage is much better and not owned by Facebook.
How is iMessage better? WhatsApp is a great app.
Apple cuts off Beeper Mini's access
361–370 of 1001 posts
Re: Apple cuts off Beeper Mini's access
#362Re: Apple cuts off Beeper Mini's access
#363Apple could have been a lot meaner about this.
If they really wanted to discourage 3rd-party clients they could just _subtly_ break them for users of Beeper Mini: Late messages. Truncated messages. A blue bubble that slowly turns brown. The wrong font. Zalgo text.
Re: Apple cuts off Beeper Mini's access
#364Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you really consider Apple's control over a proprietary protocol which they invented and maintain to be comparable to a scenario in which Apple "sends a man" to take "your fire extinguisher […] from your house"? I've re-written this comment five or six times in an attempt to find the most charitable interpretation, but I just cannot comprehend how it made it through your filter and out onto the internet.
It's not a super serious comment, it's more about how ridiculous the tone of "We are doing this for YOUR protection" would be. On a more serious note though, in the end Apple absolutely has the power of increasing everyone's capability and security by doing something like setting up a playbook of how iMessage could just use Signal protocol and how other actors could join in, or really anything else but doing this.
> It's not a super serious comment, it's more about how ridiculous the tone of "We are doing this for YOUR protection" would be.
Right now I can presume a basic level of device security across all iMessage threads I have. Beeper deranges that: E2EE is still there, but Beeper exposes my correspondence to device security weaknesses from other OEMs, malware, keyloggers, screen scrapers, etc. as a result of lax app marketplace security & privacy.
It seems to me to be entirely disingenuous to suggest that Beeper increases security: in fact, the opposite is true.
> in the end Apple absolutely has the power of increasing everyone's capability and security by doing something like setting up a playbook of how iMessage could just use Signal protocol and how other actors could join in, or really anything else but doing this.
I don't see why any company should be denigrated for not helping the users of another competing platform, particularly when doing so likely comes at the cost of increasing the risk to its own users.
Re: Apple cuts off Beeper Mini's access
#365One thing which is really confusing is why are Android users obsessed with iMessage? Android users can send text messages to iPhones, the can call iPhone users, and they can use third party messaging apps to communicate with iPhone users. It really isn’t clear to me why so many people are so angry they cannot use iMessage on Android.
Green bubbles means you won't be called back for a second date.
Re: Apple cuts off Beeper Mini's access
#366Earlier quoted context omitted.
Since apple has no control over your fire extinguisher, they sent a man to securely take it from your house and dispose of it. It could have been a bomb for all you know.
It's time that we as an industry push back against Apple and Google. The smartphone is the single most important device for modern life and society. It's news, photos, communications with loved ones, work, entertainment, food, paying for practically everything... And it's just two companies. Two companies with an iron grip over such a wide and diverse set of functionalities that, taken together, should be as inaliena…
It's really not just two companies trying to pull this bullshit. Microsoft and Samsung also try to do the "ecosystem" bullshit. If you try to use a streaming music service other than Spotify, you'll eventually notice almost all social media has an exclusive connection with Spotify to do things like share "now playing" songs or your playlists or whatever. Retail companies tried to force everyone into their payment platform lol. Banks try to force you to only use iOS or locked-down android distros. (Some are even deprecating their desktop websites and forcing you to download the app now, apparently).
There's also the mountain of 'mobile first' (aka mobile-only) garbage out there, and stuff that is nerfed on mobile unless you download the app (so they can squeeze telemetry out of you).
Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending Apple or Google - far from it - but I'm saying there's a lot of real crap going on in tech right now.
To be fair, I am a curious person and use both android and iOS. I use onedrive and (sigh) icloud for storing photos. On my android phone, I can actually have it sync pictures to onedrive and nowhere else (and it'll free up the storage, even! I think...). On iOS it either fills your phone up and then nags you constantly to manually delete pictures, or you use iCloud. There's no other choice.
Re: Apple cuts off Beeper Mini's access
#367This is what monopolies (or duopolies) usually do. Basically, they can do whatever they like in the market. I think that the antitrust enforcement is critical in a “free” market. But neither parties would do it. I am guessing Democrats think that they can get some benefits from Apple’s control. And Republicans are simply paid off. The consumers end up bearing a brunt of it.
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Re: Apple cuts off Beeper Mini's access
#368Earlier quoted context omitted.
Putting aside that I count at least two glaring examples from this list[^1] in your reply, I suspect Apple would argue that it is in fact _solely_ preoccupied with its users' security: that's why iMessage is end to end encrypted and Apple does not offer 2FA / OTPs via SMS. Apple does not generally try to mitigate security issues which are beyond its control (e.g. non-Apple devices, protocols). [^1]: https://en.wikipe…
> and Apple does not offer 2FA / OTPs via SMS Last time I checked, Apple still used security questions any hacker can get answers to on Facebook. I'm not all that confident about Apple's approach to account security. Apple has the ability to control security issues on Android: they can release an Android app, like every other E2EE messenger out there. Apple chooses not to, and it's their choice, of course. It doesn't…
Last time I checked, Apple still used security questions any hacker can get answers to on Facebook.
Check again.
I recently reset a forgotten iTunes password. This required:
- An email verification
- An SMS verification
- A verification code sent to another device on the account
- A ten-day wait
- Another second device verification
The days of answering personal trivia questions to reset passwords are long gone.
Re: Apple cuts off Beeper Mini's access
#369Reminder that BlueBubbles and AirMessage both are working and fairly robust. I've used them daily over a year. The downside being that they need a Mac and iPhone to run. But in the spirit of self hosting, you do run the server yourself and don't share your credentials. I don't see a more viable path in the near future.
Re: Apple cuts off Beeper Mini's access
#370Earlier quoted context omitted.
If they have to use real Apple hardware, and those devices are blocklisted by Apple when the spam is reported, spamming stays cost prohibitive.
With how many "rent a mac mini stuffed in a datacenter" services are out there, I wonder how cost-prohibitive blacklisting specific devices really is.
If a serial number of the mac mini is blacklisted by apple from registering for example with apple updates or any other apple connected services, then probably it's in datacenters' best interest to keep spammers out of them.