Why are people obsessed with “breaking into” Apple’s walled garden? There are already secure cross platform messaging services like Signal or WhatsApp that has feature parity with iMessage. This is a solved problem that doesn’t need another solution.
Beeper Mini is back
831–840 of 1001 posts
Re: Beeper Mini is back
#832Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If Apple continues to cut off Beeper's access, it makes an antitrust argument stronger I'm not sure why everyone thinks it is an antitrust issue when it isn't. There is no legal obligation to support your services and software on third party platforms.
I'd argue that's not the right framing of the issue. Taking active steps to prevent your services from being used on competing platforms is more than merely "not supporting" them.
it would be incredibly easy for apple to frame this as a security issue, because, even in my mind, it is. I pay for apple devices because I trust apple with my data. I do not trust most companies with my data. I trust my data to only flow through Apple's servers, and to get a clear indication when my data is _not_ flowing through apple's servers (e.g. green bubbles). A company bypassing this causing messages to show up blue when they are in fact traveling outside of Apple's control is a security risk (to me). Clearly if it's e2e encrypted that's not the case, but that's not what apple is going to argue. They're going to argue exactly what I just did. And I honestly agree with them. That doesn't mean Apple doesn't need to allow other companies onto the platform, just that BLUE BUBBLES mean something to apple customers and bypassing that is something that apple needs to block.
Apple really needs to get that RCS implementation rolled out though. Wonder if it's still going to be green bubbles or something else.
Re: Beeper Mini is back
#833Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm sure most android users would be happy if iMessage-on-Android was included as part of the $0.99/month icloud subscription.
Yep, I already pay for iCloud, Applecare on several devices and yet I am still punished by Apple via iMessage for using Android as my main device. (I also own a newish iPhone but even that's not good enough without workarounds to use my primary phone number with iMessage). I don't like the idea of ever being bound to a single ecosystem and Apple's lack of interoperability by design keeps me using many Google services…
Sounds like you're just bound to Google rather than Apple.
Re: Beeper Mini is back
#834Earlier quoted context omitted.
Best-case outcome is that Apple decides engaging in an arms race with a motivated competitor isn't worth the time or effort and they enable some (probably limited) interop. I can imagine a "blue-green" type of message that's encrypted but not from an Apple device; Apple keeps their status symbology and users on both ends get E2E encrypted messages to and from Apple device users without Apple users switching to a thir…
Of all the moats Apple has, iMessage's "blue bubble" is by far the most arbitrary. 100% I have been an iPhone user since 2009, but for me the most likely reason to go to the competition is not if it gets iMessage (I don't live in the US). The most likely reason is that Apple has become utterly boring when it comes to innovation. I recently purchased an iPhone 15, coming from the iPhone 13, I can honestly not say what…
I mean I kind of like "boring"?
I upgraded from a 11 Pro Max to a 14 Pro Max last year and it was my phone, but better.
Re: Beeper Mini is back
#835Why are people obsessed with “breaking into” Apple’s walled garden? There are already secure cross platform messaging services like Signal or WhatsApp that has feature parity with iMessage. This is a solved problem that doesn’t need another solution.
US Americans love iMessage, nobody knows why.
Re: Beeper Mini is back
#836Why are people obsessed with “breaking into” Apple’s walled garden? There are already secure cross platform messaging services like Signal or WhatsApp that has feature parity with iMessage. This is a solved problem that doesn’t need another solution.
Some people are finding themselves excluded from their social group because of platform choice - basically not being able to use iMessage (sometimes) means people don't want you in the group chat (because mixing iMessage and SMS messages makes a bad experience.)
It is incredibly difficult to get a social group to change messaging platforms, especially if that social group's shared interest isn't "using a good messaging platform"
The easiest solution is to conform to the existing messaging platform in the group. In the case of a bunch of iOS users, that might mean leaving Android for iOS. People don't want to do this (For a variety of reasons.) So being able to participate as a first-world-citizen of the platform has its appeal.
Re: Beeper Mini is back
#837Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not a lawyer. But I do believe there's reason to consider Apple's policy relative to iMessage clients monopolistic. Apple's behavior is not significantly different from Microsoft's, which instigated US v. Microsoft [1]. That case largely took issue with Microsoft's mandatory bundling of IE with Windows and the extent to which Microsoft created an inorganic monopoly. In addition to how Microsoft's monopoly came to…
> I'm not a lawyer. This is very obvious because you have a poor grasp of the facts. a) The issue with Microsoft was that it had a monopoly in operating systems. At the time it was about ~95% market share. Gates woke up one morning, decided web apps were a threat to this, saw Netscape as their major competitor and decided to eliminate them. It didn't try to compete with them. It went straight for elimination by bundl…
Apple has a literal complete monopoly on operating systems. Every iPhone must either run iOS or be cracked (jailbreak). That's not the whole story, though: Microsoft's anti-competitive behavior was not monopolizing the OS market. It was using that monopoly to promote IE.
> Apple is not trying to eliminate Beeper
They are literally eliminating one of their products. That's anti-competitive.
> they have no monopoly in anything and there is clear evidence of a fair and functioning market by the presence of WhatsApp, Messenger, Telegram, Signal etc.
You just moved the goalposts out of the stadium. Anti-competitive behavior doesn't need to overwhelm every segment of a market to be anti-competitive behavior.
Re: Beeper Mini is back
#838Why are people obsessed with “breaking into” Apple’s walled garden? There are already secure cross platform messaging services like Signal or WhatsApp that has feature parity with iMessage. This is a solved problem that doesn’t need another solution.
US Americans love iMessage, nobody knows why.
Lots of Americans have iPhones, iMessage is the default messaging on the platform, and it's actually quite a good messaging system.
Re: Beeper Mini is back
#839Earlier quoted context omitted.
All Apple needs to do is send a few scary C&D letters from their army of lawyers and this will be done. If they run the infrastructure for imessage, I'm sure there's something in a ToS somewhere that talks about spoofing device IDs and unauthorized use of their services blah blah Apple's sole discretion. In theory I love it but in reality it'll be dead soon as Apple has too much to gain from the walled garden they've…
A $3T monopolist sending scary C&D letters tends to get the attention of the government.
The problem is that Apple has valid case, because these guys are making money with the app, by using Apple’s private backend services without permission.
Re: Beeper Mini is back
#840Why are people obsessed with “breaking into” Apple’s walled garden? There are already secure cross platform messaging services like Signal or WhatsApp that has feature parity with iMessage. This is a solved problem that doesn’t need another solution.
He mentioned their reason in the blog — that Messages is the default messaging app on iPhone and that it is also not a replaceable default.