When Ma Bell didn't let people use third-party phones with their service, the government made them change their ways. Why is the government letting Apple get away with the equivalent?
Because Ma Bell was a regulated monopoly, and iMessage is not a monopoly. People routinely use WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, SMS, FB Messenger, etc. Don't get me wrong, I love that these guys are poking the bear. I wish Apple would do something to let me send high-quality photos and videos to my Android-owning friends via "text". But I don't think the government has a place to force that issue. Plenty of alternatives e…
Good news, once Apple implements RCS next year, no more postage-stamp sized MMS! Halleloo!
Because Ma Bell was a regulated monopoly, and iMessage is not a monopoly. People routinely use WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, SMS, FB Messenger, etc. Don't get me wrong, I love that these guys are poking the bear. I wish Apple would do something to let me send high-quality photos and videos to my Android-owning friends via "text". But I don't think the government has a place to force that issue. Plenty of alternatives e…
Why not let the government intervene here? Typically my reason for wanting government to not do stuff is because it could affect me, but none of us will never be a trillionaire corporate entity, so anything done to Apple wouldn't apply to us as a precedent. If anything, you could argue that part of the purpose of the government is to stand up to these giant businesses that the average person can do nothing to.
Because usually precedents are not so narrow as to apply towards trillion dollar companies only, and even if they are they can be expanded upon. If you would be against a trillion dollar company forcing a small competitor to open up, you should rightly be worried about allowing the reverse, because the principles by which they justify it are unlikely to discern based on company size.
Now apply this logic to any other company product, maybe even your own or the company you work for and tell me if this sounds as ridiculous to you as it does me.
Most companies don't have network effect with lock-in, and especially those we depend to live our everyday lives: I can send money to my buddy who uses a different bank, I can send emails to gmail users from my yahoo account , I can also refuel my car at any station and not be tied to one brand. Imagine being locked in to any of those. There are of course a lot of companies with lock-in out there, but none with such…
The thing is: it is not locking in. At the moment through SMS and it will support RCS next year.
And RCS will solve it all. If group chats and high quality media work, people will only complain about the one thing they hate most:
The bubbles will still be green.
But I am from Europe, we don't care around here and I don't like iMessage that much. Compared to Telegram/Whatsapp, it's slow at loading old messages, has sync issues and only gut swipe to reply this year.
Is it common for people to use texts in 2023 in your social circle? I think I've been texted once this year. I mean obviously people care about this to some extent otherwise this app wouldn't exist but in my experience when I meet someone they'll give me insta or discord, unless they're a tryhard and then it's always signal (blegh). EDIT: not sure i'm being downvoted? i'm genuinely curious because i never use SMS or…
Almost 100% of my chat messages are through iMessage. The only ones that aren’t are group or individual threads with Android users (which btw have never seemed to be an issue. Reactions and gifs all seem to work fine, albeit in reduced quality compared to messages received via iMessage). Every once in a while someone will message me on Facebook, but that’s usually just to share a funny meme or something. I don’t have…
Reactions and gifs work fine for you. They work poorly for the android user. When a friend on an iphone heart emoji reacts to a text, on my end I get a text that says " loved a text".
It's obviously not a huge deal, but it's pretty badly executed.
To unspin your statement, Beeper is providing Apple users with more functionality by way of giving them the ability to send iMessages to their Android-user friends. This is beneficial for Apple users, but Apple has a financial incentive to restrict their users so that the only way for other people to interact with them is to purchase an Apple device, so they are harming their own Apple device users by trying to cut o…
I disagree. Much of the value of iMessage is the high degree of confidence in its security. Apple controls, end-to-end, the delivery of iMessages from device-to-device. This includes how it handles storage of messages, attachments, app diagnostics, crash reports, etc.. Beeper is an unauthorized user of this supposed-to-be closed-system, and I think it's deteriorating the trust users have in the platform entirely.
I miss the days when chat wasn't fragmented across apps and platforms or could at least be unified in apps like Adium. Having to have a different app installed for myriad different contacts is, at best, irritating.
I’m baffled as to when this time was? Back in the day there was ICQ, Yahoo Chat, MSN Messenger (and no doubt a dozen I forget). Before the there there the proprietary networks (Aol, CompuServe and others) along with BBS, IRC, Newsgroups, etc. I literally don’t remember a time in my life where messaging hasn’t been fragmented.
> Back in the day there was ICQ, Yahoo Chat, MSN Messenger (and no doubt a dozen I forget).
Yes, and you could combine them all into a single multi-protocol messaging app like Adium, Trillian, Gaim, Pidgin, etc. to provide a single convenient unified experience.
Because Ma Bell was a regulated monopoly, and iMessage is not a monopoly. People routinely use WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, SMS, FB Messenger, etc. Don't get me wrong, I love that these guys are poking the bear. I wish Apple would do something to let me send high-quality photos and videos to my Android-owning friends via "text". But I don't think the government has a place to force that issue. Plenty of alternatives e…
Why not let the government intervene here? Typically my reason for wanting government to not do stuff is because it could affect me, but none of us will never be a trillionaire corporate entity, so anything done to Apple wouldn't apply to us as a precedent. If anything, you could argue that part of the purpose of the government is to stand up to these giant businesses that the average person can do nothing to.
Why let them intervene? The government isn't there to cure all ills, nor should we want it to be. This seems like something the market can handle. Messenging systems have come and gone (ICQ, AIM, MSN, Yahoo Messenger, Blackberry, etc., etc., etc.). They've been locked to hardware, semi-open, and completely open. There will be dozens more, all with their own benefits and drawbacks. Fortunately, not one is required for any part of life.
It's not entitled, it's pushing back against a gigantic company exploiting network effects to create user lock-in, because that's easier than competing on the merit of your products.
Speaking for myself, I think iMessage is a good product, and it's one of the (many) reasons I use Apple devices as daily drivers. You make it sound like people only use iMessage because of the network effect/lock-in, and clearly aren't considering that perhaps said network effect exists at least in part because iMessage is just...good.
People absolutely do buy Apple devices purely because of the lock-in. Many people in my own family have. Obviously there are others that just prefer iMessage on its own quality, that goes without saying (which is why GP didn't mention it).
I don't understand how this is not theft of service, or at least unlawful access. If I am reading the articles on Beeper correctly, they've applied a pretty brilliant hack to gain access to the iMessage network without an Apple ID . That last part seems key (pardon the pun). Can someone explain this to me? I feel like this technical issue is really in the weeds, so I'm sure there are multiple nuances I'm missing...
It certainly seems like it would have to be a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
If you recall, Aaron Swartz was hounded to death using that law after accessing JSTOR's servers without permission.