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Apple partly halts Beeper's iMessage app again, suggesting a long fight ahead

arstechnica.com

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Re: Apple partly halts Beeper's iMessage app again, suggesting a long fight ahead

#451

Post by frumper »

standardUser wrote: post #257
rewgs wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If the product is so great why doesn't Apple make it available on more platforms? The answer is because it's not a product, it's a marketing tool. And a very successful one based on the widespread bullying it has caused.

Not many Apple products get made for non Apple devices.

Re: Apple partly halts Beeper's iMessage app again, suggesting a long fight ahead

#452

Post by JoblessWonder »

thethimble wrote: post #450
rezonant wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly, if you break your iPhone on vacation and buy a phone that is not an iPhone so that you can still be contacted until you get home to your favorite Apple Store, you are also losing messages, assuming you forget to go through Apple's iMessage deregistration system. Really the design of iMessage is the problem.

Really? Doesn’t iMessage fall back to sms if the receiver doesn’t ack? At least that’s what the UX feels like.

Not OP, but I believe it falls back to SMS if there isn’t a response from Apple’s servers, not the end user’s device. In this scenario the iMessages are sitting there waiting for a registered device to check in to send them to. (Same thing that happens if your battery dies. iMessages go into a void until some place to deliver it to.)

Re: Apple partly halts Beeper's iMessage app again, suggesting a long fight ahead

#453

Post by JoblessWonder »

wrboyce wrote: post #354
alexchantavy wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adding my own datapoint: I’ve absolutely had this happen on iPhone to iPhone where the message appeared to be sent on one device but the other received nothing

If I was being asked to debug this for someone I know, my first two questions would be “did your phone say delivered?” and “does the recipient have a Mac/iPad/etc that could’ve received the message?”; do you know the answer to either of these? I worry that sounds accusatory but that’s not my intention, I’m curious and too tired to attempt to reword it.

Not person you responded to… but isn’t it safe to assume that iMessages are delivered to all devices on the account?

Re: Apple partly halts Beeper's iMessage app again, suggesting a long fight ahead

#454

Post by JoblessWonder »

makeitdouble wrote: post #347
wrboyce wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has never, ever, happened to me and I have been using iMessage daily since its inception. I call shenanigans.

https://www.coolmuster.com/ios-recovery/iphone-text-messages... Doesn't feel like some rare issue. Googled it by curiosity, and there's a ton of "help" articles and support post on people randomly seeing messages disappear or not getting delivered.

Just a heads up, this article is SEO clickbait for a backup app and a lot of the others might be as well.

Re: Apple partly halts Beeper's iMessage app again, suggesting a long fight ahead

#455

Post by prmoustache »

ck425 wrote: post #103
shreyansh_k wrote: post #31

This seems to be Beeper's insincere attempt at dressing up their grievances to appear as if they were in advantage of the [Apple's] customer. Apple has made it clear that they won't bring iMessage to Android. People who choose to invest in Android phones know they won't get access to iMessage. It seems a bit entitled behaviour for someone to feel like Apple should be forced to bring iMessage to Android for any reason…

Out of curiosity why does this matter? Do iPhone users not use WhatsApp or Messenger? Is this a USA specific thing? As a UK Android user I've never used iMessage and don't see any reason why I'd need or want to.

I guess egoism is so entrenched in the USA that choosing a platform that all your friends and relatives can use to communicate to is just too much for them.

Re: Apple partly halts Beeper's iMessage app again, suggesting a long fight ahead

#456

Post by tshirthoodie »

frumper wrote: post #441
tshirthoodie wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, who knows? I am only brainstorming. Ever since I discovered the abysmal state of Apple's customer service after having my iphone stolen last year, I feel confident we will never know.

I’m just curious what you think Apple should do for a stolen phone?

For a stolen phone with AppleCare+ insurance that has been paid for every month since purchasing the phone, they should at least offer a way to file a claim.

The only way to submit a claim was to click on a button in my icloud account that did not exist. I live in a big city and visited 3 Apple stores and spent about 15 hours in them in total, but none of them were able to help me get the claim filed so I had to give up. One of the supervisors did refund the ~$15/mo that I had paid for the AppleCare+ insurance, but I had to buy a new phone.

Re: Apple partly halts Beeper's iMessage app again, suggesting a long fight ahead

#457

Post by JoblessWonder »

tshirthoodie wrote: post #270
JoblessWonder wrote: post #122

As I mentioned in the previous discussion[1], users are going to have to put up with the system going down... and I just don't see that happening. From the article: "It was losing messages during the outage and never being entirely certain they had been sent or received. There was a gathering on Saturday, and she had to double-check with a couple people about the details after showing up inadvertently early at the wr…

Apple's iMessage implementation loses messages all the time. It happens about once every month between my girlfriend and I. I have also had iMesages be sent to the wrong recipient. In one ongoing case, my aunt and uncle frequently receive each other's iMessages, suggesting it's related to their group carrier plan but it's hard to say. The extended family all knows to use SMS instead, which reliably goes to the intend…

Gotta check Settings -> Messages -> Send & Receive.

I would bet there is at least one overlap or misconfiguration there.

Re: Apple partly halts Beeper's iMessage app again, suggesting a long fight ahead

#458

Post by fh9302 »

rezonant wrote: post #439
shreyansh_k wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can be agreeable to an extend that Apple seem like an extremely restrictive, anti consumer and anti competition. But, the other side (Android), which has been positioned open, pro-consumer and pro-competition doesn't seem to be true to its roots or any better anyways. Android is mostly dominated by Samsung and Samsung is heavily pushing their own ecosystem of apps, just like every other company, and most brands wa…

You can push your own ecosystem of apps and still allow your customers to replace them. I'm not aware of a Samsung app or service that cannot be swapped out. And I struggle even more to find a Samsung component that is designed to create network effect lock in like iMessage is. And Apple Messages can't be swapped out, it is the only texting app on iOS. You can install Signal or Whatsapp or whatever, but you can only…

RCS can't be swapped out, Google hasn't opened the API so you are forced to use Google or Samsung messages app.

Re: Apple partly halts Beeper's iMessage app again, suggesting a long fight ahead

#459

Post by prmoustache »

nocoiner wrote: post #4

Beeper CEO, from the article: "If there's enough pressure on Apple, they will have to quit messing with us." "Us," he clarified, meant both Apple's customers using iMessage and Android users trying to chat securely with iPhone friends. "That's who they're penalizing," he wrote. "It's not a Beeper vs. Apple fight, it's Apple versus customers." Not really sure how this is anti-customer. Apple customers have ample acces…

> Not really sure how this is anti-customer. Apple customers have ample access to iMessage, after all. And as has been noted many, many times, there are many means of accessing secure cross-platform messaging.

The point of a secure instant messaging protocol/app is to be able to communicate securely with people. If the company providing said app make it on purpose difficult for its customers to communicate with people, it is penalizing them.

We are not talking technical difficulties, we are talking unwillingness to let a secure channel stay open and making so that communication with people is less secure.

Re: Apple partly halts Beeper's iMessage app again, suggesting a long fight ahead

#460

Post by vintermann »

zem wrote: post #399
rezonant wrote: post #313

I think this is kinda technically a win for Beeper. I would've expected another 100% lockout to be Apple's priority. They were instead only able to block 5%, which sounds like a heuristic being applied, and possibly not even an intentional block of Beeper (in the sense that some anti-spam service may be identifying some Beeper users). They can certainly escalate with protocol changes, but they still have to contend w…

i believe that thus far it's a win for apple - all they need to do is introduce the perception that beeper is not 100% reliable, which is the kiss of death for something as potentially important as a messaging service.

Oh no, if the alternative is getting rid of your Android phone and go buy an iPhone, it needs to be a lot worse than that.
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