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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

#461

Post by flomo »

chongli wrote: post #431
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…

My father has an iPhone 8 which did not receive the latest iOS update. I can iMessage him just fine. There are millions of people out there running old iPhones like that. If Apple just decided to cut them all off iMessage they would do far more damage to their brand than Beeper could possibly manage.

That doesn't seem hard, people like your father can be allow-listed, he's not signing-up out of the blue. (I'm wondering if this "works" because the early adopters were hackintosh types who were already on imessage and not abusers. When the H3rb8l V18gr8 crowd shows up, that is the end.)

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

#462

Post by merrywhether »

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.

If Zelda is so great why doesn’t Nintendo make it available on more platforms? Being able to run Nintendo games is a prime feature of the Switch product, and being able to run Apple software and services is a prime feature of an iPhone product. By your definition anything useful about an item is simply a marketing tool?

It’d be a very different world if nothing was allowed to have unique access to anything. It might even be better, but it would be a long way from this current version of capitalism.

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

#463

Post by j16sdiz »

rezonant wrote: post #447
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…

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.

Don't need to go to Apple store.

It is self-seviced https://selfsolve.apple.com/deregister-imessage/

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

#464

Post by prmoustache »

qeternity wrote: post #35
echelon wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple customers have ample access to iMessage, after all. It's not really fair that Apple gets to build snares around owning the most successful and important platform in modern civilization. This isn't an automobile where there are 50 alternative manufacturers, this is the "everything" device that handles your bills, employment, connections to loved ones, etc. And there's only one other choice of vendor in the Uni…

> This isn't an automobile where there are 50 alternative manufacturers No, it’s exactly this. There are a ton of manufacturers all providing this product. It just so happens that Apple’s is one of the best, if not the best. And as has been mentioned, there are tons of secure messaging alternatives. It’s just that people prefer iMessage. This is not illegal or anticompetitive. Imagine if someone claimed they should b…

> It just so happens that Apple’s is one of the best, if not the best.

I don't think you can explain it that way. Network effect is a thing and instant messaging preferences are very regional.

Also:

- With same products and quality Apple probably would probably have lower share in the USA if it was a chinese or iranian company.

- Regardless of its qualities the iphone has long been and is still a social class status symbol.

- The conversation on hn is skewed because iphones have slightly higher than 50% of market share in the USA, not 90% yet commenters on hn mention that their social circle is almost entirely made of iMessage users, which means the average hn commenter is of a much higher income and social class than the average US smartphone user. Using hn is mostly like entering a fancy suburb and only discuss with a limited subset of the population.

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

#465

Post by stefandesu »

chongli wrote: post #431
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…

My father has an iPhone 8 which did not receive the latest iOS update. I can iMessage him just fine. There are millions of people out there running old iPhones like that. If Apple just decided to cut them all off iMessage they would do far more damage to their brand than Beeper could possibly manage.

My mom has an iPhone 5s running iOS 12 (current is iOS 17, so the software itself is already five years old), and iMessage still works well.

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

#466

Post by zem »

vintermann wrote: post #460
zem wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

the alternative is just continuing to sms people from your android because at least you know the messages are definitely going through, green bubble or not

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

#467

Post by simonklitj »

rtpg wrote: post #442
huevosabio wrote: post #406

Completely uninformed question, doesn't this fight just push people to WhatsApp? I never use SMS, and no one in Mexico does either. My friends in Europe seem to largely use WhatsApp as well. So it really seems like Americans are outliers in their choice for iMessage / SMS. So, wouldn't this push Americans to WhatsApp?

I think what happened is that Americans got unlimited SMS plans meaning they got used to just communicating by SMS. Europe got WhatsApp to deal with wild SMS pricing. So Europeans moved over to WhatsApp etc. Americans continued using SMS. Apple took advantage of this with iMessage silently upgrading stuff to their protocol. On top of this iPhone penetration in many places in the US is much higher I think.

Wild SMS pricing in Europe? Unlimited SMS has been the default in Denmark for at least 15 years.

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

#468

Post by vintermann »

zem wrote: post #466
vintermann wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

the alternative is just continuing to sms people from your android because at least you know the messages are definitely going through, green bubble or not

You still face such problems as being left out of group chats.

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

#470

Post by usui »

flomo wrote: post #461
chongli wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My father has an iPhone 8 which did not receive the latest iOS update. I can iMessage him just fine. There are millions of people out there running old iPhones like that. If Apple just decided to cut them all off iMessage they would do far more damage to their brand than Beeper could possibly manage.

That doesn't seem hard, people like your father can be allow-listed, he's not signing-up out of the blue. (I'm wondering if this "works" because the early adopters were hackintosh types who were already on imessage and not abusers. When the H3rb8l V18gr8 crowd shows up, that is the end.)

The what crowd?
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