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

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531–540 of 665 posts

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

#531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I use iMessage regularly, and have done so since it was first released. I have never , to my knowledge, had a message sent to me lost (which I would have found out because my family members, who would have been the ones to try and fail to send it to me, would have mentioned it), nor lost a message I sent (except for obvious cases where I had insufficient signal, and the app clearly notified me of it). I have never re…

I don't think anyone's claiming the GP's experience is universal. A quick search suggests that there are just under 1.5 billion iPhone users in the world. That's a lot of messages going back and forth. Anyone who's ever worked with distributed systems can tell you that the idea that a message never gets dropped is just hilarious and absurd.

I expect message loss is actually a pretty regular occurrence, in absolute numbers. I wouldn't be surprised if thousands or even hundreds of thousands or millions of messages are dropped every year. But in the end that means that the delivery rate would be something like 99.99999999999%, which is actually pretty damn good (and it probably isn't that good; I'm just throwing around numbers here).

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

#532

These comments mention spam a lot as a reason to stick with iMessage. What kind of spam are people (presumably in the US) getting outside of iMessage? I’m in the EU, I get very little SMS spam (mostly for telecom’s clumsy attempts to find more ways to monetize me). I also have Viber, Telegram, and FB messenger, and the spam is virtually zero on Viber (less than an “offer” a month, and it’s from the likes of Coca Cola…

I don’t see how it would make a difference anyway; iMessage will still display the regular SMS messages, so iMessage users are still susceptible to spam. (I checked and as an iMessage user I had about 10 in the last month)

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

#533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not just about market share. In Scandinavia about 90% of middle class people use iphones, but this whole blue-green bubble nonsense is a total non-issue. We have group chats in whatsapp, fb messages or sms, nobody cares.

> In Scandinavia about 90% of middle class people use iphones Whoa, citation needed there. I don't use one, and most people I know don't use one.

Aren't you part of the royal family?

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

#534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have seen comments from iMessage users, and it is also logical to assume that they would prefer if there was a way to chat with their Android friends via iMessage while having most of the nice features. An Android iMessage app would only be bad for Apple, since they will no longer be able retain and convert users based on them being or not being able to comfortably message their friends.

As an Apple customer here's my thoughts on this: 1. Yes I would love if iMessage went Android and all my Android friends were able to react, thread convos, and all the other perks that iMessage allows, BUT the color of the message doesn't matter to me. I'm ok with the green bubbles too. 2. If iMessages was available on Android, I and every iPhone user I know wouldn't be like "finally, I can leave Apple!" iMessage is…

1. Sure, completely get this.

2. This might be the case for most people, but I have heard people did or do switch obly due to iMessage. To be clear I don't think there would be a huge exodus, but it is a major lock-in feature in the US. Or at least that is what I have read.

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

#535

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…

Apple has on occasion done out-of-band patches for older devices to fix serious security issues, so it doesn't seem too unrealistic.

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

#536
post #466

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

SMS is not reliable. Messages are routinely lost.

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

#537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Is this really a problem? I seriously doubt many people are going to leave someone out because they use an Android phone. I certainly won't because I like communicating with people and people are far more important than technology.

One Android user means you can no longer send images, video, gifs, or emoji. You can’t react to messages. Sending and receiving no longer works on wifi, so it doesn’t work well in many workplaces.

SMS is a disaster, so it’s best just to leave out the green bubbles.

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

#538

These comments mention spam a lot as a reason to stick with iMessage. What kind of spam are people (presumably in the US) getting outside of iMessage? I’m in the EU, I get very little SMS spam (mostly for telecom’s clumsy attempts to find more ways to monetize me). I also have Viber, Telegram, and FB messenger, and the spam is virtually zero on Viber (less than an “offer” a month, and it’s from the likes of Coca Cola…

Every couple of weeks I will be added to a spam Telegram group, maybe once a month I'll get a spam or scam whatsapp.

I have had the occasional iMessage spam too but haven't seen that in years.

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

#539
It seems like the effort Apple is putting in stopping this is an indicator of how many people buy iPhones just for being in their iMessage circles. Which is only possible as long as Apple keeps snubbing RCS and making messaging painful to non-iPhone users.

If, say, a random cheap Motorola with Beeper could keep them in the same groups as before, Apple would probably lose a (small) chunks of its clients.

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

#540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In Scandinavia about 90% of middle class people use iphones Whoa, citation needed there. I don't use one, and most people I know don't use one.

That's an exaggeration but I assume 70-80% in upper middle class would be realistic? At least in Norway and Denmark, maybe a bit less so in Sweden.

The numbers differ a bit in different sources, but seems to be around 60% for Sweden. https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/sweden Based on that upper middle class being a bit more common seems likely.

Regardless, the original point stands regardless of it being 50% or 80%.

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