Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple responds to the Beeper iMessage saga: 'We took steps to protect our users'

theverge.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 105 posts

Re: Apple responds to the Beeper iMessage saga: 'We took steps to protect our users'

#21

Post by adaml_623 »

TheRealPomax wrote: post #17
lol768 wrote: post #13

This isn't a technical problem. Nobody really uses iMessage enough in the EU, but in the USA where people seem to shun use of third-party messaging apps like WhatsApp, the solution would be to deem Apple a "gatekeeper" under legislation equivalent to the Digital Markets Act and force interoperability via regulation given Apple's market dominance. The regulatory process has worked with side-loading, and EU citizens wi…

Almost 80 million users of whatsapp in the US (330m pop) vs 120 million users in all of Europe (746m pop) kind of undermines that line of reasoning? If anything, the US uses whatsapp way more than Europe. If we were looking at true third party messaging platforms that aren't owned by trillion dollar mega corps that can push their products onto every phone, then... maybe? The US barely uses Telegram compared to Europe…

Sorry a quick Google suggests your figures for EU users is very inaccurate. Do you have a source?

Re: Apple responds to the Beeper iMessage saga: 'We took steps to protect our users'

#22

Post by AlexAndScripts »

TheRealPomax wrote: post #17
lol768 wrote: post #13

This isn't a technical problem. Nobody really uses iMessage enough in the EU, but in the USA where people seem to shun use of third-party messaging apps like WhatsApp, the solution would be to deem Apple a "gatekeeper" under legislation equivalent to the Digital Markets Act and force interoperability via regulation given Apple's market dominance. The regulatory process has worked with side-loading, and EU citizens wi…

Almost 80 million users of whatsapp in the US (330m pop) vs 120 million users in all of Europe (746m pop) kind of undermines that line of reasoning? If anything, the US uses whatsapp way more than Europe. If we were looking at true third party messaging platforms that aren't owned by trillion dollar mega corps that can push their products onto every phone, then... maybe? The US barely uses Telegram compared to Europe…

As I understand it different regions of Europe use different messaging apps, but none use SMS, though the UK uses it more. As far as I know Telegram is particularly popular in Eastern Europe.

Re: Apple responds to the Beeper iMessage saga: 'We took steps to protect our users'

#23

Post by realusername »

snailmailman wrote: post #4

iMessage is just about the only form of communication that I’ve NEVER received any spam through. I get spam SMS all the time and spam calls all the time . I get spam emails 24/7, and even spam DMs on any social media platform that has DMs. There is no iMessage spam. Apple has it tightly controlled and locked down. I can kinda see why Apple wants to preserve their ecosystem. But also, there are so many other options i…

It does have spam, there's nothing preventing scammers to buy boxes of old half broken phones and turning them into relays and that's exactly what they are doing.

Re: Apple responds to the Beeper iMessage saga: 'We took steps to protect our users'

#24

Post by [deleted] »

lol768 wrote: post #13

This isn't a technical problem. Nobody really uses iMessage enough in the EU, but in the USA where people seem to shun use of third-party messaging apps like WhatsApp, the solution would be to deem Apple a "gatekeeper" under legislation equivalent to the Digital Markets Act and force interoperability via regulation given Apple's market dominance. The regulatory process has worked with side-loading, and EU citizens wi…

[deleted]

Re: Apple responds to the Beeper iMessage saga: 'We took steps to protect our users'

#25

Post by dawnerd »

unshavedyak wrote: post #12
dawnerd wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get iMessage spam all the time, Apple even has a report spam feature so it’s clearly an issue. I guess you’re just lucky but it definitely exists. I got four just in the last day even.

Wonder what the cause is? I don’t think I’ve literally ever received a spam on iMessage

Far as I can tell they’re all sent to my icloud address. Flip side I basically never get spam calls.

Re: Apple responds to the Beeper iMessage saga: 'We took steps to protect our users'

#26

Post by refulgentis »

not_your_vase wrote: post #20
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #3

I've asked this 3 times across the various threads on this, and have yet to get a 100% confirmed "you are right" answer because I don't know the specifics and I haven't come into anybody who has taken the time to research the answer: When you log in to iMessage and the various underlying protocols/services, you do it with an Apple ID. Is that Apple ID tied in a one-to-many (but you need at least one) fashion of regis…

> If it isn't, why doesn't Apple do this Not sure if there would be any real benefit in that. Consider the over-abused Macs at university campuses as an example, used by 10s-100s of persons/day, each potentially logging in with their own user ID. Suddenly their ID is tied to a legit HW, if it wasn't the case already. Of course, technically, Apple could ban the IDs or these computers... but why would they?

I think you're right --

You piqued my curiosity with your example, though.

10-100s of people logging into the same Mac with their Apple ID?

Is that possible?

I thought there was a 1:1 mapping of, say, Apple ID signed into ID : *NIX account.

Does OS X have something more ephemeral these days? That would be fantastic for shared computing.

Re: Apple responds to the Beeper iMessage saga: 'We took steps to protect our users'

#27

Post by georgespencer »

unshavedyak wrote: post #14
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #3

I've asked this 3 times across the various threads on this, and have yet to get a 100% confirmed "you are right" answer because I don't know the specifics and I haven't come into anybody who has taken the time to research the answer: When you log in to iMessage and the various underlying protocols/services, you do it with an Apple ID. Is that Apple ID tied in a one-to-many (but you need at least one) fashion of regis…

I’ve had this same question. I use beeper because I’m an Apple user and want access to what I pay for. I’m confused by the pathway where paying apple can be skipped.

> want access to what I pay for

You do not pay for this. You would like to, I’m sure.

Re: Apple responds to the Beeper iMessage saga: 'We took steps to protect our users'

#28

Post by Wytwwww »

AlexAndScripts wrote: post #22
TheRealPomax wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost 80 million users of whatsapp in the US (330m pop) vs 120 million users in all of Europe (746m pop) kind of undermines that line of reasoning? If anything, the US uses whatsapp way more than Europe. If we were looking at true third party messaging platforms that aren't owned by trillion dollar mega corps that can push their products onto every phone, then... maybe? The US barely uses Telegram compared to Europe…

As I understand it different regions of Europe use different messaging apps, but none use SMS, though the UK uses it more. As far as I know Telegram is particularly popular in Eastern Europe.

> but none use SMS

Why are you so certain of that? Where I am their popularity has been declining over the years but a lot of people are still used to sending them (they have been very cheap/free here since the mid 2000s at least). WhatsApp isn't that huge here either (FB Messenger is though).

Re: Apple responds to the Beeper iMessage saga: 'We took steps to protect our users'

#29

Post by throw310822 »

notyourwork wrote: post #2

In other words, Apple wants to control who enters their garden. Not surprised and not sure I disagree. Why is it that Beeper, or anyone else that isn’t Apple gets to decide who uses iMessage?

The question is not why Apple should give access to their messaging system to third parties- they have the full right of doing whatever they want. The question is why the customers don't give Apple and its pathetic excuses the middle finger- and instead praise the wisdom of the company and whine about Android users not buying iPhones. This in the face of a perfectly clear example of Apple making the life of its own customers miserable in order to milk more money from the general populace.

Re: Apple responds to the Beeper iMessage saga: 'We took steps to protect our users'

#30

Post by sbuk »

throw310822 wrote: post #29
notyourwork wrote: post #2

In other words, Apple wants to control who enters their garden. Not surprised and not sure I disagree. Why is it that Beeper, or anyone else that isn’t Apple gets to decide who uses iMessage?

The question is not why Apple should give access to their messaging system to third parties- they have the full right of doing whatever they want. The question is why the customers don't give Apple and its pathetic excuses the middle finger- and instead praise the wisdom of the company and whine about Android users not buying iPhones. This in the face of a perfectly clear example of Apple making the life of its own c…

> "The question is why the customers don't give Apple and its pathetic excuses the middle finger- and instead praise the wisdom of the company and whine about Android users not buying iPhones"

Likewise, Android users "whine" about being not let in an use all sorts of logical fallacies to make their case. The solution, which the rest of the Android and iOS using planet has come to, is to simply use another cross platform product. There are plenty of them. Some closed, some open. All have similar features. They integrate into the respective OSs nicely. For instance, WhatsApp and Signal contacts appear in share sheets in-between iMessage contacts in iOS, so sharing things like websites is simple.

No, Messages being the default does not give Apple any advantage, again as demonstrated by the rest of the world. That isn't to say iMessage isn't used at all, but it is very much an also ran in the significant majority of markets.

Post reply on HN