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The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down

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Re: The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down

#101

Post by hu3 »

jwagenet wrote: post #96
jpalawaga wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no, it's not, but is the default that works well for a large chunk of people, with an (intentionally) poorly degrading experience if one person in the group is not with the "in-crowd." Yes, life would be better if everyone mutually agreed to use things crossplatform all of the time. but they don't/haven't, so there is this friction.

Blame the carriers for not implementing rcs and getting stuck in horrible mms. Then blame Apple if they don’t implement it.

Fortunately it's up to regulators to decide what favors the population best.

At least in EU they seem to be active (USB iPhones anyone), albeit slower than I'd like.

Re: The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down

#102

Post by hu3 »

cjk2 wrote: post #90
joecot wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have yet to find anyone outside the tech industry who actually knows or gives a crap. Lots of school kids who get mocked for being "Green Texters" with crummy images and videos in their group texts. They really want their parents to shell out for an iPhone so it stops. Just because non-tech people don't know the cause, doesn't mean it doesn't affect them.

I'm not in the US but this is not a thing anywhere in the UK at least. Everyone uses WhatsApp. Same with all my friends in Europe. Same with my kids and their friends, although they all seem to be on SnapChat more than anything. Actually we don't even tend to bother even talking about which phones you have. It's just meh. My best friend doesn't even know what iMessage is as an example.

It's a US problem. First link of a quick search:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/03/apples-green-bub...

Re: The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down

#103

Post by hu3 »

op00to wrote: post #76
s1k3s wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has nothing to do with the classic Apple vs Android debate. It's about Apple's practices of pushing people to purchase the iPhone even if they might not want to.

SMS still works fine. No one is forced to purchase an iPhone because they want to message someone.

In US, green bubble social peer-pressure does force many teens to buy iPhones.

Re: The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down

#104

Post by glitchcrab »

lupusreal wrote: post #37
fidotron wrote: post #16

The thing people love forgetting is a huge part of the iPhone success is based on the North American cellular comms industry being a trustless disaster area. The deal Apple did with AT&T opened the floodgates. Android was initially designed so that operators could customise it. The idea was apps were developed (and sold) only by operators, and everything else would be via the browser. If you had used a Nokia device i…

That's a nice history lesson but sideloading alternate appstores (namely F-Droid) on Android works great and Apple shouldn't be allowed to forbid the same on iOS. And I don't give a damn about the "grandma conned into sideloading scam apps" scenario. Grandma is getting scammed over regular phonecalls already anyway.

So to extrapolate, you're fine with your grandma being scammed via a new avenue because she's already being scammed in other ways?

Re: The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down

#105

Post by Wowfunhappy »

rootusrootus wrote: post #55
pmarreck wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “iMessage on Android would simply serve to remove an obstacle to iPhone families giving their kids Android phones.” This statement says a few extra things that Craig Federighi probably didn't realize he was saying. 1) It suggests that the iPhone wouldn't be able to hold its own in a market where interoperability with Android was easier. That demonstrates a lack of faith in it. 2) I've noticed that any time a corpor…

> It suggests that the iPhone wouldn't be able to hold its own in a market where interoperability with Android was easier It is just a statement of the obvious. Price tends to trump every other consideration, unless the difference is pretty big. See also airline ticket pricing and the race to the bottom in comfort & features. If there is no differentiator, a lot of people will just get Android phones because they cos…

> It is just a statement of the obvious. Price tends to trump every other consideration, unless the difference is pretty big.

But, huge swaths of the public regularly pay much more than the minimum required to have better:

• Cars

• Clothing

• Restaurants

• Theater seats

These are just the first few that come to mind.

Now, is the difference between high- and low-end clothing "pretty big"? I guess it depends on what you mean, but both will fundamentally cover your body.

For airlines, people just want to get from point A to point B, and nothing else really matters at the end of the day. Even on higher end airlines, flying is unlikely to be a truly pleasant experience, unless maybe you pay almost an order of magnitude more for first class or something. People just want to get it over with.

I mean, I think we're saying the same thing here. But whereas I feel you're framing this as a "bug" in how consumers operate, I think they're behaving quite logically. People will pay more for things they actually care about. When they don't care, they choose the cheapest option.

Re: The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down

#106

Post by hu3 »

nozzlegear wrote: post #86
layer8 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just wait a bit, you will encounter lots of stuff that doesn’t work, or that has you jump through hoops or buy a subscription, soon enough.

Can you name some examples, instead of being vague?

Just an example I had recently, my friend replaced his iPhone 8 because after two years of it functioning perfectly fine, apps started crashing/closing out of nowhere. Not to mention he constantly complained about apps being slow.

His Apple maps frequently pointed to slightly wrong places (like 50 meters off) when given coordinates shared by messaging apps. Sometimes closing the maps app and reclicking the link fixed the position. It got to a point that he started sharing destination coordinates with me so I could open Google Maps on my phone so we could navigate confidently.

Also he complained that Canva and Instagram apps were slow or broken for some operations on the phone. For example trying to share a longer video in reels resulted in app crashing. But those are not Apple apps so I'm not even counting all these third party issues. But it was like death by a thousand cuts.

Since replacing his iPhone for a newer model, everything was fixed. For now.

Re: The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down

#107

Post by lynndotpy »

abaymado wrote: post #88
joecot wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have yet to find anyone outside the tech industry who actually knows or gives a crap. Lots of school kids who get mocked for being "Green Texters" with crummy images and videos in their group texts. They really want their parents to shell out for an iPhone so it stops. Just because non-tech people don't know the cause, doesn't mean it doesn't affect them.

This is an outrageous take. Is iMessage the only group messaging app? If Apple was gate keeping all group messaging, I could see your point.

It's not a take; it's simply a description, and it's accurate. There is a significant and undeniable social pressure for young people in the US to have an iPhone.

If you can't use iMessage, you'll simply be excluded from group chats.

Speaking exclusively from the cross-platform perspective, things are better nowadays with the expectation of Instagram and Discord, but you'll still be excluded from group chats for not having iMessage.

I think this is a pretty big generational difference. I think most US citizens born after 2000 are well aware of the green bubble stigma as a simple fact of life.

Re: The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down

#108

Post by Teever »

sonofhans wrote: post #99
s1k3s wrote: post #5

> Apple executive Eddy Cue pushed for an Android iMessage app in 2016, but Craig Federighi responded in an internal email that “iMessage on Android would simply serve to remove an obstacle to iPhone families giving their kids Android phones.” This conversation happened 8 years ago and it was about a product released 12 years ago. If anything, this shows how slow regulators are before they take any action and how they…

I’m struggling to see what’s wrong with Federighi’s argument. Why should he not want to protect Apple’s position? Apple has no monopoly on mobile messaging or hardware, and they didn’t 8 years ago either, so they can do what they like here. What is Apple supposed to do? Spend time and money on interop to better the lives of Android users? There’s nothing wrong with them doing so if they like, but I fail to see any ob…

You're right. They obviously have no motivation to do the correct thing, so the solution is government regulation.

We live in a world where every landline telephone can dial another with no trickery or fuckery from your phone manufacturer.

That is a good thing. We should extend that functionally to smartphones.

Re: The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down

#109

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

glitchcrab wrote: post #104
lupusreal wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a nice history lesson but sideloading alternate appstores (namely F-Droid) on Android works great and Apple shouldn't be allowed to forbid the same on iOS. And I don't give a damn about the "grandma conned into sideloading scam apps" scenario. Grandma is getting scammed over regular phonecalls already anyway.

So to extrapolate, you're fine with your grandma being scammed via a new avenue because she's already being scammed in other ways?

I think the GP regards the scams as an acceptable price to pay for additional user choice, which is a reasonable position.

Re: The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down

#110

Post by meowster »

abaymado wrote: post #88
joecot wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have yet to find anyone outside the tech industry who actually knows or gives a crap. Lots of school kids who get mocked for being "Green Texters" with crummy images and videos in their group texts. They really want their parents to shell out for an iPhone so it stops. Just because non-tech people don't know the cause, doesn't mean it doesn't affect them.

This is an outrageous take. Is iMessage the only group messaging app? If Apple was gate keeping all group messaging, I could see your point.

It's a very common take that has been around for a very long time, so not outrageous in my opinion. Unless you mean outrageous on Apple's part, then I agree with you.
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