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Apple Invites

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Re: Apple Invites

#531

Post by sfRattan »

crazygringo wrote: post #501
m463 wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And the cheapest tier is $0.99/mo. for 50 GB so it's not exactly breaking the bank. This is a huge trick. Like any other service where the most friction is setting up billing... then they can increase the price easily. Do upgrades to other tiers require confirmation?

You have to explicitly upgrade. There's no trick as far as I can tell. And they haven't increased the price of the $0.99 tier ever, and it's been around for 8 years I think. I don't think they've ever increased the price of any storage plan in the US ever -- prices in other countries have changed but that seems to do more with currency fluctuations. Apple is known for their transparent pricing and easy cancellation.…

If anything their trick is in how they describe the storage tiers on their website[1]:

> $0.99/mo for 50GB: Storage for thousands of photos, videos, and files.

> $2.99/mo for 200GB: Great for family sharing or larger media libraries.

> $9.99/mo for 2TB: Plenty of space for all the family’s photos, videos, and files.

Other than the $0.99 tier, these storage numbers are comically low for the uses cases Apple describes in plain English. But that's par for the course with Apple... An arm, a leg, and your firstborn for storage and RAM upgrades. As in hardware, so in SaaS cloud storage, I guess.

[1]: https://www.apple.com/icloud/

Re: Apple Invites

#532

Post by joshuamorton »

in_cahoots wrote: post #507
joshuamorton wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...Why? The competition I see for this is partiful ( https://partiful.com/ ), which is free, handles invites for folks without accounts (I don't have one, I am invited to parties via text message), and is clearly the inspiration/competition apples for this app given the visual similarities.

Simple: I’ve never heard of it until this thread. I get probably 20 birthday party invites a year from Silicon Valley-type families, and they are all using Evite or Paperless Post. There was a time when I would have looked for alternatives or rolled my own solution, but living busy toddler life means I pick my battles and grumble about it on Hacker News :) I think they both used to be cheaper, but now they’re focused…

Amusingly, I've never heard of either of those. Partiful is much more oriented towards less "professional" parties, it's replacing what was the facebook event segment of a lot of my social circle event organizing.

I'd be pretty peeved to spend any money on such a service, and many of my friends simply couldn't.

Re: Apple Invites

#533

Post by NoPicklez »

canucker2016 wrote: post #523
NoPicklez wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm an Apple guy and I have to disagree, it's not the Telco's. Android implemented RCS and Apple dragged their feet in implementing the standardised platform such that high quality messaging was seamless and agnostic between brands The iPhone needed to reduce the quality of pics/videos to non-iMessage recipients because Apple didn't support any other form of non-iMessage messaging.

iPhone, for non-iMessage recipients, was limited by MMS limits. Who sets the MMS limits? the telcos - actually min(both ends), the iPhone sender's telco and the recipient's telco. iMessage was introduced in 2011. see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMessage Google announced RCS support for Google Messages in 2019. from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Communication_Services "In June 2019, Google announced that it wou…

They still needed Telco support and Telco's have adopted the technology, Apple has only just adopted the technology late last year, taking them approximately 4+ years since it was supported.

Yes Apple provided an improved messaging service before there was one via iMessage, however they have failed in allowing their service to integrate with the rest of the industry that is looking to support an improved open standard that would allow for a better experience between different mobile operating systems.

The original point you commented on was about Apple not integrating with other platforms.

As I said, I'm an Apple guy but Apple should've implemented RCS as soon as the telco's supported it.

Re: Apple Invites

#534

Post by ninkendo »

RIMR wrote: post #213
roddylindsay wrote: post #28

Brilliant move. The transition of the major social networks over the last 10-15 years -- from being a space for friends to interact to being a space to consume content produced by "unconnected" entities like influencers -- has created a huge opening for someone to claim the friends and family network. There is no one better positioned (at least in the U.S. where iPhones are the majority handset) than Apple.

The problem is that by vendor-locking these services to Apple users, they create an environment that alienates non-Apple users. If they want to truly claim the friends & family network, they need to remember that everyone has friends & family that aren't in the Apple ecosystem. So long as Facebook remains available to everyone, even if the content feed is a mess, the event planning space is going to be more accessibl…

> So long as Facebook remains available to everyone

This is not a given even today. Creating a new Facebook account involves a ton of scrutiny, you need to upload an ID, and until your account is older and established it’s likely that anything you do can get auto-scanned by some spam bot and get you banned for using some keyword, even in private chats.

I don’t have a Facebook account but I needed to create one a few years back to use my oculus quest (this is before they finally came to their senses and separated the accounts) and I had a lot of trouble convincing FB that I was a real human.

Re: Apple Invites

#536

Post by schmorptron »

This is a good type of feature. I've been super happy that WhatsApp finally added events recently, it's made seeing who will be coming to an event or not so much easier. Them adding polls a while back had already improved that a bunch, but this is even better, since it sends reminders and so on.

Of course Apple could use this to do vendor lock in (only apple users can create invites), but since anyone can join them I don't see it as a large issue.

Re: Apple Invites

#537

Post by john2x »

Melatonic wrote: post #400
john2x wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A quick search suggests the Android user end needs to install 3rd party apps for it to work? Has that changed recently?

Usually you actually need to not use third party apps. RCS on Android is usually restricted to Google Messages (or maybe Samsungs built in messages app). Everyone else got the boot You also sometimes have to enable in the settings for Android Messages (and have a supported carrier). iMessage also has an option to enable RCS but I believe its on by default in the newer versions of iOS

Hmm ok so it doesn't actually work :(

Even if it worked with 3rd party apps, at that point why not install something like Signal.

Re: Apple Invites

#538

Post by latexr »

lordofgibbons wrote: post #362

I really hope this fails. Apple will use it's dominant position to create lock in like how they did with iMessage instead of cooperating with other platforms on a common standard. Oder friends and family are surprised when they want to video call over Facetime and find it hard to believe other people's phones don't have Apple apps.

It’s possible to join FaceTime calls from a web browser.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/109364

I’m not defending Apple and don’t really want to get into a discussion into how limited this FaceTime over the web is and whatnot, I do think it could and should be done better. I’m just making a specific suggestion which may ease up your burden with those friends and family.

Re: Apple Invites

#539

Post by Biganon »

cortesoft wrote: post #508
Hackbraten wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WhatsApp absolutely has hardware lock-in. You need to be an Apple or Google customer to use it, and you need at least one Android or iOS phone.

I use WhatsApp on my desktop

The desktop version requires you to connect with your phone. It's just a proxy to your phone.
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