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Tether: iMessage, SMS, etc. on Linux

zackbartel.com

71–80 of 231 posts

Re: Tether: iMessage, SMS, etc. on Linux

#71
As a KDE Connect user for a few years I know it doesn't always work without reconnecting especially with sleep cycles on the phone and the laptop but it does everything on Android at least - clipboard sync, notifications, sms, calls, remote control and media playback control. Must be iOS restrictions that made the author go through the admirable effort.

IOW Linux ecosystem has better vertical integration without any direct ties with Android :)

Re: Tether: iMessage, SMS, etc. on Linux

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love HN. Read an article that raises a reasonable point about a project’s license, and that project’s author shows up to announce they were convinced and changed the license accordingly. Repo was updated 5 minutes ago. It’s things like this that give me hope for the world.

Not to be Debbie Downer but software licensing has no effect on what matters to billions of people. We are facing very real global and societal issues that people on this site are actively exacerbating, like disinformation and climate change. If a dude changing an inconsequential text file on GitHub gives you hope for the world, then please broaden your perspective.

[deleted]

Re: Tether: iMessage, SMS, etc. on Linux

#73

Mega-kudos to the author for chipping away at the wall around Apple’s garden. I have had a iPhone for 15 years, and I have only ever been able to back it up with iTunes on windows (as I will never buy a Mac). Apple’s refusal to provide interoperability borders on criminal. I wish there was a better option.

Doesn’t interoperability work two(Windows)-three(Linux) ways?

Re: Tether: iMessage, SMS, etc. on Linux

#74
Oh, so it requires an app, which isn't even available on older iOS versions… that's such a shame, I wanted to try it out on my iOS 17.0 iPhone. (and I thought it was just using the official Apple ways used for macs, so that's a small disappointment)

Re: Tether: iMessage, SMS, etc. on Linux

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love HN. Read an article that raises a reasonable point about a project’s license, and that project’s author shows up to announce they were convinced and changed the license accordingly. Repo was updated 5 minutes ago. It’s things like this that give me hope for the world.

Not to be Debbie Downer but software licensing has no effect on what matters to billions of people. We are facing very real global and societal issues that people on this site are actively exacerbating, like disinformation and climate change. If a dude changing an inconsequential text file on GitHub gives you hope for the world, then please broaden your perspective.

This is verifiably false. Without copyleft licensing like the GPL or permissive licensing like MIT and Apache we literally would not have the internet, or it would be somehow even more wildly dystopian and proprietary than it already is.

Re: Tether: iMessage, SMS, etc. on Linux

#76
The linked blueferry doc is excellent. Back in 2020, inspired by a comment on HN, I looked into writing a proxy to send and receive iMessages on Linux through an iPhone connected with Bluetooth Message Access Profile (MAP). I was able to send and receive messages, but I ran into the problem mentioned in the doc in the "Group metadata side channel" section: the bMessages in the inbox included the message originator, but didn't include the recipients, even though the MAP standard says that it "shall" be included (see page 22). I didn't know about ANCS, so it didn't occur to me to use that channel, and without any way to tell what context a message was sent in, I couldn't do threading, so I decided it wasn't worth pursuing.

The group messages were the biggest problem, and that's what made me give up, but there were some other issues:

- Shared links showed up as "Website: Short description (example.com)" and didn't include the URL

- Images weren't shown at all

I might take a look and see how blueferry handled those limitations.

[blueferry doc] https://github.com/erikwb/blueferry/blob/main/PROTOCOL.md

[inspiration] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23411520#23413394

[Bluetooth MAP standard] https://www.bluetooth.com/specifications/specs/message-acces...

Re: Tether: iMessage, SMS, etc. on Linux

#77
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I'm guessing you don't do anything except what matters to billions of people? Always 100% fully generalized contributions, never making your local world a better place? Your only local contributions being to tell off people who are grateful that their lives are materially improved by someone else's smaller actions... You must be beloved by your community.

[flagged]

Yet here you are, posting self-congratulatory comments about how you don't post self-congratulatory things.

IMHO this is even less meaningful/impactful than the comment that you objected to.

Re: Tether: iMessage, SMS, etc. on Linux

#79

I don't know. What's a feature not in KDE connect that the writer wanted and it didn't have? They could always submit a pr. Beeper exists you know.... I have a question. It's fine to build for your own self but is it okay to release something in public when the environment is a moving target and you are just a one-man team keeping it afloat? Wouldn't it be better to go behind established FOSS products and not reinven…

A genuine question, does anyone here actually use KDE Connect as a daily driver to actually keep in touch with people? I would love to but, for example, when I'm on a university campus the possibility of keeping those two devices connected appears difficult if not impossible. I keep looking into both Bluetooth and/or the VPN route every once in a while, but it ends up not working and I give up. Something I'm missing, perhaps?

Re: Tether: iMessage, SMS, etc. on Linux

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to be Debbie Downer but software licensing has no effect on what matters to billions of people. We are facing very real global and societal issues that people on this site are actively exacerbating, like disinformation and climate change. If a dude changing an inconsequential text file on GitHub gives you hope for the world, then please broaden your perspective.

This is verifiably false. Without copyleft licensing like the GPL or permissive licensing like MIT and Apache we literally would not have the internet, or it would be somehow even more wildly dystopian and proprietary than it already is.

[flagged]
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