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iOS holding my phone number hostage = the worst bug I’ve ever experienced

blog.benjaminste.in

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Re: iOS holding my phone number hostage = the worst bug I’ve ever experienced

#91

Post by RyanZAG »

sneak wrote: post #35
RyanZAG wrote: post #30

Just think, if you hadn't used a proprietary messaging solution as your default contact method, you'd be able to easily control how you receive the messages. Maybe stuff like this happening is a good thing as it drills home the point the 'crazy free software lunatics' have been going on about for some time. Having this kind of thing happen to someone makes the stuff FSF+co says a bit more relevant and ultimately help…

> Maybe stuff like this happening is a good thing as it drills home the point Ugh, thinking like this just may well be the biggest problem in our industry. Stop being user-hostile.

Um. I'm not the one who made iMessage - you need to look at the guys making locked down messaging systems for the user-hostile actions causing problems like these and no doubt much more in the future. If I could help these people out and give them a script to run to fix their problem I would - but of course I can't, because everything is locked down by others who are putting their own vendor lock-in above user satisfaction. And I agree that it is the biggest problem in our industry.

Re: iOS holding my phone number hostage = the worst bug I’ve ever experienced

#92

Post by Xylakant »

WiseWeasel wrote: post #89
shurcooL wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true. Though getting an iMessage from john.doe@gmail.com who isn't in your contacts isn't as uninformative as getting an iMessage from +1-234-567-8900.

If you're iMessaging them, they either know that 1-234-567-8900 is John Doe, or chances are good that the content of the message is "Hey, this is John Doe, got a new number."

Hey, this is John Doe, iMessaging you from his email.

Re: iOS holding my phone number hostage = the worst bug I’ve ever experienced

#93

Post by ac29 »

derefr wrote: post #78
shurcooL wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason iMessage works well is because it's integrated tightly into the OS. So for an open-source alternative to be competitive, it would have to run on... an open mobile OS, which would in turn require open hardware.

> it would have to run on... an open mobile OS, which would in turn require open hardware. I'm not 100% clear on this: why can't there be an open mobile OS that runs on (bootrom-exploited) iOS devices?

Curious: has this even been tried? I would assume Apple SoC's require binary drivers, so even though they are similar to Android phones on a hardware level it might be difficult or impossible to even get an Android port to boot.

Hell, it can be difficult to get an unsupported version of Android to work without major bugs on an Android phone.

Re: iOS holding my phone number hostage = the worst bug I’ve ever experienced

#94

Post by lukeschlather »

shurcooL wrote: post #57
sneak wrote: post #43

Preventative step: set your outbound iMessage "caller id" to your email address instead of your phone number. Do this now, before you're bitten by the bug. (Apple's degraded QA as of late on iOS means you'll also have to change it back on ALL your devices on the account any time you add or remove any devices or numbers to iMessage or FaceTime on that Apple ID, too.) This way, all your contacts are iMessaging with you…

Yes, this is a good idea. But it's an extension of "stop relying so much on a non-free, proprietary 9-digit number as your id only to be at the mercy of your phone carrier". Personally, I use a data-only plan and feel much better than when I had a carrier-provided phone number.

This has nothing to do with the phone carrier.

In the US phone numbers are much more open than any other means of identifying someone you want to contact.

"non-free" is a bizarre thing to say in this context. No identifier is going to be free as in speech - that would defeat the purpose. If you want to have assurance that you can keep the identifier it had better not be free as in beer either - the provider of the identifier could revoke it at any time.

Some sort of government-issued communications identifier might provide the needed benefits, but actually the phone number is the best solution to the problem that we have.

If you're relying on an email address, you're in much shakier territory. (Unless you own your own domain and email hosting solution, and unless you're a multinational corporation it's likely to be less reliable than other options.)

Re: iOS holding my phone number hostage = the worst bug I’ve ever experienced

#95

Post by jacoplane »

owenwil wrote: post #50
RyanZAG wrote: post #30

Just think, if you hadn't used a proprietary messaging solution as your default contact method, you'd be able to easily control how you receive the messages. Maybe stuff like this happening is a good thing as it drills home the point the 'crazy free software lunatics' have been going on about for some time. Having this kind of thing happen to someone makes the stuff FSF+co says a bit more relevant and ultimately help…

So, what's an open-source alternative to iMessage that lots of people use?

Email?

Re: iOS holding my phone number hostage = the worst bug I’ve ever experienced

#96

Post by ac29 »

benstein wrote: post #39
0x0 wrote: post #21

This article claims resetting your apple ID password will disassociate the imessage phone number: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5538

Yup. Tried resetting everything possible. So did Apple support. And they escalated to engineers who also said they have no more records of my number server-side. But there's no way to clear the client side caches.

Do iOS apps not have a clear data/clear cache system level option like android does?

If not, what do you do to wipe an app's data?

Re: iOS holding my phone number hostage = the worst bug I’ve ever experienced

#97

Post by WiseWeasel »

Xylakant wrote: post #92
WiseWeasel wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're iMessaging them, they either know that 1-234-567-8900 is John Doe, or chances are good that the content of the message is "Hey, this is John Doe, got a new number."

Hey, this is John Doe, iMessaging you from his email.

Touché. Though I suspect it might be prudent to further explain that that means they need to add your email address to your contact, as their mind will be blown at that point.

Re: iOS holding my phone number hostage = the worst bug I’ve ever experienced

#98

Post by rakoo »

owenwil wrote: post #50
RyanZAG wrote: post #30

Just think, if you hadn't used a proprietary messaging solution as your default contact method, you'd be able to easily control how you receive the messages. Maybe stuff like this happening is a good thing as it drills home the point the 'crazy free software lunatics' have been going on about for some time. Having this kind of thing happen to someone makes the stuff FSF+co says a bit more relevant and ultimately help…

So, what's an open-source alternative to iMessage that lots of people use?

> So, what's an open-source alternative to iMessage

XMPP is _the_ standard, with just so many[0] implementations. On mobile, a good choice is ChatSecure, or Yaxim if you're on Android.

> that lots of people use

XMPP certainly doesn't meet this criteria, it would have to be IRC... but that's yet another way of modelling your social interactions.

[0] http://xmpp.org/xmpp-software/clients/

Re: iOS holding my phone number hostage = the worst bug I’ve ever experienced

#99

Post by leobelle »

baby wrote: post #29
leobelle wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, asking everyone to use a new number is less work than asking people to delete all their imessage threads. Updating contact info at work and with services shifts the burden to him.

I don't get if your comment is sarcastic or not. If it is, I don't see why it would be such a huge problem. It's a quickfix and if I were him, and in a rush to fix the problem, I would do that. I'm personally changing my phone number every year and it's never been a burden.

It wasn't sarcastic I was agreeing with you. I guess other people thought I was being sarcastic too because you got downvoted and I didn't. I don't know, seems kind of obvious. I use google voice, I never have to change my number when switching phones. I don't know how that would impact imessage. I wouldn't ever use such a service baked into the phone by the phone maker.

Re: iOS holding my phone number hostage = the worst bug I’ve ever experienced

#100

Post by Nicholas_C »

rdoherty wrote: post #23

I'm experiencing the same problem, I've tried: 1) Turning off iMessage on old iPhone 2) Removing phone number from my Apple account 3) Friends removing my cell # from their address books and a few other random things. Nothing has fixed it. The only way a friend with an iOS device can SMS me is if they turn of iMessage. This is a pretty huge bug on Apple's part.

Same here. Incredibly frustrating.

Did you unregister your device(s)? After doing this I think people's iPhones know your number isn't an iPhone anymore and after it fails to send the iMessage it sends it as a regular message. The below link helped me:

http://support.vodafone.com.au/articles/FAQ/How-to-deactivat...

I'm still having occasional problems with not getting texts but for the most part it's fixed.

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