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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

#161

Post by eridius »

nwienert wrote: post #36

This has been happening for over 2 years now. I've met multiple people in real life (including total non-techies) that have run into this. It's more common than you'd think. Basically anyone moving from an iPhone to Android (or any other phone I assume) will have this problem. At this point, it's obvious Apple is ok with this. It's a giant "fuck you" to anyone moving away from them and it leaves a bad taste in your m…

That's incredibly presumptuous of you to claim Apple is doing this purposely. It seems pretty obvious to me that it's a non-trivial fix for Apple, and that there's simply no good incentive for them to prioritize fixing this over the myriad other things their engineers could be spending their time on.

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

#162

Post by shurcooL »

rosser wrote: post #141
shurcooL wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My iOS knows because it runs on an data-only device (iPad mini with cellular).

Do you suppose that might be because your iOS knows it's not on a phone ?

What is a "phone"? Is it a device with a rotary dial? Or is a device capable of making voice/video calls. A cellular iPad mini, IMO, is simply a mobile iOS device with a 7.9" screen. It can make/receive calls similarly to the 4" screen iOS device (think FaceTime audio, Skype, VoIP, etc.).

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

#163

Post by shurcooL »

lukeschlather wrote: post #94
shurcooL wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 id…

I'm pretty sure it's quite possible and easy to create an email address, be it from gmail or another email provider.

That email address will be valid and accessible as long as you have internet access. You can travel, use Wi-Fi or cellular data, and it will work.

You can create a new email address for free.

In that context, getting a phone number is much more limited and not free (you need to pay for a voice plan, etc.). And your ability to use said number from other countries (roaming) is limited and expensive.

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

#164

Post by andrewescott »

swombat wrote: post #128
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…

SMS is also a proprietary solution, as far as I know. If you don't think so, check the costs of integrating with SMS...

SMS is specified by industry standards. Just do a search on http://www.3gpp.org/specifications for "SMS".

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

#165

Post by a3n »

10feet wrote: post #117
hablahaha wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know of a relationship that ended because of iMessages. They had had a fight and he texted her to apologize and then he never received any responses (they went straight to his computer) and then she got more upset, he thought she wasn't talking to him, etc.

Texting an apology is never the best idea anyway, even without Apple messing it up.

The type of message sent should not matter at all. (I realize that's not what you're saying.)

And people have their own individual and transient needs. If a text message makes it easier to say you're sorry, then there's nothing wrong with it. Particular if that's already an accepted and normal way to communicate between the parties.

The problem wasn't that he sent it by text, the problem was that the relationship was too weak to withstand N hours of no communication. It was going to break anyway.

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

#167

Post by shadesandcolour »

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…

This would work except you lose the ability to fall back to a text message. The way that iMessage is set up, if someone sends and iMessage to your phone and it doesn't get delivered for some reason, say you don't have data coverage where you are, then the Messages app will try to send a text message instead. If you have the same scenario where you are messaging an email address, there is no such fall back.

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

#168

Post by hablahaha »

a3n wrote: post #165
10feet wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Texting an apology is never the best idea anyway, even without Apple messing it up.

The type of message sent should not matter at all. (I realize that's not what you're saying.) And people have their own individual and transient needs. If a text message makes it easier to say you're sorry, then there's nothing wrong with it. Particular if that's already an accepted and normal way to communicate between the parties. The problem wasn't that he sent it by text, the problem was that the relationship was…

Haha, yeah it wasn't exactly mean to last, but this didn't help matters. Hey, you could even say iMessages helped them do the right thing. Good guy iMessages.

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

#169

Post by dippyskoodlez »

skolos wrote: post #6
dippyskoodlez wrote: post #2

If message histories are your only copy of family/friends photos, you're doing it wrong.

This is a such wrong reply. The OP did not complain about his message history, he was talking about message histories of all his friends and relatives. Do you really think it could be socially acceptable to approach each of your friends and relative and tell them: "If message histories are your only copy of family/friends photos, you're doing it wrong." ?

I wasn't even commenting regarding the stuck number, which is clearly an issue. I was arguing that this: "the vast majority of messaging I’ve done in the past 3 years are group messages with pictures of our children."

It just screams data loss to ruin your day. I was (kinda) hoping OP would see that and maybe rethink his storage plans, because otherwise he'll be posting "wahh my photos weren't backed up" soon enough.

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

#170

Post by piyush_soni »

eridius wrote: post #161
nwienert wrote: post #36

This has been happening for over 2 years now. I've met multiple people in real life (including total non-techies) that have run into this. It's more common than you'd think. Basically anyone moving from an iPhone to Android (or any other phone I assume) will have this problem. At this point, it's obvious Apple is ok with this. It's a giant "fuck you" to anyone moving away from them and it leaves a bad taste in your m…

That's incredibly presumptuous of you to claim Apple is doing this purposely. It seems pretty obvious to me that it's a non-trivial fix for Apple, and that there's simply no good incentive for them to prioritize fixing this over the myriad other things their engineers could be spending their time on.

Isn't the first part of your comment kind of contradictory to the second part?
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