iOS holding my phone number hostage = the worst bug I’ve ever experienced • Hacker News Board

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

#211

Post by happywolf » Mon, Feb 03, 2014, 9:06 AM UTC

For those who want to extol the virtues of FSF, do note the following:

1) GSM is neither free(both in free beer and free to distribute) nor open-source 2) The phone that you are using, no matter how 'free' the software are, the hardware are mostly proprietary and those manufacturers aren't very FSF friendly (now getting better, but still way to go) 3) Phone manufacturers tend to add proprietary drivers/apps on top of Android, which renders the whole system not 100% free software either, so by saying iOS is closed-source, it is kind of like pot calling kettle black.

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

#212

Post by sharpneli » Mon, Feb 03, 2014, 9:22 AM UTC

baby wrote: post #87

billpg wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had the same number for 16 years. Ported it between four different networks. (I still get recreuiters calling who have clearly only read a CV of mine from 10 years ago.)

It's never a good idea to rely on one number, or one email address, etc... The day you lose this you lose all your connections.

While one might lose their email losing a phone number is way way harder.

I'm not sure how it works in US but in Finland you have guaranteed transferring across operators. Guaranteed as in fines will tick if the operator from which the number is transferred away is having some 'problems'. Not surprisingly those kind of problems are almost nonexistent.

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

#213

Post by nknighthb » Mon, Feb 03, 2014, 9:34 AM UTC

lostlogin wrote: post #201

guelo wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SMS is interoperable between every phone and phone company on the planet.

Try switching companies and see how well it works. I have no idea what the actual porting process involves, but then neither did the 2 big telecoms I was dealing with. I had weeks of carrying 2 phones. One received calls, the other SMS. And the telecoms sat there blaming each other. Vodafone and Telecom. New Zealand.

I've gone through number ports in the US three times (seven if you count each number separately) without a single problem. Each was completed within several hours, and dual service time was somewhere between minimal and non-existent (suddenly the old phone stopped and the new phone started). This is in line with what I've heard from friends and relatives, too.

I've read some porting horror stories online over the years. Yours is probably something like the 6th or 7th. I assume things do sometimes break, but it doesn't seem to be particularly frequent, considering millions of people switch carriers every year.

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

#214

Post by nknighthb » Mon, Feb 03, 2014, 9:45 AM UTC

leephillips wrote: post #139

owenwil wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Email? Really, now that everyone has email on their phones, why bother with SMS or these SMS-like systems? Email is more reliable, more flexible, and seems to be just as fast in practice.

The smallest email in my inbox right now has 913 bytes of headers and 132 bytes of content. Between the various hops, including through a spam filter, it took 13 seconds just to land on my server. It was then an additional 0 to 300 seconds before each of my devices knew it existed, because push remains black magic when dealing with clients and servers from different authors/companies.

This is not comparable to the normal performance of SMS or iMessages.

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

#215

Post by coldtea » Mon, Feb 03, 2014, 10:21 AM UTC

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…

>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.

He would also have lost other benefits, such as convenience, automatically using data instead over SMS for casual chatting, using the method he damn wanted, etc.

What having a problem like this justifies is FIXING the problem, not not using the technology in the first place or some ideas about proprietary and OSS.

Not to mention those are beside the point. Even if he DID use a proprietary messaging solution, he might very well have the same issue. It's not an issue that stems from being proprietary, it's an issue that stems from a stupid caching implementation. If some FOSS mobile chating app had the same bug, he would have been bitten by it just the same.

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

#216

Post by coldtea » Mon, Feb 03, 2014, 10:27 AM UTC

ElDiablo666 wrote: post #191

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Apparently blaming the victim is totally okay as long as the victim was using a brand you don't like.

You've failed to understand on two levels. One, this is not a question of competing brands. That's a question of technology and not liberty, which is the point of the comment you replied to; if OP choose free software, it doesn't matter which "brand" he chose, there are a number of free application that do the same job. Two, calling this victim blaming is a bit of a stretch at best and ridiculous nonsense at worst. Y…

>One, this is not a question of competing brands. That's a question of technology and not liberty, which is the point of the comment you replied to; if OP choose free software, it doesn't matter which "brand" he chose, there are a number of free application that do the same job.

I call BS. If OP choose free software we could AS WELL have had the same exact problem.

It's a software bug -- the client caching the remote method to use (data or standard SMS). A free program could just as well have the same issue.

What "more control" you'd have? You could issue a bug fix request, which could just as well be ignored (I've several on FOSS projets). Or you could even have it fixed, but then you'd need to convince all the users you talk to to update to the latest version until you see any improvement.

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

#217

Post by jheriko » Mon, Feb 03, 2014, 10:31 AM UTC

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…

imessage is subtle - it happens by default and is easy to get lumped with. really its a shame that apple do that...

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

#218

Post by vrikis » Mon, Feb 03, 2014, 10:31 AM UTC

What's worse is that Apple iMessage servers seem to cache your phone number for a long time too... Even new message threads from my friends were trying to send as iMessage, even long after I got rid of my iPhone, disabled iMessage everywhere, and deleted any association of my phone number I could find. (I too switched from iOS to Android.) I find this crazy, that Apple lock you in like that.

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

#219

Post by jheriko » Mon, Feb 03, 2014, 10:33 AM UTC

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.

this would be straightforward to fix in a patch. they are clearly not prioritising it if its a known issue for several years now...

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

#220

Post by _ak » Mon, Feb 03, 2014, 10:56 AM UTC

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…

Is the free software alternative you talk about hypothetical or do you have any concrete piece of software to refer to, preferably one that would interoperate with OP's peer group of 99% iOS users?