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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

#221

Post by josteink »

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.

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,

Obviously it's a non-trivial fix when they engineered their system on the assumption that nobody should ever leave the iPlatform.

It might be a "stretch", but you could say designing your system in such a way that there's no clean way to leave is intentionally making it hard to leave. Or would that make you a lunatic?

Seriously though. Almost every ex-iPhone user I meet thinks SMS is broken on Android, because other iPhone-users (like wifes) no longer is able to message them. And I'm pretty sure Apple is 100% OK with that.

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

#223

Post by pixl97 »

nknighthb wrote: post #213
lostlogin wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 yea…

It breaks surprisingly commonly. You've moved 3-7 times in a few years. I move different customers numbers at many times a month. Around 20% of the time we have issues with fail to fast busy for 8 to 12 hours where no system on the telco side takes a call.

I will say this though, switching mobile goes rather well almost all of the time. Porting numbers on fixed telephone lines is much more apt to fail.

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

#226

Post by sweetbowl »

billpg wrote: post #45
baby wrote: post #5

I know it's annoying but the best solution here just seems to change your number. Don't lose your mind over this one. edit : seems like people don't understand my post. If you have a voice, the good thing to do is to make a blog post and submit it to websites like HN. The guy did it, now what can he do if he needs a quick fix? If he's in rush? Change number. It's really not that terrible and I do it every year withou…

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.)

A last ditch fix would be to get a new phone number and port your old problem phone number to a VoIP service with an Android app

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

#227

Post by toomuchtodo »

sneak wrote: post #79
Ar-Curunir wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heh? Have you tried solutions like Whatsapp, GroupMe, or Viber? They all work absolutely fine on both big mobile OSes, regardless of hardware. I don't see the need for absolutely open hardware for an alternative messaging system. Sure, they aren't FLOSS solutions, but they are much less closed than iMessage and are cross-platform.

WhatsApp does not work on tablets. Its stupid auth system requires a device with a phone number.

Other than that, I find WhatsApp to be amazingly solid as both a one on one and group messaging app. Its why I ditched Hangouts completely.

Note: Hangouts is an abomination.

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

#228

Post by arjie »

coldtea wrote: post #216
ElDiablo666 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 remot…

If it was an open protocol, he would have access to apps that implement it on his phone. And even if that weren't the case, he would have the ability to write an implementation.

The difference here is that a sufficiently competent person cannot reliably replicate the experience.

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

#229

Post by PeterisP »

CatMtKing wrote: post #199

Ah, this sounds familiar. I recently got a new cell phone number, using an Android phone. Some days later, a few of my fellow carpoolers told me after texting me that they were getting replies from someone else telling them they had the wrong number! I was stumped, until we noticed all the people who were failing to text me were using iPhones. I texted my own number using one of their phones and asked the mystery rec…

This seems a big issue then - permanently caching phone numbers is dangerous; around here some 55% users are on prepaid simcards, and thoae numbers often get recycled, i.e., given out to someone else after it stops being used and teen-25 audiences tend to churn through many numbers (no idea on why they do so, i've had a single number forever, but that's how it is)

A few years earlier almost all of them wouldn't be on iOS, but now they are often using iPhones (sometimes old handmedowns) on those disposable numbers, so if it breaks messaging when changing numbers... Then that will be a problem for many people.

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

#230

Post by msh »

Ar-Curunir wrote: post #73
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.

Heh? Have you tried solutions like Whatsapp, GroupMe, or Viber? They all work absolutely fine on both big mobile OSes, regardless of hardware. I don't see the need for absolutely open hardware for an alternative messaging system. Sure, they aren't FLOSS solutions, but they are much less closed than iMessage and are cross-platform.

Neither of these are open source...
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