Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

iMessage, explained

jjtech.dev

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 163 posts

Re: iMessage, explained

#111

Post by catlover76 »

crossroadsguy wrote: post #106
catlover76 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe you could keep using the app(s) whatever you were. I was using Android Messages, which has a web app. The experience was mediocre because the web app had trouble connecting to my phone all the damn time. I text some people almost exclusively through Facebook Messenger, and I think the rest I will try to move from text to WhatsApp. Both Meta-owned, unfortunately, but those seem to be easy to use cross-device a…

I am from India - WhatsApp is messaging here. Scratch that - WhatsApp is communication here. So that’s not really a choice. Maybe you’d have the app for your region unless you’re from USA where I’ve heard it’s iMessage.

I am not sure there is anything comparable in the US to the way WhatsApp is used in other parts of the world. People just default use SMS texting in the US and Canada. A lot of people do have WhatsApp here though

Re: iMessage, explained

#112

Post by roskelld »

vips7L wrote: post #22
catlover76 wrote: post #6

I just got an iPhone for the first time, and it is a noticeably better device than my previous Android phones. One downside is that I can't use iMessage on my Windows and Linux computers. Will look into pypush Honestly, the iPhone is nudging me further to giving a Macbook/OSX a try one day, but the major blocker to me is the poor state of gaming on Macs.

Windows Phone Link does support iMessage now.

Windows 11 only for iPhones. Sigh.

Re: iMessage, explained

#113

Post by tech234a »

nyreed wrote: post #101

Huh. So Android's push notification service is built on their instant messenger (GTalk), and Apple's instant messenger is built on their push notification service. How cute.

Note: Android doesn’t use GTalk for notifications anymore, and the GTalk servers don’t exist any more [1].

[1]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/08/a-decade-and-a-half-...

Re: iMessage, explained

#114

Post by shiroiuma »

girvo wrote: post #109
crossroadsguy wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am from India - WhatsApp is messaging here. Scratch that - WhatsApp is communication here. So that’s not really a choice. Maybe you’d have the app for your region unless you’re from USA where I’ve heard it’s iMessage.

In Australia it's iMessage and FB Messenger, mostly. But that's also dependent on where you or your family is from: I came here from NZ, so iMessage/Messenger is normal, but my Indian friends use WhatsApp as a matter of course!

Here in Japan, if you don't use LINE, you won't have any friends. Absolutely no one uses SMS messaging for anything personal.

Re: iMessage, explained

#115

Post by cavisne »

bgorman wrote: post #2

My prediction is that Apple will start to use attestation (device check) to lock down iMessage. The problem is that this would require a software update for older devices.

It would require a hardware update for older devices I believe, ie any that don’t have TPMs

Re: iMessage, explained

#116

Post by mrpippy »

jjtech wrote: post #91
mrpippy wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, the more concerning paragraph is the next one: > Note: The binary that generates this “validation data” is highly obfuscated. pypush sidesteps this issue by using a custom mach-o loader and the Unicorn Engine to emulate an obfuscated binary. pypush also bundles device properties such as the serial number in a file called data.plist, which it feeds to the emulated binary. The binary being emulated was extracted…

I was thinking of finding a way to extract it directly from old Mac OS X updates downloaded directly from Apple... anyway, Beeper's app doesn't use it, that's purely a hack I came up with to make the proof-of-concept easier to use.

Interesting, how does Beeper avoid including it?

Re: iMessage, explained

#117

Post by nortonham »

catlover76 wrote: post #6

I just got an iPhone for the first time, and it is a noticeably better device than my previous Android phones. One downside is that I can't use iMessage on my Windows and Linux computers. Will look into pypush Honestly, the iPhone is nudging me further to giving a Macbook/OSX a try one day, but the major blocker to me is the poor state of gaming on Macs.

> the iPhone is nudging me further to giving a Macbook/OSX a try one day,

Gaming isn't great on Mac (depending on what games you play), but macbooks are great imo. A pro or an air with apple silicon is worth the money. I've never really appreciated the build quality of a mac before.

> I just got an iPhone for the first time, and it is a noticeably better device than my previous Android phones.

In what way? What Android phones did you use in the past?

Re: iMessage, explained

#118

Post by nicolas_17 »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #76

I just got done adding APNs to one of my dashboard apps. It's a wicked pain in the butt, but I finally got it. The trickiest part was the backend server, which I implemented in ... gasp PHP. I didn't want to load in a whole SaaS, in order to do a very simple push notification, so I had to learn to do it from scratch. In the process, I learned that there's a lot of wrong information out there, and I had do quite a bit…

The protocol between your backend server and Apple, and between Apple and the phone, are completely different. So this comment seems almost off-topic...

Re: iMessage, explained

#119

Post by catlover76 »

nortonham wrote: post #117
catlover76 wrote: post #6

I just got an iPhone for the first time, and it is a noticeably better device than my previous Android phones. One downside is that I can't use iMessage on my Windows and Linux computers. Will look into pypush Honestly, the iPhone is nudging me further to giving a Macbook/OSX a try one day, but the major blocker to me is the poor state of gaming on Macs.

> the iPhone is nudging me further to giving a Macbook/OSX a try one day, Gaming isn't great on Mac (depending on what games you play), but macbooks are great imo. A pro or an air with apple silicon is worth the money. I've never really appreciated the build quality of a mac before. > I just got an iPhone for the first time, and it is a noticeably better device than my previous Android phones. In what way? What Andro…

My last phone was a Samsung Galaxy A50, and it was pretty good as far as the hardware went. But I felt that Android was bad; I couldn't help but notice that a number of the apps loaded very slowly and had other small glitchy issues. Nothing that would compel a person to switch phones, just a lot of mostly minor inconveniences, except for 2 that really stick out right now: the Android messages web app always had a hard time connecting to my phone even when the phone was clearly on, had the messages app open, and was connected to same wifi as my computer; and second, Chrome recently just started becoming unopenable (like it would open and then immediately close for some reason).

These are just a couple data points in a bag of info and anecdata that has made me question whether Google is a company whose products are worth investing in, gives a damn, etc.

As to what exactly about the iPhone seems so good in comparison, the things that really stand out are the crisp aesthetics (noticeably better "graphics" than my Samsung) and the speed of everything. It's also just pleasant to touch/interact with--I think part of that is Apple's craftsmanship, and part is simply the fact that the phone is new.

Post reply on HN