Microsoft somehow brings iMessage to Windows – will it last? • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft somehow brings iMessage to Windows – will it last?

#161

Post by jwestbury » Wed, Mar 01, 2023, 10:02 AM UTC

bmitc wrote: post #4

Having switched back to Android, it can be infuriating dealing with iPhone users. I get slammed with "messages" when someone reacts to a message and oftentimes, messages just don't show up or messages go to my iPad and not my phone. Apple makes this extremely confusing. The iPhone users never know of their message goes through or what they're actually sending to (my iCloud account or my phone number).

For what it's worth, those reaction messages are a problem in both directions. I get separate text messages with reactions on my iPhone from my Android-using parents.

Re: Microsoft somehow brings iMessage to Windows – will it last?

#162

Post by jwestbury » Wed, Mar 01, 2023, 10:07 AM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #54

partiallypro wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My biggest gripe is when iPhone users share video or images, they are grainy nonsense. If Apple just moved to RCS this would be solved, but they refuse simply because they know it handicaps their competitor. The react thing has largely been fixed by Google on newer versions of messenger. It's impossible to fix the video stuff. People outside the US don't get it. They say everyone should switch to Whatsapp, etc, but g…

> They say everyone should switch to Whatsapp Anyone who advises me to switch one of my most important phone functions over to Facebook instantly loses a great deal of credibility. I can appreciate that the network effect makes it look very appealing when you're stuck inside, but if you are not already stuck in that garden, why do it? Just go back to SMS. It is the only standard that is universal.

> if you are not already stuck in that garden, why do it?

Because SMS is a nightmare for international messaging and travel due to existing carrier policy?

I used to agree with you. Then I moved from the US to the UK, and now my phone's messaging is a fractured mess. International texting is expensive, but my parents and siblings are on Android and I'm on iPhone, so we can't bypass SMS by using, e.g., iMessage. As a result, I use Google Voice for my US phone number, which lets me send messages over a Web services instead of using SMS.

But my wife is here with me on an iPhone, like me, so I use iMessage with her, and I get SMS from, e.g., delivery companies.

People over here in the UK mostly use WhatsApp, so I have that for communication with people in the UK. This is also free, and I can use it with people who have foreign phone numbers!

Re: Microsoft somehow brings iMessage to Windows – will it last?

#163

Post by Macha » Wed, Mar 01, 2023, 12:59 PM UTC

liotier wrote: post #148

Macha wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did it? My recollection was that it was more due to the wider usage of prepay, at least in my country. With more prepay, there were more people paying per message for SMS so once data got low enough people first went to IM clients (MSN, Facebook Messenger), then to the new wave of phone apps (Viber, Line, Whatsapp) of which Whatsapp was the eventual winner in the local market.

Accounts with per SMS billing were unlikely to have mobile data for comfortable Whatsapp usage, so I doubt that was the substitution. To call between France and various African countries in the early Android era, I remember first using Viber - but after a while everyone switched to Whatsapp in a few months: somehow, through some sheer black magic, Whatsapp had nailed voice quality over the lossy high-latency links th…

In the window where Viber then Whatsapp took off in my country it was €1 for 200mb of data on prepay but €0.15 per SMS. So if you sent more than 7-8 texts in the day the data was cheaper, and I think MMS were like €0.60 each.

Can't say people, to this day, have much of a culture of using whatsapp video calls. Skype was the majority in the Whatsapp takeover time and today it's a mix of Zoom and Skype. International calls also weren't that common.

So sounds like there may have been different motivations in your country than mine.

Re: Microsoft somehow brings iMessage to Windows – will it last?

#164

Post by dustyharddrive » Wed, Mar 01, 2023, 5:27 PM UTC

lostlogin wrote: post #96

seiferteric wrote: post #60

Interesting... A while back there was a store about running MacOS X in a VM and I believe you could sign into iCloud. I had an idea that someone could do a startup to sell iMessage as a service on other platforms by wrapping the iMessage app on a VM into an API/service. If that failed, you could buy up olf iPhones/iPads and automate them with an custom app to do the same maybe?

You can sign a vm into iCloud. I have a ridiculous system for backing up photos where a VM downloads them and then the machine uses a script at various intervals with Rsync to get them out the vm. I disable messages on it, but by default they arrived.

Guides on running macOS VMs always seem to involve downloading some EFI build with opaque origins. Is there a safer option?

Re: Microsoft somehow brings iMessage to Windows – will it last?

#165

Post by dalyons » Wed, Mar 01, 2023, 5:45 PM UTC

sneak wrote: post #158

dalyons wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I drew that line I would have approximately zero people communicating with me.

This is the fear that keeps people serving as the honey in the trap of these surveillance apps. If someone can't be assed to download a zero cost and surveillance-free, ad-free app to talk to you, how much do they really value communicating with you?

It’s not fear. Asking others to use a special (from their pov) app just to talk to me is me imposing a burden and an inconvenience on them. I don’t care enough about iMessage’s cons to annoy others around me.

Re: Microsoft somehow brings iMessage to Windows – will it last?

#166

Post by sneak » Thu, Mar 02, 2023, 5:48 AM UTC

dalyons wrote: post #165

sneak wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the fear that keeps people serving as the honey in the trap of these surveillance apps. If someone can't be assed to download a zero cost and surveillance-free, ad-free app to talk to you, how much do they really value communicating with you?

It’s not fear. Asking others to use a special (from their pov) app just to talk to me is me imposing a burden and an inconvenience on them. I don’t care enough about iMessage’s cons to annoy others around me.

Subjecting friends to surveillance without their consent is more of an imposed inconvenience than downloading an app.

Re: Microsoft somehow brings iMessage to Windows – will it last?

#167

Post by happymellon » Thu, Mar 02, 2023, 3:07 PM UTC

liotier wrote: post #148

Macha wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did it? My recollection was that it was more due to the wider usage of prepay, at least in my country. With more prepay, there were more people paying per message for SMS so once data got low enough people first went to IM clients (MSN, Facebook Messenger), then to the new wave of phone apps (Viber, Line, Whatsapp) of which Whatsapp was the eventual winner in the local market.

Accounts with per SMS billing were unlikely to have mobile data for comfortable Whatsapp usage, so I doubt that was the substitution. To call between France and various African countries in the early Android era, I remember first using Viber - but after a while everyone switched to Whatsapp in a few months: somehow, through some sheer black magic, Whatsapp had nailed voice quality over the lossy high-latency links th…

> Accounts with per SMS billing were unlikely to have mobile data for comfortable Whatsapp usage, so I doubt that was the substitution.

But I could jump onto coffee shop WiFi to negate that.

Re: Microsoft somehow brings iMessage to Windows – will it last?

#168

Post by seabriez » Sat, Mar 04, 2023, 9:01 PM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #56

barelysapient wrote: post #12

I think this is a trojan integration. MS will promptly appeal to the regulators (and possibly litigate) as soon as Apple breaks this.

Why would Apple try to break it? It poses zero risk to their product line, and in fact might help a little. You still have to buy an iOS device to do iMessage.

Because that's what Apple has been doing for it's whole existence. Creating barriers to their devices outside of anything Apple. Honestly it's better to just not use Apple at all for these reasons.