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

“It’s time for Apple to fix texting”

android.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

381–390 of 1001 posts

Re: “It’s time for Apple to fix texting”

#381

Post by tony-allan »

Two systems are suboptimal for developers. It would be great if Apple and Google could get their heads together and find a way to interoperate.

I don't mind the bubble colour... I'm OK with an Apple colour, Google colour, and an interoperable colour. It would be useful to signal what features might be available with each technology.

What I would really like is for the interoperable solution to have a common API so I can programmatically sent a message to anyone (at least the two main players with an option for other phone makers — and also apps like Telegram — to join).

Re: “It’s time for Apple to fix texting”

#382

Post by kelnos »

abawany wrote: post #296
radiojasper wrote: post #122

I still don't get why people use SMS/MMS anyway? I've been using WhatsApp for ages now and so does everybody else in my country - and every country I've been in, apart from China and Japan. My friend who's from the US once said "I've paid for those text messages, so I'm going to use them!" But if I send him a text from Europe to the US, I pay 1 damn euro per delivered text. WhatsApp is free! Is there any viable reaso…

I've seen this position a lot throughout this thread and I have a question: all of these apps (whatsapp, signal, etc.) appear to be "free" - how do you suppose they will make money? In the US, the users of sms/mms/imessage paid in some way for this service and can have some reasonable expectation for delivery and availability.

I believe the Signal Foundation runs on donations. So far this appears to have been sustainable, but of course you could make the argument that we don't know if that will always be the case.

But that's the case for any business, even one for which users directly pay for the service.

Re: “It’s time for Apple to fix texting”

#383

Post by Arathorn »

zaik wrote: post #322
thiht wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because of the "stupid X", modern XMPP supports far more than it used to, and isn't stuck in the past like email and SMS. Yeah, it’s dead. Maybe XMPP supports shiny stuff. But no client or server support them, and if they do it’s like they don’t understand the spec the same way. A protocol should not be extensible, it should be full featured and regularly updated to include new needs. It should also propose a refer…

I use XMPP because unlike Matrix, XMPP is properly standardized and not a product by a single VC funded startup. If you ever have multiple independent implementations a single monolithic spec will always only be partially supported (or there is only a single useable implementation like Synapse), so no different than having extensions.

Have you ever considered that your constant FUD against Matrix just ends up hurting open communications in general? How about putting your energy into improving XMPP rather than constantly whining about the existence of Matrix.

Matrix is properly standardised at https://spec.matrix.org by a non-profit foundation: https://matrix.org/foundation. Just because the core team created a startup to fund our work (3 years into the project) doesn’t make it “a product by a single VC funded startup” - especially when there are hundreds of independent companies building on the standard. Meanwhile empirically synapse, dendrite and conduit can all talk fine to each other and we haven’t seen any fragmentation yet.

If you want to complain about something, go attack the closed cabal of RCS or the hypercapitalism silos of FAANG - and leave us the hell alone.

Re: “It’s time for Apple to fix texting”

#384

Post by JustSomeNobody »

altairprime wrote: post #59

Most businesses, consumers, and developers universally continue to ignore the primary reason that iMessage is a closed platform, rather than an app on every platform as iTunes is: Apple is using device serial numbers for anti-spam, supported by a fully-authenticated hardware and software stack that does not allow user modification. This permits Apple to simply “console ban” any Apple device that spams on iMessage. Th…

This is about adopting RCS, NOT about pushing iMessage to other platforms.

Re: “It’s time for Apple to fix texting”

#385

Post by urda »

Veuxdo wrote: post #5
moizici wrote: post #2

Why would Apple fix something that do not affect Apple users ?

Per the article, they do affect iPhone users.

It doesn't. An article written by Google for their own benefit is less of an article and actually more akin to corporate propaganda. It is not a trustworthy source.

Re: “It’s time for Apple to fix texting”

#386

Post by baby »

I always thought iMessage was the dumbest thing. I’m abroad, I try to iMessage someone because I know it’s going to be free: oops, it downgrade to text and I end up paying. Or I’m on a bad wifi connection: oops, I will not use your signal and just block.

In any case everybody I know uses whatsapp so I don’t think it’s a huge deal. Texts are for spams or restaurant waiting lists.

Re: “It’s time for Apple to fix texting”

#387

Post by baby »

pwpw wrote: post #234

This is such a weirdly US specific issue. It's hard to understand why people in this country refuse to adopt a data-based messaging service such as Signal or WhatsApp like the rest of the world has. Why are US citizens so set on having a terrible experience when messaging half of the population? How did other countries decide that using platform agnostic messaging services are better? I believe the UK has a similar s…

Most people I know in the US use whatsapp (except for like one person)

Re: “It’s time for Apple to fix texting”

#388

Post by adev_ »

kgeist wrote: post #363
Evidlo wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds horrible to be so locked-in.

I'm not sure what "locked-in" means here. If something happens to WhatsApp (becomes paid-only, abandoned), you can use Telegram, Viber etc. Maybe the only problem is that you can lose chat history when switching, and that you must make sure all your friends/family migrate to the same service...

> I'm not sure what "locked-in" means here. If something happens to WhatsApp (becomes paid-only, abandoned), you can use Telegram, Viber etc. Maybe the only problem is that you can lose chat history when switching, and that you must make sure all your friends/family migrate to the same service...

And get your contact spread over 4 differents messaging App and consequently have all of them installed.

Re: “It’s time for Apple to fix texting”

#389

Post by kelnos »

ZacharyPitts wrote: post #143
timdavila wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I have to replace the native messaging app that's decentralized, well proven, reliable, and pre-installed on every phone that can communicate with anyone in the world for 5 different centralized apps from the app store that may or may not exist next year and also try to move my entire network over? No thanks, I'll stick to SMS.

SMS that is not usable from all my other non-phone computers! For this reason alone, I greatly prefer iMessage/discord/slack/whateverIsNext so I can use it on my phone and my computers.

While I do have browser tabs open for WhatsApp, Google Chat, and GroupMe, as well as the Signal desktop app running, most people I know do not do this, and do most/all of their messaging from their phone.

I get that's not your experience, but it is indeed an experience that exists, and is probably fairly common.

Re: “It’s time for Apple to fix texting”

#390

Post by vineyardmike »

peyton wrote: post #341
dcormier wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s very ableist of you. About 1 in 12 males are colorblind. I’m in this group. I find white text on a bright green background very difficult to read.

You read the messages you send?

You don’t?
Post reply on HN