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EU will require Apple to open up iMessage (2022)

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Re: EU will require Apple to open up iMessage (2022)

#541

Post by Terretta »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #441
mattrighetti wrote: post #165

This sounds nice, but when you really think about the consequences it really is not. Isn't this going to kill features that only some apps have or offer? What if one day Signal, Telegram or WhatsApp want to implement something "different" that could make messaging better but this policy is making things harder to implement because it would be impossible to make it interoperate with other messaging apps? I don't get w…

> people here enjoy seeing big tech companies "owned" by big governments Absolutely. These corporations laugh all the way to the bank as they destroy our privacy and exploit us for profit with surveillance capitalism, destroy our computer freedoms with hardware cryptography only they have the keys for, pollute our web with unending advertising and annoyances driven by "engagement engineering". Someone really ought to…

Apple didn't destroy our privacy.

The others, this law is trying to force interaction with, not just did, but actively and aggressively do.

To the point that Brian Acton of WhatsApp walked away from a billion dollars and donated $50M to Signal rather that watch it happen.

Re: EU will require Apple to open up iMessage (2022)

#542

Post by Terretta »

veleek wrote: post #534
cbeach wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m from the U.K. which is why I care deeply about representative democracy. Our system has stood the test of time. You criticise companies for “refusing to work with others” on messaging. Why should companies be forced into a cartel-like relationship with each other? Surely innovation absolutely depends on companies independently creating new technologies and benefiting from that R&D directly? How can consumers have…

This proposal is not intended to force Apple to work with anybody else. It’s intended to stop them from actively preventing others from working with them. The example given in a few other comments is allowing anyone to build an iMessage capable app for Android. There’s no requirement that Apple builds this themselves, but it’s currently impossible and/or restricted by Apple. I don’t know enough about the How to comme…

Do you understand how Apple does true end-to-end encryption with trusted enclave device keys? Or how they can now allow you to prevent Apple themselves from being able to see any of your data?

Do you follow why e.g. third party password vault companies can enable certain key protocols on newer Macs and iOS devices they can't on most other devices?

Apple's not just software. It's not just hardware. It's an experience built from logic expressed in both bits and circuits that works together to provide a solution.

Clamoring to be let into the middle of the stack misunderstands the nature of Apple's product offering, which is a trusted curated experience.

Passing rules against this effectively removes this option from the consumer marketplace, depriving consumers of the full-product (software and hardware seamlessly united to offer a capability impossible when separate) choice.

To be clear, nothing stops anyone else from also offering a comprehensive product with stronger guarantees and richer experience. But it's easier to be mad that Apple's users stay in the walled garden (they are lovely places, btw, there's a reason wealthy people build them!) instead of wanting riff raff to come in hawking their wares strewing litter everywhere. It's easier to incite the pop pitchforks and "we're doing something here" government critters.

Lobbying and propaganda costs less than R&D.

Re: EU will require Apple to open up iMessage (2022)

#543

Post by danaris »

KiwiJohnno wrote: post #531
danaris wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) If it is prohibitively difficult (with what that means entirely defined by Apple) for them to fully support all features of iMessage to non-Apple users, and the law requires that other devices have full parity (I don't know if it does; the article is pretty short and detail-light), then Apple may have to remove features from iMessage even on Apple devices. 2) Apple may choose not to try to implement new features t…

Sorry, but this is complete nonsense. All apple have to do is release documentation on the iMessage protocol, and allow other vendors to use this protocol to build apps that can use apple's iMessage service. Apple obviously won't write these apps, or support those apps or the devices they run on. Also, If Apple at a later date add features to the iMessage protocol then they document the changes & make this available…

> All apple have to do is release documentation on the iMessage protocol

Do you know the specific requirements of the law, and that this would be within their terms? Because, as I stated fairly clearly, I do not know what the law requires, and was working based on one possible (fairly strict) version of what it could be.

If the law just says Apple has to open the protocol, then that certainly reduces the potential problems—but, as hellojesus points out, there may be aspects of the service that Apple is unwilling to give away because they involve trade secrets. Now, you and I may not particularly care whether Apple is able to protect every single one of its trade secrets, but I guarantee you they do, and unless the law is worded such that it requires them to give those away (again: Do you know the wording of the law? If so, please share and enlighten us!), I think that there's a very good chance that they will choose to remove functionality from iMessage rather than do so.

To be quite clear, on the whole, I think that opening up iMessage will be for the best, even being an Apple and iMessage user myself. I was simply responding to a post that was asking for potential ways in which existing iMessage users could suffer because of it.

Re: EU will require Apple to open up iMessage (2022)

#544

Post by nikitaga »

chimeracoder wrote: post #171
sdfghswe wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't care about any features, apart from the features you care about. Just like everyone else.

> You don't care about any features, apart from the features you care about. Just like everyone else. That's a pretty uncharitable way to interpret the statement, when the three features OP mentioned are a part of literally every modern messaging platform that people use. Not just iMessage and RCS (the open protocol which is the best analog to iMessage), but WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, Discord, Messenger, Instagram,…

> RCS (the open protocol which is the best analog to iMessage)

It's so "open" and so "best" that Android doesn't even provide a public API for third party clients to use it. It's just yet another pseudo-open thingy that in practice is only open to a handful of mobile oligopolies, and all other developers are locked out of it just like they're locked out of iMessage. Google replacing the actually-open SMS with vendor-locked RCS is a major reason why Signal is dropping support for SMS. Much good that fake openness is doing, smh.

Re: EU will require Apple to open up iMessage (2022)

#545

Post by ThatPlayer »

rTX5CMRXIfFG wrote: post #301
singularity2001 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>> allow side-loading of apps outside of its App Store Just in time to replace that broken Siri thing with OpenAI based assistants! Previous app submissions were rejected on the basis of being "too close to existing functionality". Maybe they meant dysfunctionality? If the EU needs witnesses of anti-competitive behavior I volunteer.

Just because you can download apps from an app store that is other than Apple's own does not mean that you can replace Apple's default apps. Considering the number of people who celebrated in response to your comment, I think I get it now why people support side-loading---they don't actually understand it and are merely projecting their own interpretations.

That is a requirement for the DMA. It specifically calls out "virtual assistants" and being able to replace the default like with browsers.

Re: EU will require Apple to open up iMessage (2022)

#546

Post by rootusrootus »

yoz-y wrote: post #225

Looking at the amount of applications I have in the messaging folder on my iPhone, it doesn't seem to me that opening up iMessage is that necessary. From what I understand in the US it's more common for people who have iPhones to stick to iMessage but in Europe not so much.

> From what I understand in the US it's more common for people who have iPhones to stick to iMessage but in Europe not so much.

Something I find fascinating. Apple bad, Facebook good?

Re: EU will require Apple to open up iMessage (2022)

#547

Post by dcow »

frumper wrote: post #520
mdasen wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think so. I haven't read the EU documents and the article doesn't say, but you can do this without forcing a company to adopt anything. Let's say I propose this rule: Apple must publish the iMessage spec and allow other services to send/receive iMessages. That doesn't force Apple or anyone else to implement any specific feature, beyond allowing others to send/receive messages. WhatsApp or Signal could decide…

You can send iMessage an sms, that is letting other companies interoperate with it, no? That sounds like WhatsApp is choosing not to implement a way to send a message to iMessage.

But you can't be blue and send iMessage an iMessage with all the nice modern messaging features. Have you ever had a group SMS where some people are iMessage and some aren't? It's unnecessarily jarring and I know that WhatsApp and Google/Android etc. would support "likes" and "loves" and "exclamations" if they could. I'm 100% certain they know exactly the right message format and data structures to use too. It's Apple that won't let rich texts be displayed as such from anyone who's not an iMessage user, by design.

Re: EU will require Apple to open up iMessage (2022)

#548

Post by rootusrootus »

dbg31415 wrote: post #462

I don't want this. I think this is the worst idea. I don't need Apple Message to work with Facebook or Android. Who wants that? All it means is spammers from Facebook are going to find me on Apple Message. Oof. Why do we think having government mandating what tech can do, or how tech can work, is a good thing? Apple has made two dumb decisions in 40 years... the touchbar on the MBP, and all the dongles on the last-ge…

> "We don't like that American companies doing stuff, let's penalize them!"

The irony being that the universal messaging app of choice in Europe is made by Facebook.

Re: EU will require Apple to open up iMessage (2022)

#549

Post by rootusrootus »

yourusername wrote: post #14
fwlr wrote: post #5

A 40 billion dollar fine if you don’t do as the EU says… at some point tech companies are just going to pull out of the EU, right? For most (but not all!), GDPR was worth complying with (and had benefits for citizens). This is likely to also be worth complying with (and also has benefits for citizens), but I imagine the EU is going to run out of ideas that legitimately benefit users long before it runs out of desire…

If you pull out of the EU you've now created a unified market of half a billion consumers that need a alternative to your product. That seems like a good way to kickstart a competitor.

If Apple just pulls iMessage from EU, nothing changes, the competitor already exists, is already dominant, and is a US Silicon Valley social media company.

Re: EU will require Apple to open up iMessage (2022)

#550

Post by rootusrootus »

skrowl wrote: post #492
duskwuff wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, but that doesn't seem accurate. I've been using iOS since ~2015 and I don't recall ever having lost the ability to send or receive SMS messages.

If you left iMessage on when you upgraded from iOS to an Android device, everyone who had an iPhone would still be attempting to send you iMessages and you'd never get them on your Android phone.

If you downgraded to an Android device without first telling iMessage that your phone number was no longer on the iMessage network, then it would fail. This is unrelated to SMS fallback on an iPhone sending iMessages.
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