“It’s time for Apple to fix texting” • Hacker News Board

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

#731

Post by DangitBobby » Wed, Aug 10, 2022, 5:08 AM UTC

saxonww wrote: post #722

This is so funny because they don't even do a good job themselves with their own service. I'm a Google phone user on Google Fi, and make heavy use of the web app (message.google.com/web) in addition to texting via the phone. Once you get a long conversation history, the phone experience becomes poor - conversations won't load, messages won't send - and the web will often lose sync and need to be re-paired (which may…

Just to counter your anecdote, I've never had a single performance issue on the Android Messages app on my phone or the web interface. I have had friends with iPhones that fail to render images I've sent them, and they send this obnoxious "so and so responded with a thumbs up" (still do, android phones just do the right thing now and show a thumbs up reaction instead of the text). So YMMV. Apple needs to fix their broken messaging app.

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

#732

Post by sbuk » Wed, Aug 10, 2022, 5:10 AM UTC

username190 wrote: post #630

eek2121 wrote: post #592

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say this like it is a bad thing. I used Signal, which is an open-source messaging app. If Apple were censoring messaging apps I would agree with your seemingly negative sentiment, however, as someone who has pushed out apps to the Apple and Mac app stores, I can say they absolutely do not do that. There are many reasons many IT folks actually prefer an iPhone over Android. The two biggest ones are privacy and sec…

> If Apple were censoring messaging apps I would agree with your seemingly negative sentiment, however, as someone who has pushed out apps to the Apple and Mac app stores, I can say they absolutely do not do that. Perhaps not in your country, but they've certainly done it before - censoring Telegram in both Russia[0] and Iran[1], for example. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/31/technology/telegram-apple... [1] htt…

What’s to stop governments banning RCS?

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

#733

Post by GeekyBear » Wed, Aug 10, 2022, 5:13 AM UTC

vinay427 wrote: post #680

CharlesW wrote: post #670

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem with moving groups over to iMessage is that you'll always leave some Android users out. I'm on several text chains with a mix of iOS and Android users. It works fine.

Those aren’t iMessage group chats if they’re using SMS/MMS.

They are SMS/MMS sent from iMessage. It automatically falls back on SMS/MMS when you message someone who is not signed into iMessage.

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

#734

Post by sbuk » Wed, Aug 10, 2022, 5:21 AM UTC

worthless-trash wrote: post #633

selectodude wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a problem for you only because you want to use iMessage. iMessage is about as far from a monopoly as you can get.

Who else 'sells' imessage ?

So every app is a monopoly now? This is getting ridiculous.

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

#735

Post by DangitBobby » Wed, Aug 10, 2022, 5:23 AM UTC

throwaway67743 wrote: post #263

tpush wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [...] (basically USA, Europe does not do such silly things) What? Europe has Wi-Fi Calling, too [0]. [0] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204040

woosh - read the comment again, it clearly implied the US has a prominent idea of whitelisting "compatible" handsets (ie; those bought from the network because unlocked is a hilariously quaint idea) whereas in Europe, unlocked handsets are generally the default, since people don't like it and regulations prevent it for the most part anyway, in those cases it's just incompatible/old/awful implementations, rather than…

You really gotta dial down the smugness. It made your comment difficult to actually understand and so annoying that I didn't want to finish reading it. Take whoosh back to reddit, please.

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

#736

Post by superchink » Wed, Aug 10, 2022, 5:23 AM UTC

CharlesW wrote: post #670

GekkePrutser wrote: post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with moving groups over to iMessage is that you'll always leave some Android users out. Here in Spain Apple has a minority marketshare so that makes iMessage a total non-starter. But even in the US not everyone has an iPhone. And really iMessage is not so much better than the cross-platform alternatives that it's worth leaving some friends out.

> The problem with moving groups over to iMessage is that you'll always leave some Android users out. I'm on several text chains with a mix of iOS and Android users. It works fine.

I think maybe your idea of “fine” differs from mine. It is a much worse experience than iMessage.

1. No threading is supported. If you reply, it duplicates the message being replied to.

2. “Tapbacks” (reactions) duplicate the message being reacted to with “so-and-so likes message … message”

3. Photos are reduced to a size that fits in MMS (very low quality)

4. Videos look like postage stamps

5. The chat cannot be renamed or have a photo added

6. Members cannot be added or removed without starting a new group (conversation)

7. No message effects

There may be others, but this is off the top of my head.

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

#737

Post by sbuk » Wed, Aug 10, 2022, 5:24 AM UTC

worthless-trash wrote: post #635

altairprime wrote: post #598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it was as simple as that, we would all endlessly be plagued by iMessage spam. It isn’t.

It is, but spammers are not clever.

That attitude is what gets people phished. They are generally very clever, but will take the path of least resistance. If you accuse them of anything, it’s laziness.

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

#738

Post by DennisAleynikov » Wed, Aug 10, 2022, 5:29 AM UTC

googlryas wrote: post #679

mr_toad wrote: post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The look on their face when I send them an iMessage from my Galaxy is priceless. Well, technically it was relayed through your Mac. Not sure how many Galaxy users have Macs to send message through, so I’m not sure it’s a workable solution for most.

Probably many, since macs are the most popular laptop/desktop computers, and many people have one.

I wanna live in the world where what you said is true!

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

#739

Post by DennisAleynikov » Wed, Aug 10, 2022, 5:29 AM UTC

navanchauhan wrote: post #583

thomasahle wrote: post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can this be done without setting up a private Mac server?

You don't have to setup on a dedicated Mac server. You could also use a jailbroken iPhone / iPod touch

At that point just make a hackintosh VM and run it from there. Why even buy apples stuff if you're not gonna use it.

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

#740

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Aug 10, 2022, 5:34 AM UTC

mynameisvlad wrote: post #306

mongol wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not so sure about that. We still call these devices "phones", with the expectation that any phone in the world can call any phone number in the world. With no other information than a phone number, you need to involve the carriers to deliver a message texted to an arbitrary phone number. That is why Apple need to fallback to SMS. They have no other means to deliver the message. If Apple and Google teams up without ca…

Why, exactly, would Apple and Google not be able to fallback to SMS? Without involving carriers at all? It's not like there's any real benefit to having the carriers in that conversation, you can already text from either device just fine. That would continue into the future.

[deleted]