It looks like beeper published most of the code at this point. Would be funny if Samsung or Google built it into the native messaging app. They have the resources to continually torture apple. The problem is Samsung and Google have deep enough pockets to try to sue.
> what gives Samsung and/or Google any sort of high ground position against Apple?
Hello from GrapheneOS, where I can run any Linux tool I like via nix-on-droid and where google services have to ask for my permission before they so much as sneeze.
Apple would never tolerate such a thing in iOS.
Google is evil in their own way, but not in this way.
There is iSH for ios, where I can run most x86 binaries just fine, without any jailbreak, for what it’s worth.
GrapheneOS is very cool, but it’s a significant tradeoff for people (having the sufficient knowhow, also I prefer the iphone’s better hardware capabilities).
So by default, an iphone will be the most secure and privacy-friendly solution for the vast majority of the population, not violating their users’ data at every stop (as is done by google/huawei on the other side).
I would say Androids are as secure as iOS, maybe not as private.
Regardless, I have seen the majority of iPhone users use apps such as Instagram, so I don't think privacy plays a big part in their decision when buying a device.
Also, don't equate Google and Huawei together, one collects data to sell you ads, whereas the other is a state sponsored spy organisation.
I didn't know about iSH, that's pretty cool. And I agree that for most people who can afford it, Apple is probably the way to go.
I do think it's good that at least some of us are more worried about protecting users from vendors instead of about who the vendors are allegedly protecting users from.
Thankfully this is the kind of thing where apples tolerance and forebearance will cease and the lawyers will come out. There really is clear cause for CFAA charges already, but the optics of doing this are not good against a small indie developer. This is not the case with google or Samsung getting onboard.
Playtime is over, beeper was always gonna get squashed and apple played it incredibly well without turning it into more of a legal fight than they needed to.
There are zero (0) services that are going to tolerate a third-party commercial service spoofing device credentials to get into a service that is very obviously not offered in the form they are offering. Discord will ban you for using Revanced too, even more aggressively than apple.
Just imagine being some YC startup and some other service thinks they can use your email servers for spam and sues when you close an accidentally open relay lmao. It’s a facially absurd case when you remove it from the “apple bad” fervor surrounding every single apple article. Nobody is going to tolerate commercial third party operators using their infra for revenue operations.
“Well they should have to too and —“ let me stop you there - no. Do you want open spam relays? That’s how you get open spam relays. Even with beeper it’s always been about the wave of spam that is going to be unleashed for the other legitimate users of the service. Spam as a service on other people’s infra is bad actually.
It is, again, exactly that simple. It would be an absurd case if it were anyone besides apple but the unthinking hatred of android users is just that intense. All you can see is the carrot, and you really don’t care about the consequences or the precedent, this is an absurdly bad idea/argument. But that’s how android users react on every apple topic. It gets old. Open spam relays are not a good thing even if it means you stick it to apple.
Imagine saying google has to run an open smtp relay just because they’re a gatekeeper. If somehow you managed to spoof googles server into thinking you were a google relay and started selling access to this as a commercial product they’d ban your ass too, in a literal heartbeat, but because of the constant unthinking bleating of the android fanboys it’s somehow an issue that needs to be discussed. No, you can’t do that and it it wouldn’t be a good thing if you could. Why is that even a question? Literally I am asking, why is that a legitimate thing anyone would ever argue other than blinding levels of fanboydom?
It’s so noxious, it’s every damn apple thread. The value of green bubbles as a social filter has become very apparent to me after a number of these apple threads. I didn’t think that way before but I do now, there is another reason y’all ain’t getting invited to those chats.
(Oops, naughty naughty, only green bubbles get to make sly little digs about the other sort.)
This notion that any third party = spam is ridiculous on its face, not to mention that new protocols can - and in this case, Apple already does - integrate anti-spam measures like PoW.
But also, it's rather ironic that you brought up email, given that this is a widely successful open protocol where random third parties connect to the server (thereby consuming resources by their email provider, the horror!) to deliver an email to the user. I'm really glad that fundamental protocols like these were developed before this kind of thinking became widespread; at least now we get to enjoy having somewhat open Internet for a little while longer.
The goal is breaking down the walled garden and moving towards open standards.
Companies generally are against this, but if a company picked up beeper code to profit off of "imessage support on android"... The yardstick would be closer to open standards.
iMessage is not an open standard, even if third parties have access. And in most parts of the world (outside of the US) iMessage is not really a relevant player.
If you're against walled gardens you also have to be against all the obstacles Google and Samsung have planted. Why shouldn't Apple users make free use of Google maps without paying Google (in privacy)? Why can't every person access the advertising data collected by these companies?
If the answer is "companies invest a lot of money to make these products possible" why is iMessage different?
If you're serious about opening up literally everything and probably destroying all the leverage for possible business models how do you expect companies to keep providing the services you enjoy at the moment?
The Apple model where you buy expensive hardware and get exclusive software in the package?
The Microsoft model where you buy software and are still treated like a freeloading advertisement consumer?
Or the Google/Facebook model where you're not paying anything and the companies try to digest your entire life for the support of marketing departments?
You're describing the ones that smell like rent-seeking extortion.
How about the Signal model, where you get a free messaging app with published source code that runs on multiple platforms without trying to lock you into any of them, and its modest operating expenses are paid from donations to a nonprofit?
Or the Linux model, where a minority of users with the resources or technical capacity to make improvements are given the opportunity to do so, resulting in free software that anyone else can use too, and anyone could fork if the existing maintainers became abusive?
Or the Substack model, where you pay money for a service with no ads on it?
Huge dominant conglomerates being abusive is not unexpected. But why do we need huge dominant conglomerates? Let them cease to be.
There's nothing preventing Apple from requiring some kind of subscription for people to use its iMessage servers even if they were to open the protocol. All we're asking is for them to treat their service similar to premium email (which is also not free, but it's not all locked up either).
That's the extortion. Create a service with a network effect, so you don't have a choice in what to use because it's what your group uses, then tie it to another product and thwart anyone who tries to make a compatible implementation for any other device.
A more accurate way to phrase it is that Apple does charge for iMessage, but the cost is bundled into the price of your Apple device, and there's no way unbundle.
It's fascinating that this boils down to the US market using the iPhone's default message app and social status being assigned to the colour of your bubble.
Everywhere else you'll have people on Whatsapp, Signal, Telegram and FB Messenger. I don't have a single friend in the UK or Europe that uses SMS or iPhone messages.
The default message app is basically just a spam bucket for automated texts and 2FA codes.
Is it even an actual status symbol, or is that just meme? FWIW, personally I've never met anyone who cared one way or another. Just heard people online say that others do. Similarly I can’t find anyone claiming they themselves see it as a status symbol.
I'm 38 but date girls in their 20s. I would say that every single girl I've talked to has at one point mentioned/joked that I use an android.
You can make of that what you will based on your world view. In my opinion, it is absolutely a slight negative to overcome. Tall +10 points. Fun cool car +5 points. Android -3 points.
You might consider that you're touching upon your 40s and you've chosen to date people almost 20 years younger than you, so you're just talking about the kids these days and not the attitudes of the people closer in maturity. Only it's the kids these days you're sleeping with.
Hah fine fine. But actually since she sees the android usually before the cool car (unless you literally post it), the android will hurt you before she ever gets to see the car.
The truth is, once the newness wears off, even when you're tall, the android will be used against you eventually by most women.
Have you considered that the problem is not which phone you choose to use, but the type of women you choose to date?
I’m 2 years older than you, and it is frankly astounding and depressing that in your description of how women “view you”, it’s all superficial and materialistic factors.
Maybe if you dated women who care more about your personality and less about what brand phone you use, you’d have more fulfilling relationships?
There have been studies that showed that women appreciation of men change when getting clues about the men wealth. That small, going bald 45y old guy will be considered unattractive without any clue. Mentionning he is a reputable dentist living in a fancy area he becomes charming or even cute. The younger and more athletic guy who was topping the chart will go down severly we it is mentionned he work as a car mechanic.
And it is the same with men with other factors. Men will have a hard time engaging with women that can present too smart and will often "target" women that act in a way that make you think their intellectual capabilities are lower.
And both men and women play with those when interacting with strangers of the opposite gender.
It is only with time spent with people that we overcome some of these basic signals and preconceptions about people, reason why we very often end up having long relationship with people we don't meet randomly in a dancefloor, dating app but rather colleagues/ex-colleagues, business partners, friends of relatives with which we interact a number of times before actually start dating.
You're 40. Unless you're also dating 30 and below, it's very possible you've completely missed the generation that started dating on social media, dating apps once they went mainstream (although I started on sparkmatch!), and texted constantly in the getting to know you phase.
I hate to be the one to break it to you mate but being overly concerned with superficial and material things isn't some new phenomenon created by smart phones or social media.
Great, you're arguing against your own point from earlier. Except, yes, people seem even MORE superficial when they know their partner choice is going to be blasted to everyone they have ever known.
Superficial/materialistic people existed before smart phones existed. Then, just as now, the key is to avoid dating people who care more about what you have than who you are.
To be honest, you sound a lot like the retired old white boys who move to Thailand, use their relative wealth to attract a young woman, and then spend the next 30 years complaining to anyone who will listen how "Thai women are only interested in your wallet".
Edit: to clarify a point I think maybe you misunderstood in my original comment:
When I said it's astounding and depressing, I was referring to the idea that someone essentially my own age hasn't yet learnt/accepted that there are people in the world who will like you for you, regardless of what you have, be it money, a car, or a particular brand of phone.
I'm not complaining about anything. I'm just describing what I see. Maybe it's because I'm in California and they're simply heavily skewed towards a certain style..
You're saying materialistic women always existed. Sure. And I'm arguing the women raised under social media are even more materialistic about visible things than women 20-30 years ago. If you don't think that a girls entire lifelong social circle being able to see glimpses into her and her bfs financial expenditures (cars, restaurant quality, vacations, clothes) and their quality and frequency of purchase makes women more image conscious, then I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. I think women care more about indicators of casual spending ability than they ever did, and the wrong color texting dot is an easy constant reminder of "this guy is a bit cheap" to them.
I do just fine playing the cheap guy. Thank God I'm tall and ok looking. I drive a 2001 Silverado 4x4 Single Cab short bed on dates, and a Chevy volt day to day. They love the truck. They don't love the android. My Google pixel 4xl cost about half of what an iPhone did. My truck now costs $7k maybe since it's nice still. A new bmw costs $45-60k. So it's not just pure money.
I think in their mind using an android is like driving an old BORING car. It's not the cheapness or age, it's mostly the boring. They're probably wondering why I don't want to just fit in and have something nicer since it only costs $500 extra vs an android (even if that's not true always).
Agreed. Making your users appear obnoxious to adjacent non-users is a marketing strategy that only works if you're Apple-sized, and being Apple-sized is a new phenomenon.
To be fair, based on the comments here Android users seem to be pretty good at being obnoxious all on their own. Like the one guy who swears up and down iMessage creates incels.
Yeah, but that guy is going above and beyond. Even just using iMessage as intended with a group of Android users causes you to inject superfluous noise into the chat.
The whole point of having reactions as a separate thing from messages is that they don't distract from the conversation. Sending "X Liked: 'Y'" to every Android user for every iMessage user who likes something makes the iPeople look like a bunch of buffoons who don't know how to read the room and want everybody to know that they have an iPhone, when actually they're just trying to communicate.
Apple is savvy enough to have avoided that situation if they wanted to, so you gotta conclude that it's part of the plan.
Neither Apple nor Google have a vested interest in providing a good experience with SMS/MMS/RCS. Google leadership failed to create a popular messaging platform so now they're trying to compete with FUD.
For instance, tapbacks (from Android users even) come through as foo liked bar on Google Voice. You gotta conclude that it's part of the plan.
Ya, it's mainly a US problem. And it should be the domain of antitrust regulation. But, American regulators probably won't get around to it in the foreseeable future, so a little needling is good.
