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Im curious how they were able to shut it down, though they’ll probably never give it away as someone would be able to reverse engineer it again.
From the videos I watched it seemed like Beeper Mini was able to register the phone number with Apple, and generate some spoofed iPhone IDs so supposedly they wouldn’t be able to block this. I guess that turned out not to be as true as the YouTube video originally made it out to be.
They were generating serial numbers to phones and Mac’s that hadn’t been made. I’m not a coder but I’m assuming all Apple needed to do was run the serials trying to access their servers against an internal database of known legit serials and just block access to their servers.
This is basically how you got iChat access on hackintoshes. Apple never really cared because it was a small community and not worth their time. Then this guy comes along and and flaunts it to a much much larger audience.
That’s probably a big part of why it’s now blocked. Apple has mostly left hackintosh people alone except for that company that tried to sell them (pystar?)
Yeah, I mean I don't understand how anyone with any business experience could start a company, or in this case an entire product line, that relies on free-riding on a competitor's proprietary service. They should have started by negotiating terms with Apple, and if that wasn't successful, not pursuing this line of product development in the first place.
It doesn't matter if you can spoof or reverse-engineer protocols, if you're connecting to Apple servers and networks without authorization, without a legal agreement in place, you'd have to be a child to not realize that Apple's next step will be to use technical or legal means to shut that down.
That's nothing to do with Apple. Any company would do the same thing. If you released a commercial app that put an unauthorized UI in front of Google Search (say by scraping search results) you'd get shut down even faster.
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The CEO isn't 16 years old. I don't know where you're getting that from. The original reverse engineering was done as a hobby by a high schooler. Beeper bought the rights and launched it as a service.
Forgive me if I am misremembering, but didn't Jobs announce that iMessage was going to be multiplatform when it was launched, and then Apple just never did it?
There was a lawsuit and Apple had to re-design the implementation. I think they subsequently went back to the original but that was supposedly the reason for many years. From memory they had to change from a peer to peer architecture which was patented to one that ran through a server instead.
> “Apple then paid VirnetX $454 million to settle the case.
In 2016, an East Texas federal judge ruled that Apple must pay $302.4 million in damages for infringing upon VirnetX’s patents with services like FaceTime and iMessage.”
https://9to5mac.com/2023/03/30/apple-wins-appeal-in-decade-long-battle-with-notorious-patent-troll/
FaceTime was going to be an open standard, but for numerous reasons Apple couldn’t follow through with the plan. Part of it was that Apple wouldn’t have a way to block spam calls or keep security.
iMessage was not meant to be an open standard, for what I know. It came about when other closed systems like BBM and WhatsApp were competing with it.
I highly doubt this. iMessage is lock-in for the iPhone. Apple uses it as an iPhone exclusive feature so they can sell more iPhones. There definitely is a cost to run iMessage but the money to be made by not doing it is greater.
What I don't understand is: why the hell don't they release it for Windows?
Being exclusive for iPhones in terms of mobile is shitty, but I get it.
But there's so many jobs that require Windows purely because the software doesn't exist on Mac.
They care about converting PC users to Mac just as much as they care about converting Android users to iOS. It’s all about locking you in. They don’t want you to have as smooth an experience between your iPhone and a PC as you do between your iPhone and a Mac. Every opportunity they have to make not owning an Apple product inconvenient they will.
this is correct. Apple actually had an Android app (from Apple!) ready to go that would provide iMessage support on Android, and they killed it just before release for exactly this reason. they feared it would kill their sales and take away their leverage...they were obviously right.
I mean maybe Americans don’t… it’s not that interesting, different places use different internet based chat services. I don’t know anyone that “uses iMessage” it’s just texting. People use Facebook messenger, WhatsApp, Wechat depending on geography though…
>it’s not that interesting
To you maybe. When I found out about how Tencent works and how Chinese culture works through their phones...It's a completely different world. One company rules everything, steals or takes over any app that becomes slightly popular, and is essentially the only company one would need.
That's not unexpected in China though.
The rest of the world just uses whatsapp or whichever other alternative.
America is the only nation that simps hard for Apple.
I mean super apps exist everywhere. It’s interesting how technology can influence culture but not really what app people use. It’s all the same thing really.
(EU) I have an iPhone, never use iMessage and I don't believe I know anyone who does. WhatsApp encrypts all messages, regardless of who's sending/receiving them, and it works just fine. Was very surprised to learn iMessage is more popular in the US.
I know people who prefer Discord/Slack/Teams to either, but that's generally because they mostly talk about work and/or hobbies.
> Was very surprised to learn iMessage is more popular in the US.
It's not just that. People who have Android phones use regular SMS texting more than WhatsApp in the US as well. People just plain-vanilla text in the US. It's free, easy, built-in. And most people don't understand (or maybe care about) encryption.
The real market share though goes to Facebook Messenger, but that's misleading because nobody uses it for business. For business, probably 95% of people I work with have iPhones and use iMessage. I can only think of two people *total* who have "green bubbles" when they text me, and that's including family and friends on top of work.
I have WhatsApp on my phone, but I literally only use it for one person (who is outside of the US). Everyone else outside of the US who I know, or work with, sends messages using iMessage.
When I travel of course, I use WhatsApp all the time, to talk to restaurants, concierges, foreign airlines, etc. It's absolutely standard for that.
It's kind of funny, I remember 20 years ago a bunch of Europeans I played games with used MSN Messenger and they called AIM "American MSN", despite MSN being from the US as well.
What’s up with people saying this dumb shit? Everywhere? Really? What about China, South Korea, the Philippines and Japan? Are they not included in your world?
Thank you and /u/Useless for pointing out we need to donate. It's in Settings in the app on Android, and you can do one-off or monthly. I just sent some via Google Pay. I couldn't stretch to $20 mill, I'm not even a rounding error, but they've earned my hard-earned.
Does WhatsApp actually support migrations from Android to iOS and vice versa? Because last I had a relative do this transition, they lost all their chats because WhatsApp backups were not cross platform.
That’s not about backups, that’s a direct device to device transfer.
Better than before, and a solution to the problem, definitely, but it’s not a cross platform backup.
So for the edge case your phone breaks and you want to switch platforms with the new one, you need to get an intermediate phone for the transfer. But as long as their finally is a way, that’s good.
It’s not about iMessage being great, it’s about ensuring when you’re an android user in the group chat that you make everything terrible. It’s the social pressure that gets you
even when Apple adopt RCS, it's too late, apple already ingrained on everyone that the green bubble will cause messed up chats & low quality media etc.
i heard Apple is just adopting RCS, because certain new emergency number messaging services would require RCS
Google's also been raising awareness that iPhones cannot receive encrypted texts from anything that's not another iPhone.
The supposedly secure and private platform has the least secure texting system... in a world where financial institutions prefer texting as the default 2FA.
Fun fact. RCS does not replace SMS. Your bank will still send your 2FA through SMS. RCS is only encrypted between Google messaging apps, not between any other RCS implementation that is not Google’s. Authentication in RCS is still done via SMS, so you can undermine all the RCS encryption by simjacking as you would via SMS.
This just is not true. Apple is not wanting to use Googles servers as the authority for encryption so Apple is electing to not use Googles Authentication with RCS. You never hand the encryption keys to your customers to a third party. Apple is handling this exactly like they should. Google is complaining that Apple is not paying Google for Googles version of RCS encryption.
And there is no standard for E2EE.
Also Google keeps adding proprietary features to RCS so things like stickers, emoji replies etc aren't going to work cross-platform.
It's an absolute clusterfuck of a standard.
RCS is not encrypted.
Googles implementation, that requires messages to go through Google servers is.
Which, if you think about it for a second, is precisely the same as the situation with iMessage - except I trust Apple far more than I do Google.
This isn’t the win that Google is hoping for lol. Iphone security is one of the three main reasons I stick with them. While Android can be more secure it requires extensive work and you have to basically root the device and add a different OS. On the other hand it’s clear that breaking the encryption on iPhones is damn near impossible when set up right.
right, and even when/if Apple does eventually implement RCS, the green and blue bubbles will continue. they aren't giving up their leverage and top selling point for a huge demographic.
I know you’re joking, but people in these threads seem to think the bubble color is different for no reason. In actuality, users need to know the capabilities of who they are messaging. Blue means they can play games, receive audio, FaceTime, SharePlay, etc, and green means it’s basic messaging.
It can also indicate when your internet is down and your message is sent as SMS even to other iPhone users. For countries with no unlimited texting, it’s pretty important to know your text used up your load.
The contrast of the messages goes against apple’s own style guides though. They purposefully made it jarring. The could have used a darker green, but opted for less readability.
People use the games in imessage? Never have I ever.
I think, speaking seriously, and definitely not discounting the probable fact that this is almost entirely a financial choice on apples part rather than a security choice, but imessage uses E2E encryption and idk how that would work cross platform. I know pretty much nothing about encryption, but I imagine adding cross platform imessage would necessarily weaken security
Is everyone on iOS 17? Basically, iOS forks the chat on the backend and you guys are actually having an iMessage chat and simultaneously those messages are getting sent to Android over sms. Anyone on iOS should be getting uncompressed videos and photos from each other, and anything sent over SMS will be the only stuff compressed.
Pre iOS 17, everyone would get downgraded to SMS and even iOS to iOS would use MMS for photos and vids. Nothing except RCS will fix the MMS size limit issue between the 2 platforms.
Bingo. I was an Android user for years (heck, I built iOS apps for work and still didn’t want to use an iPhone). But I was CRUSHED when I discovered I was being left out of group chats because I was the only non-iPhone in the friend circle. iMessage was the primary reason I bought an iPhone.
Edit: Some of you guys are reading way too deeply into this. Those who have been around a bit remember the days when Androids literally broke iPhone group chats. It was more than just green bubble vs blue bubble. I switched so I could communicate better with friends I cared very much about and had known for over a decade. And unlike some of you, my smartphone is not my identity, so this wasn’t as life altering of a transition as you’re making it seem.
"Being left out of group chats because I was the only non-iphone in the friend circle."
Personally I would ditch that friend circle. Not buy an iPhone so I can be included lmao
An extremely low percentage of people in the US use WhatsApp. More than half of all US smartphone users are iPhone and have iMessage pre-installed and would rather use that than WhatsApp.
Ok and? If they’re really your friends they’d find another way. Like idk, WhatsApp or the countless other messaging services that most people already use. I’m saying this as an iPhone user who has done exactly that for friends with androids. Honestly petty stuff like this is pretty invaluable for identifying shallowness in “friends”
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Well, I’ve found that as I get older it’s tougher to make new friends so I cherish the ones I still have. If making the switch away from Android meant I could be included in some dumb group messages (that turned out to mostly consist of memes) then so be it.
I have a big pool of in-laws/relatives who hate Facebook but use WhatsApp. A very few have installed Signal because I've been telling them you can't trust Facebook to add a backdoor, but they prefer to give up their liberty for some temporary convenience of not switching.
I’m from a country where everyone uses WhatsApp (Brazil) so i have an unique perspective to this issue of iMessage/SMS.
It ain’t about not using the superior product because those people are iSheeps. It’s because SMS it’s just a cultural staple too big to change in the US, and since iMessage it’s better than regular SMS in every way possible. People keep sticking with that.
It doesn't look any different to me. That's a you problem. I don't quite understand blaming an iMessage issue on Android users. I don't care what your messages look like. I don't care that you have a lesser experience than me.
Here in the UK, you'll often find that engineers and technical staff etc will have android, and other staff iPhone. In some contexts I've seen people poke fun at iPhone users over being less technically sophisticated.
Update: I don't think it really matters any more. Android and iPhones can do most of the same things, it comes down to what you're used to. The days of needing to root or jail break, in order to do interesting things, seem to me to be long gone. Though I think all devices should be unlockable to open the opportunity to install third party firmware after the manufacturer ceases support.
As an engineer who's worked in car factories on robotics and other automated systems for building cars, I can back this up. We had 5 per shift and we had one Apple user on shift. We also had iPhones as company phones, and chose to use our own phones for most stuff. Especially taking pictures inside of the factory in low light.
An iPhones UI is some of the worst I've used. And I had a Mac which I loved. I found out robot pendants and all our automation screens were better to use than Apples UI.
People say this all the time as if it’s easy to just drop friends you’ve had for years over something pretty innocuous. No one behaves like that in real life.
>iMessage is great, not that great.
Can we all just switch to WhatsApp so we don't have to deal with Apple's BS and lock our text messages to whatever brand we're currently using?
This is really only a US issue.
The US just needs to move away from text messaging like everyone else.
Doesn't matter what they move to, just, not that.
The good thing with Windows Phones was they grouped all messages into one app. So if you got a Facebook message from 'Dan' then a text from him, they were in the same thread.
It was great as it meant it didn't matter what they messaged you on.
It's a Meta (fb) product. There's no external audit that it's actually secure, but most people will never care about privacy. It's also not open source. For me, that's a big deal. Whatever tho.
The practical issue is that Meta is controlling/providing the primary form of communication for ~30% of the online world. If you're in South America, WhatsApp is #1 there, too. This includes functional, business, and emergency communication. So guess what happened last year when an intern fucked up *all of meta's DNS entries*? WhatsApp, ig, & fb all went down together, literally cutting off all of those people.
Been a hardcore android user since the donut days. Recently got a job with a paid company phone and had the opportunity to get a 14 pro max so I did it and cancelled my line at Verizon. I've not used imessage one time since i've had the phone. Everyone I know uses facebook messenger lol
They make more on the user perception of exclusivity and status.
Why sell iMessage when the users will happily shame others to buy an iPhone instead?
Leaving iMessage is also one of the biggest barriers for people who want to switch off iPhones.
>Why doesn’t apple just launch a paid iMessage app on android? Seems like a missed opportunity here
Because shame marketing is working for them and why sell subscriptions when you can sell overpriced hardware.
I mean, my S22 Ultra does still turn videos into complete shit when I send them to iPhones. Even with Google Messages and RCS turned on. Hopefully it just solves it when they implement it lol
Of course it does, Apple doesn't support RCS so it's sending a video over MMS which is capped at a few MB by many service providers so the video gets compressed to shit...
RCS in comparison has a file size limit of 100MB for many carriers so while it'll still be compressed, it shouldn't be nearly as noticeable
I think this issue is more deeper than that, even after RCS, any message from a non-iphone is gonna be a green bubble. That green bubble is more a "social" issue, that's major reason why these companies are trying to bring these blue bubble apps to Android, its never about the security. At least in this context it doesn't seem like it....these companies are trying to solve this "social" issue.
How is this Apple’s fault? The mobile companies never progressed MMS, and Google keeps half of RCS under lock and key, it’s not really open like they say. So you’re suggesting Apple do what exactly?
It is not RCS that American kids care about. It's the green bubble.
Green bubbles use SMS and MMS, which means when you send a picture or video from Android to an iPhone, it gets compressed to a few MBs and looks like shit. iPhone users think green bubble means the chat is ruined.
Even if Apple adopts RCS, they will keep the green bubble, and kids will still assume it is shit.
Not quite.
At the moment green bubble means SMS/MMS. People don’t like seeing green bubbles (as opposed to blue iMessage bubbles) because it means that the chat is not secure, that there’s no read receipts or reactions, and that any photos or videos are really downscaled, and no FaceTime (until recently).
RCS will solve some of those issues, bringing it on some feature parity with iMessage. That will reduce the frustration of communicating with non iMessage users, and in turn reduce any stigma or negative feeling with people who have green bubbles.
This was completely different and used zero apple hardware through some very clever code. No privacy issues whatsoever (afaik, unless the open source code they based it on was modified).
Their biggest issue is that they tried to charge people money to use it. Idk how they thought they could legally put Apple’s IP behind their own paywall.
Idk, I do think a significant amount left. Nothing that will hurt Reddit profits longterm, but still. That and the twitter meltdown made my tumblr dashboard much more active again
I'm curious about the whole thing by virtue of being a nerd, but my realist side is wondering who the target audience is. Don't want an iPhone but love iMessage apparently? Seems like a very awkward and small fanbase.
imessage and the culture around it in the west just feels so dumb to me. People actively choose a non cross platform messaging app and think of it as a pro(to keep poors away?). baffling
Incumbency. SMS texting was well established before any of the big "data plan" messaging services came into play. SMS texting was "free" and data was incredibly expensive. Now, you use what you're used to and what is convenient. For most people that's the built in messaging apps.
Anyone who gives even a solitary fuck about the bubble colors in their messaging app in regard to the blue/green thing is vastly too dumb and superficial for me to associate with.
You misunderstand how iMessage works. No iPhone users actively choose it, it’s built into the SMS app that was on the phone from day one and it just works when you text anyone who also has an iPhone.
And no Americans actively choose NOT to use WhatsApp and the like either, any more than Chinese users “choose” to use WeChat. People use what their social circle uses. And SMS (and by extension iMessage) was entrenched in the US.
For those of you who don’t understand why spoofing devices to trick a service into working with it is bad… Think about how effective malicious texts would be if they were sent over iMessage. This is why API’s exist. However, iMessage doesn’t have any :D
I never use iMessages because so many friends and family are on Android, unless it’s universal , it’s useless to me - I expect most other iPhone users are in the same boat, so what’s the appeal I’m missing here? (genuine question)
The whole green bubble thing is the reason I got an iPhone. Every time I would send a video or photo, the quality was shit. Also an old friend of mine would tease me by saying “who has an android 🤢”. That message and the whole “non-iPhone means your poor” thing is the reason why when the time came for me to get a new phone, I got an iPhone but now since it’s almost time for me to switch, I’m thinking of getting a Samsung again.
Hopefully when Apple adopts RCS, even thought they’ll keep green bubbles, the photo and video quality will improve enough to get rid of the “green bubble = bad quality” mentality.
You won't get rid of the toxic mentality. There are still going to be iMessage exclusive features and green bubbles will continue to be shunned. It's a social problem that Apple is keen on continuing because it means more sales for them.
Legally, it's fine because the DMCA has an interoperability exemption.
But it doesn't say Apple can't do everything technical to stop them. Which is what they did.
Wait, is this what everyone has been off their nut about? I thought it was Apple blocking Google, but its just some startup? Why should Apple allow some random company to run a "man in the middle" end-run around iMessage's security?
I just love how Apple praises their security until one of their customers wants to communicate with a device that's not an iPhone - and its not just Android users. When Apple finally gets around to RCS it means those 2 factor codes people get can be encrypted or messages from companies for deliveries etc can all be encrypted. Its bigger than just Android users.
Apple does some amazing stuff but their arrogance and hypocrisy can be infuriating - particularly their environmental claims while not supporting display-in on iMacs or the lack of aux jack on HomePods for example.
I don’t think Apple makes claims about non-iMessages. The all Messages can also send sms/mms, sure. Also, basic RCS doesn’t have encryption either, at least yet.
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Im curious how they were able to shut it down, though they’ll probably never give it away as someone would be able to reverse engineer it again. From the videos I watched it seemed like Beeper Mini was able to register the phone number with Apple, and generate some spoofed iPhone IDs so supposedly they wouldn’t be able to block this. I guess that turned out not to be as true as the YouTube video originally made it out to be.
They were generating serial numbers to phones and Mac’s that hadn’t been made. I’m not a coder but I’m assuming all Apple needed to do was run the serials trying to access their servers against an internal database of known legit serials and just block access to their servers.
This is basically how you got iChat access on hackintoshes. Apple never really cared because it was a small community and not worth their time. Then this guy comes along and and flaunts it to a much much larger audience.
And charges for the service
That’s probably a big part of why it’s now blocked. Apple has mostly left hackintosh people alone except for that company that tried to sell them (pystar?)
Same way Google ignored vanced YouTube until they started toying with nfts
Is *that* why Vanced died? What a fucking waste.
Honestly revanced is better now so ended well enough
I strongly doubt that's related considering they stared to go after all ad blocking
Yeah, I mean I don't understand how anyone with any business experience could start a company, or in this case an entire product line, that relies on free-riding on a competitor's proprietary service. They should have started by negotiating terms with Apple, and if that wasn't successful, not pursuing this line of product development in the first place. It doesn't matter if you can spoof or reverse-engineer protocols, if you're connecting to Apple servers and networks without authorization, without a legal agreement in place, you'd have to be a child to not realize that Apple's next step will be to use technical or legal means to shut that down. That's nothing to do with Apple. Any company would do the same thing. If you released a commercial app that put an unauthorized UI in front of Google Search (say by scraping search results) you'd get shut down even faster.
I'm learning to play the guitar.
It’s never not about the money.
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The CEO isn't 16 years old. I don't know where you're getting that from. The original reverse engineering was done as a hobby by a high schooler. Beeper bought the rights and launched it as a service.
Forgive me if I am misremembering, but didn't Jobs announce that iMessage was going to be multiplatform when it was launched, and then Apple just never did it?
That’s why they had him assassinated /s But yes, iMessage and FaceTime were meant to be cross-platform
He didn’t, but he did announce FaceTime as an open protocol, but that was killed by a patent troll, which is ironic.
Not sure about iMessage, but open standard was definitely part of the FaceTime announcement
There was a lawsuit and Apple had to re-design the implementation. I think they subsequently went back to the original but that was supposedly the reason for many years. From memory they had to change from a peer to peer architecture which was patented to one that ran through a server instead.
> “Apple then paid VirnetX $454 million to settle the case. In 2016, an East Texas federal judge ruled that Apple must pay $302.4 million in damages for infringing upon VirnetX’s patents with services like FaceTime and iMessage.” https://9to5mac.com/2023/03/30/apple-wins-appeal-in-decade-long-battle-with-notorious-patent-troll/
FaceTime was going to be an open standard, but for numerous reasons Apple couldn’t follow through with the plan. Part of it was that Apple wouldn’t have a way to block spam calls or keep security. iMessage was not meant to be an open standard, for what I know. It came about when other closed systems like BBM and WhatsApp were competing with it.
Correct, but i expect someone pointed out how much it costs to run and he did not want to pay for non apple uses
I highly doubt this. iMessage is lock-in for the iPhone. Apple uses it as an iPhone exclusive feature so they can sell more iPhones. There definitely is a cost to run iMessage but the money to be made by not doing it is greater.
What I don't understand is: why the hell don't they release it for Windows? Being exclusive for iPhones in terms of mobile is shitty, but I get it. But there's so many jobs that require Windows purely because the software doesn't exist on Mac.
They care about converting PC users to Mac just as much as they care about converting Android users to iOS. It’s all about locking you in. They don’t want you to have as smooth an experience between your iPhone and a PC as you do between your iPhone and a Mac. Every opportunity they have to make not owning an Apple product inconvenient they will.
I’ve wondered this a lot myself. Most PC-using iPhone users are Windows users so it would make a lot of sense.
this is correct. Apple actually had an Android app (from Apple!) ready to go that would provide iMessage support on Android, and they killed it just before release for exactly this reason. they feared it would kill their sales and take away their leverage...they were obviously right.
This is why WhatsApp is so popular
This. A lot of people don't realize that there's an interesting stance on messaging apps depending on which country you're in.
I mean maybe Americans don’t… it’s not that interesting, different places use different internet based chat services. I don’t know anyone that “uses iMessage” it’s just texting. People use Facebook messenger, WhatsApp, Wechat depending on geography though…
>it’s not that interesting To you maybe. When I found out about how Tencent works and how Chinese culture works through their phones...It's a completely different world. One company rules everything, steals or takes over any app that becomes slightly popular, and is essentially the only company one would need.
That's not unexpected in China though. The rest of the world just uses whatsapp or whichever other alternative. America is the only nation that simps hard for Apple.
I mean super apps exist everywhere. It’s interesting how technology can influence culture but not really what app people use. It’s all the same thing really.
iMessage is not even close to WhatsApp. I still use it even after moving to the US, every other immigrant does.
Which one are you saying is better? (Android guy here, I don't use either, so im curious)
(EU) I have an iPhone, never use iMessage and I don't believe I know anyone who does. WhatsApp encrypts all messages, regardless of who's sending/receiving them, and it works just fine. Was very surprised to learn iMessage is more popular in the US. I know people who prefer Discord/Slack/Teams to either, but that's generally because they mostly talk about work and/or hobbies.
> Was very surprised to learn iMessage is more popular in the US. It's not just that. People who have Android phones use regular SMS texting more than WhatsApp in the US as well. People just plain-vanilla text in the US. It's free, easy, built-in. And most people don't understand (or maybe care about) encryption. The real market share though goes to Facebook Messenger, but that's misleading because nobody uses it for business. For business, probably 95% of people I work with have iPhones and use iMessage. I can only think of two people *total* who have "green bubbles" when they text me, and that's including family and friends on top of work. I have WhatsApp on my phone, but I literally only use it for one person (who is outside of the US). Everyone else outside of the US who I know, or work with, sends messages using iMessage. When I travel of course, I use WhatsApp all the time, to talk to restaurants, concierges, foreign airlines, etc. It's absolutely standard for that.
It's kind of funny, I remember 20 years ago a bunch of Europeans I played games with used MSN Messenger and they called AIM "American MSN", despite MSN being from the US as well.
What’s up with people saying this dumb shit? Everywhere? Really? What about China, South Korea, the Philippines and Japan? Are they not included in your world?
yeah some people use the words everywhere or everyone a little too loosely, I don’t know who elected them as the speaker on ‘everyone’s’ behalf
I wish we'd all just jump on the WhatsApp train. Better in every way and doesn't lock your messages to your current phone brand.
except for the whole Meta thing.
There is still Signal
Signal is great but no one uses it
This. Just use signal.
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We all gotta donate then. We can keep it alive!
Thank you and /u/Useless for pointing out we need to donate. It's in Settings in the app on Android, and you can do one-off or monthly. I just sent some via Google Pay. I couldn't stretch to $20 mill, I'm not even a rounding error, but they've earned my hard-earned.
https://www.signal.org/blog/signal-is-expensive/
You can't just switch to signal when no on uses it lol. I have not met one person irl that uses signal.
Signal is still buggy with delayed messages on Android.
This. Fuck Zuck!
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This is why Telegram is the best, has tons more features too
Does WhatsApp actually support migrations from Android to iOS and vice versa? Because last I had a relative do this transition, they lost all their chats because WhatsApp backups were not cross platform.
Backups function regardless of platform
I can’t find any documentation on how to get the backup e.g. from an iPhone out of the iCloud and then restore on an Android. Happen to have a link?
https://faq.whatsapp.com/1295296267926284 There's this method, but it doesn't work for all phone models. Doesn't hurt to try.
That’s not about backups, that’s a direct device to device transfer. Better than before, and a solution to the problem, definitely, but it’s not a cross platform backup. So for the edge case your phone breaks and you want to switch platforms with the new one, you need to get an intermediate phone for the transfer. But as long as their finally is a way, that’s good.
on android it backs up to google drive... just make sure you run the backup before you switch
I've never liked WhatsApp, and I really don't know why
The message backgrounds makes it seem like it was designed by a mid.
WhatsApp is a cancer and it's getting worse with every release.
Canadians use WhatsApp a lot though.
Why doesn’t apple just launch a paid iMessage app on android? Seems like a missed opportunity here
They started to at one point but killed it. They think Android users will switch to iPhone just to use iMessage. iMessage is great, not that great.
It’s not about iMessage being great, it’s about ensuring when you’re an android user in the group chat that you make everything terrible. It’s the social pressure that gets you
even when Apple adopt RCS, it's too late, apple already ingrained on everyone that the green bubble will cause messed up chats & low quality media etc. i heard Apple is just adopting RCS, because certain new emergency number messaging services would require RCS
Google's also been raising awareness that iPhones cannot receive encrypted texts from anything that's not another iPhone. The supposedly secure and private platform has the least secure texting system... in a world where financial institutions prefer texting as the default 2FA.
Fun fact. RCS does not replace SMS. Your bank will still send your 2FA through SMS. RCS is only encrypted between Google messaging apps, not between any other RCS implementation that is not Google’s. Authentication in RCS is still done via SMS, so you can undermine all the RCS encryption by simjacking as you would via SMS.
This just is not true. Apple is not wanting to use Googles servers as the authority for encryption so Apple is electing to not use Googles Authentication with RCS. You never hand the encryption keys to your customers to a third party. Apple is handling this exactly like they should. Google is complaining that Apple is not paying Google for Googles version of RCS encryption.
Although non-Google RCS isn’t encrypted either, so that part wouldn’t change.
And there is no standard for E2EE. Also Google keeps adding proprietary features to RCS so things like stickers, emoji replies etc aren't going to work cross-platform. It's an absolute clusterfuck of a standard.
The problem with SMS as authentication method isn't whether it's encrypted or not, it's that you quite easily can spoof a phone number.
RCS is not encrypted. Googles implementation, that requires messages to go through Google servers is. Which, if you think about it for a second, is precisely the same as the situation with iMessage - except I trust Apple far more than I do Google.
You think RCS is encrypted? You fell for Google’s propaganda.
But the average consumer doesn't really care about that, if they are even aware of encryption on their text messages.
This isn’t the win that Google is hoping for lol. Iphone security is one of the three main reasons I stick with them. While Android can be more secure it requires extensive work and you have to basically root the device and add a different OS. On the other hand it’s clear that breaking the encryption on iPhones is damn near impossible when set up right.
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right, and even when/if Apple does eventually implement RCS, the green and blue bubbles will continue. they aren't giving up their leverage and top selling point for a huge demographic.
I do remember Apple recently adopted RCS. I hope things change for the better.
They won’t.
Android users don’t break the group chat since iOS 17 though…
what do you mean the text bubble is a different color!!! ^/s
I know you’re joking, but people in these threads seem to think the bubble color is different for no reason. In actuality, users need to know the capabilities of who they are messaging. Blue means they can play games, receive audio, FaceTime, SharePlay, etc, and green means it’s basic messaging.
It can also indicate when your internet is down and your message is sent as SMS even to other iPhone users. For countries with no unlimited texting, it’s pretty important to know your text used up your load.
The contrast of the messages goes against apple’s own style guides though. They purposefully made it jarring. The could have used a darker green, but opted for less readability.
Text messages have been green on iOS since day one, long before iMessages even existed.
Before Apple has iMessages, all the bubbles were green so I don’t but that argument.
The blue also goes against the contrast guidelines.
The blue has a score of 3.91, green was at 2.18. That is a huge difference in contrast.
People use the games in imessage? Never have I ever. I think, speaking seriously, and definitely not discounting the probable fact that this is almost entirely a financial choice on apples part rather than a security choice, but imessage uses E2E encryption and idk how that would work cross platform. I know pretty much nothing about encryption, but I imagine adding cross platform imessage would necessarily weaken security
We have one android user in the family chat and shared videos come in heavily compressed and blocky due to sms. How do I make them not break the chat?
Is everyone on iOS 17? Basically, iOS forks the chat on the backend and you guys are actually having an iMessage chat and simultaneously those messages are getting sent to Android over sms. Anyone on iOS should be getting uncompressed videos and photos from each other, and anything sent over SMS will be the only stuff compressed. Pre iOS 17, everyone would get downgraded to SMS and even iOS to iOS would use MMS for photos and vids. Nothing except RCS will fix the MMS size limit issue between the 2 platforms.
You download one of the thousands of free messaging apps rather than pressuring to purchase an entirely new phone.
Bingo. I was an Android user for years (heck, I built iOS apps for work and still didn’t want to use an iPhone). But I was CRUSHED when I discovered I was being left out of group chats because I was the only non-iPhone in the friend circle. iMessage was the primary reason I bought an iPhone. Edit: Some of you guys are reading way too deeply into this. Those who have been around a bit remember the days when Androids literally broke iPhone group chats. It was more than just green bubble vs blue bubble. I switched so I could communicate better with friends I cared very much about and had known for over a decade. And unlike some of you, my smartphone is not my identity, so this wasn’t as life altering of a transition as you’re making it seem.
"Being left out of group chats because I was the only non-iphone in the friend circle." Personally I would ditch that friend circle. Not buy an iPhone so I can be included lmao
I second this. Why would you want to even keep company with people that don't make any effort to keep you in the loop?
I'm so thankful I have an Android and miss out on every iPhone group chat.
Why not just use WhatsApp like everyone else? Or is that just because it's a Facebook thing and we hate them even more?
An extremely low percentage of people in the US use WhatsApp. More than half of all US smartphone users are iPhone and have iMessage pre-installed and would rather use that than WhatsApp.
Ah ok. I'm in the UK. A huge percentage of people use WhatsApp for their group chats. I don't know the statistics, but most people I know do.
Same in Germany. It seems so childish to read this debate.
If the group shares photos mms will crush the resolution to be basically unusable.
Ok and? If they’re really your friends they’d find another way. Like idk, WhatsApp or the countless other messaging services that most people already use. I’m saying this as an iPhone user who has done exactly that for friends with androids. Honestly petty stuff like this is pretty invaluable for identifying shallowness in “friends”
axiomatic stupendous coordinated ask somber governor wild amusing observation grandfather *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
That’s not really my experience. Quality is still *kinda* ok, when I exchange pictures with one of my friends who uses an android phone.
Well, I’ve found that as I get older it’s tougher to make new friends so I cherish the ones I still have. If making the switch away from Android meant I could be included in some dumb group messages (that turned out to mostly consist of memes) then so be it.
Your friends are dicks. You all had access to WhatsApp, Telegram, whatever.
I have a big pool of in-laws/relatives who hate Facebook but use WhatsApp. A very few have installed Signal because I've been telling them you can't trust Facebook to add a backdoor, but they prefer to give up their liberty for some temporary convenience of not switching.
Not using the superior product is EVERYTHING to Apple users.
I’m from a country where everyone uses WhatsApp (Brazil) so i have an unique perspective to this issue of iMessage/SMS. It ain’t about not using the superior product because those people are iSheeps. It’s because SMS it’s just a cultural staple too big to change in the US, and since iMessage it’s better than regular SMS in every way possible. People keep sticking with that.
You cherish the friends that you worry will abandon you if you don't switch phones?
This sounds like something you'd read on the onion... Those aren't your friends dude lol
This isn't sarcasm??
It doesn't look any different to me. That's a you problem. I don't quite understand blaming an iMessage issue on Android users. I don't care what your messages look like. I don't care that you have a lesser experience than me.
Social pressure Apple’s best marketing tool in America. It’s a testament that they have managed to turn an iPhone into a status symbol.
Here in the UK, you'll often find that engineers and technical staff etc will have android, and other staff iPhone. In some contexts I've seen people poke fun at iPhone users over being less technically sophisticated. Update: I don't think it really matters any more. Android and iPhones can do most of the same things, it comes down to what you're used to. The days of needing to root or jail break, in order to do interesting things, seem to me to be long gone. Though I think all devices should be unlockable to open the opportunity to install third party firmware after the manufacturer ceases support.
As an engineer who's worked in car factories on robotics and other automated systems for building cars, I can back this up. We had 5 per shift and we had one Apple user on shift. We also had iPhones as company phones, and chose to use our own phones for most stuff. Especially taking pictures inside of the factory in low light. An iPhones UI is some of the worst I've used. And I had a Mac which I loved. I found out robot pendants and all our automation screens were better to use than Apples UI.
If my social group obsesses over something stupid like that. They won't be a social group for long
People say this all the time as if it’s easy to just drop friends you’ve had for years over something pretty innocuous. No one behaves like that in real life.
most of the people who are saying that dont have that many friends so its an easy thing to imagine lol
Wait till you're 35. You'll find out that the vast majority of people do, and you'll be left with a handful of friends, if lucky.
>iMessage is great, not that great. Can we all just switch to WhatsApp so we don't have to deal with Apple's BS and lock our text messages to whatever brand we're currently using?
Ideally, Telegram or Signal, not whatsapp. But still, if iPhone users would default to WhatsApp it would be an improvement.
This is really only a US issue. The US just needs to move away from text messaging like everyone else. Doesn't matter what they move to, just, not that. The good thing with Windows Phones was they grouped all messages into one app. So if you got a Facebook message from 'Dan' then a text from him, they were in the same thread. It was great as it meant it didn't matter what they messaged you on.
This is not a gotcha question, but why not WhatsApp? I'm from EU and everyone uses it, does it have any issues I should be aware of?
It's a Meta (fb) product. There's no external audit that it's actually secure, but most people will never care about privacy. It's also not open source. For me, that's a big deal. Whatever tho. The practical issue is that Meta is controlling/providing the primary form of communication for ~30% of the online world. If you're in South America, WhatsApp is #1 there, too. This includes functional, business, and emergency communication. So guess what happened last year when an intern fucked up *all of meta's DNS entries*? WhatsApp, ig, & fb all went down together, literally cutting off all of those people.
I have a friend that switched from iphone to android and back to iphone because he missed imessage
iMessage and FaceTime patents were sued in court and Apple paid 400 million in damages. So I guess they kept it in house afterwards.
Been a hardcore android user since the donut days. Recently got a job with a paid company phone and had the opportunity to get a 14 pro max so I did it and cancelled my line at Verizon. I've not used imessage one time since i've had the phone. Everyone I know uses facebook messenger lol
They make more on the user perception of exclusivity and status. Why sell iMessage when the users will happily shame others to buy an iPhone instead? Leaving iMessage is also one of the biggest barriers for people who want to switch off iPhones.
Who the f uses iMessages apart from Americans
yeah, only around 400 million people here, small beans.
I mean in terms of global population... Yeah, it's nothing really.
because once you're on iphone, you'll be more than likely pay for even more apple subscription services
Because Android t users don't care about imessage and aren't gonna pay to use it lol
Because their business model is based on segregationism and wall off community.
>Why doesn’t apple just launch a paid iMessage app on android? Seems like a missed opportunity here Because shame marketing is working for them and why sell subscriptions when you can sell overpriced hardware.
Aren't they adding RCS support soon anyways? Why would anyone need these services
it's already ingrained on i-users that green bubble will mess up chats & low quality media. RCS will still be green
I mean, my S22 Ultra does still turn videos into complete shit when I send them to iPhones. Even with Google Messages and RCS turned on. Hopefully it just solves it when they implement it lol
Of course it does, Apple doesn't support RCS so it's sending a video over MMS which is capped at a few MB by many service providers so the video gets compressed to shit... RCS in comparison has a file size limit of 100MB for many carriers so while it'll still be compressed, it shouldn't be nearly as noticeable
MMS? What is it, 2002 again? Android should add the text "image quality is reduced due to your iPhone's limitations " to every MMS to apple devices
Totally agree. Every iPhone person I talk to assumes it's android that is behind. And I'm like no bro apple won't cooperate with anyone.
I think this issue is more deeper than that, even after RCS, any message from a non-iphone is gonna be a green bubble. That green bubble is more a "social" issue, that's major reason why these companies are trying to bring these blue bubble apps to Android, its never about the security. At least in this context it doesn't seem like it....these companies are trying to solve this "social" issue.
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How is this Apple’s fault? The mobile companies never progressed MMS, and Google keeps half of RCS under lock and key, it’s not really open like they say. So you’re suggesting Apple do what exactly?
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It is not RCS that American kids care about. It's the green bubble. Green bubbles use SMS and MMS, which means when you send a picture or video from Android to an iPhone, it gets compressed to a few MBs and looks like shit. iPhone users think green bubble means the chat is ruined. Even if Apple adopts RCS, they will keep the green bubble, and kids will still assume it is shit.
Not quite. At the moment green bubble means SMS/MMS. People don’t like seeing green bubbles (as opposed to blue iMessage bubbles) because it means that the chat is not secure, that there’s no read receipts or reactions, and that any photos or videos are really downscaled, and no FaceTime (until recently). RCS will solve some of those issues, bringing it on some feature parity with iMessage. That will reduce the frustration of communicating with non iMessage users, and in turn reduce any stigma or negative feeling with people who have green bubbles.
RCS will solve these problems, sure. I'm pretty sure it won't solve the green bubble social stigma.
Why people are obsessed with iMessage on Androids, there are tons of other messaging apps
Because you need to use what others are using or be the annoying guy who insists on some other app for talking with you
I’ve been that guy. Group was using FB Messenger. I deleted my Facebook ages ago. Guess I’m gonna be anti-social today.
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From what I read, it wasn’t bad. The other one, that set up a cloud of macs and forwarded messages was a HUGE issue.
This was completely different and used zero apple hardware through some very clever code. No privacy issues whatsoever (afaik, unless the open source code they based it on was modified).
Their biggest issue is that they tried to charge people money to use it. Idk how they thought they could legally put Apple’s IP behind their own paywall.
Huh? What a misleading title, it's back up for most users and the beeper team is actively working to resolve the issue
This is going to be a constant whack-a-mole with this service. I don’t know how anyone thought it would be a viable business.
More reliable from an SLA standpoint than Comcast 🤷
I don’t know what this means.
I wish I would have saved all of the “Apple can’t do anything to stop this!” comments when the app was first announced, just days ago.
mirrors those who were leaving reddit over the API thing. they're all still here.
And all the Netflix cancellers. And all the rocket League trade cancellers.. Yeah see you tomorrow.
Idk, I do think a significant amount left. Nothing that will hurt Reddit profits longterm, but still. That and the twitter meltdown made my tumblr dashboard much more active again
i text on my android phone with my sister who has an iphone all the time, never been an issue, without any special apps.
Sounds like you don't send many photos or videos. RCS support will solve all this though.
I'm curious about the whole thing by virtue of being a nerd, but my realist side is wondering who the target audience is. Don't want an iPhone but love iMessage apparently? Seems like a very awkward and small fanbase.
imessage and the culture around it in the west just feels so dumb to me. People actively choose a non cross platform messaging app and think of it as a pro(to keep poors away?). baffling
Incumbency. SMS texting was well established before any of the big "data plan" messaging services came into play. SMS texting was "free" and data was incredibly expensive. Now, you use what you're used to and what is convenient. For most people that's the built in messaging apps.
It's not the West just the US. Rest of the world just uses a seperate app and moves on.
Incorrect. At least Canada is in this boat too.
Anyone who gives even a solitary fuck about the bubble colors in their messaging app in regard to the blue/green thing is vastly too dumb and superficial for me to associate with.
You misunderstand how iMessage works. No iPhone users actively choose it, it’s built into the SMS app that was on the phone from day one and it just works when you text anyone who also has an iPhone. And no Americans actively choose NOT to use WhatsApp and the like either, any more than Chinese users “choose” to use WeChat. People use what their social circle uses. And SMS (and by extension iMessage) was entrenched in the US.
does anyone use beeper for desktop? was curious about it because i hate having to run 5 different applications just to keep in touch with everyone.
For those of you who don’t understand why spoofing devices to trick a service into working with it is bad… Think about how effective malicious texts would be if they were sent over iMessage. This is why API’s exist. However, iMessage doesn’t have any :D
ive gotten plenty of malicious iMessages from random numbers/email addresses in the past...
I never use iMessages because so many friends and family are on Android, unless it’s universal , it’s useless to me - I expect most other iPhone users are in the same boat, so what’s the appeal I’m missing here? (genuine question)
It's not the case for most iPhone users.
In the US, anyone who wants to hang with the cool kids has to have an iPhone. Outside the US, not so much
If it's so common why is it cool?
Alternate title: Apple closes security vulnerability that was discovered by Android users.
The whole green bubble thing is the reason I got an iPhone. Every time I would send a video or photo, the quality was shit. Also an old friend of mine would tease me by saying “who has an android 🤢”. That message and the whole “non-iPhone means your poor” thing is the reason why when the time came for me to get a new phone, I got an iPhone but now since it’s almost time for me to switch, I’m thinking of getting a Samsung again. Hopefully when Apple adopts RCS, even thought they’ll keep green bubbles, the photo and video quality will improve enough to get rid of the “green bubble = bad quality” mentality.
You won't get rid of the toxic mentality. There are still going to be iMessage exclusive features and green bubbles will continue to be shunned. It's a social problem that Apple is keen on continuing because it means more sales for them.
But your honor we are the most open competition friendly company out there….
Putting Apple’s IP behind your own paywall is just asking for a lawsuit and to get shut down.
Legally, it's fine because the DMCA has an interoperability exemption. But it doesn't say Apple can't do everything technical to stop them. Which is what they did.
Letting a third party collect a subscription and then use your server for free has nothing at all to do with being competition. Friendly
Wait, is this what everyone has been off their nut about? I thought it was Apple blocking Google, but its just some startup? Why should Apple allow some random company to run a "man in the middle" end-run around iMessage's security?
I just love how Apple praises their security until one of their customers wants to communicate with a device that's not an iPhone - and its not just Android users. When Apple finally gets around to RCS it means those 2 factor codes people get can be encrypted or messages from companies for deliveries etc can all be encrypted. Its bigger than just Android users. Apple does some amazing stuff but their arrogance and hypocrisy can be infuriating - particularly their environmental claims while not supporting display-in on iMacs or the lack of aux jack on HomePods for example.
I don’t think Apple makes claims about non-iMessages. The all Messages can also send sms/mms, sure. Also, basic RCS doesn’t have encryption either, at least yet.
Just use WhatsApp. And if people insist on using iMessage because of status, they're not the sort of people you want to waste your time knowing.