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I use Google Voice with my iPhone. My cousin has an Android. The rest of the family is on iPhones. My family all have my GV #, but not my iPhone phone #. My iCl
by js2 5y ago
I use Google Voice with my iPhone. My cousin has an Android. The rest of the family is on iPhones. My family all have my GV #, but not my iPhone phone #. My iCloud address is my email address.
I think almost everyone is on Verizon.
Group Chat works great in Messages for me until someone adds my cousin, who being on Android, obviously doesn't have Messages installed. At that point all the iPhones (or the Apple Messages backend?) switch to MMS. Then the fun starts for me.
For every message sent to the group chat, I get an email (to my iCloud email address) from phone#@vzwpix.com. The to list is all the phone #'s in the group @vzwpix.com, oh except one person who is on AT&T goes to phone#@icmms1.sun5.lightsurf.net. The email has no subject, and the body of the message is a single text attachment.
I don't really understand why Messages Group Chat has to be all or nothing Apple Messages or MMS. I also don't really understand what this weird email thing is or where it happens. But it's annoying as heck.
I've offered to buy my cousin an iPhone, but she's just really attached to Android. (Normally, I chat with her via WhatsApp, but I also can't convince my entire family to switch to WhatsApp just so we can have a common communication protocol.)
- discardedrefuse 5y agoI'm glad your cousin stood her ground. Forcing her to uproot her entire digital ecosystem because someone else can't be bothered to install a messenger app (while rewarding Apple for anti-competitive behavior) is terrible and kinda selfish. The only real solution is for everyone to switch to Telegram or WhatsApp or some other platform that works on ALL devices. Vendor lock-in is bad for everyone. In the long run, its in everyone's best interest to move away from iMessage to a more open platform.
- js2 5y agoShe’d be happier on an iPhone. She uses a Mac for everything else. She has no digital ecosystem tied to Google/Android. She’s just used to the Android UI. No one is forcing her to do anything. But in any case, she should be able to use whatever mobile OS she wants and asking everyone to use WhatsApp or Signal isn’t the answer either. Both of those apps have shitty integration with Android/iOS compared to the native messaging apps. Rather, all of the messaging apps should interoperate with something better than freaking SMS/MMS and whatever this stupid email hack is the carriers have come up with.
- discardedrefuse 5y ago> Rather, all of the messaging apps should interoperate with something better than freaking SMS/MMS and whatever this stupid email hack is the carriers have come up with. In another comment I explained why SMS is so bad on Apple devices. I'll copy paste that here: To text with non-Apple phones, iMessage uses SMS over the cellular network. This is pre-smartphone technology. A few years ago, SMS was upgraded to RCS (still over the cell network though). Lots of features were added. But Apple refuses to update their old SMS implementation in iMessage. Now on the other hand, to text with other iMessage users, iMessage uses Apple's own proprietary iMessage protocols over the IP network (the internet); Just like Telegram and WhatsApp does. Apple refuses to bring iMessage to other devices and doesn't let other messengers implement it's proprietary iMessage protocols. I hope you realize, the reason you have a substandard experience communicating with Android users is because Apple wants you to.
- js2 5y agoRCS is tied to the telcos. Boo. (And yes, boo on Apple for not opening iMessage up to non-Apple users, but RCS is no panacea.) https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/01/after-ruining-android-messaging-google-says-imessage-is-too-powerful/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/01/after-ruining-androi... via https://daringfireball.net/linked/2022/01/14/amadeo-google-messaging https://daringfireball.net/linked/2022/01/14/amadeo-google-m...