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Apple stands between me and my carrier’s sms service In complete fairness, Apple doesn't stand between you and your sms carrier. I can't think of any company t

Apple stands between me and my carrier’s sms service In complete fairness, Apple doesn't stand between you and your sms carrier. I can't think of any company that does that actually? All companies that I am aware of pass through sms messages to the carrier sms service, and deliver messages from the carrier sms service. Most companies layer a service on top of the sms, but sms itself is meticulously unmolested in every system I'm aware of. Finally, giving devs an api to intercept and process sms messages would be naiveté in the extreme. With so much sensitive data coming through sms, it just would open too many holes. A random dev could intercept passwords, 2 Factor information, account balances, and on and on. For my part, I would be entirely against hackers having that access.

readams 5y ago
That actually isn't what iMessage does. iMessage maintains a database of phone numbers that are iMessage, and then intercepts and routes the messages through Apple and not through SMS. You can see this since if you switch away from Apple after using iMessage, anyone using iPhones will not be able to message you unless you go through a procedure to remove your phone number from iMessage.
- Terretta 5y ago
  To be clear, Apple does not intercept SMS messages. The messages people say are hijacked are from other Messages users, sent to an individual's Messages label that happens to look like their phone number. Anyone using SMS can SMS your number on your new phone, since SMS is not being hijacked, and Apple is not intercepting SMS to do anything with it. If you don't want Apple friends using that label to reach your remaining Apple devices (a normal use case!), then remove the label yourself before ditching your iphone: - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201349 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201349 - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203042 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203042 Or, remove it yourself after: - https://selfsolve.apple.com/deregister-imessage/ https://selfsolve.apple.com/deregister-imessage/
theta_d 5y ago
I think OPs point is that Android allows you to use an app other than the stock app to send SMS, Apple does not.

readams 5y ago

That actually isn't what iMessage does. iMessage maintains a database of phone numbers that are iMessage, and then intercepts and routes the messages through Apple and not through SMS. You can see this since if you switch away from Apple after using iMessage, anyone using iPhones will not be able to message you unless you go through a procedure to remove your phone number from iMessage.

Terretta 5y ago
To be clear, Apple does not intercept SMS messages. The messages people say are hijacked are from other Messages users, sent to an individual's Messages label that happens to look like their phone number. Anyone using SMS can SMS your number on your new phone, since SMS is not being hijacked, and Apple is not intercepting SMS to do anything with it. If you don't want Apple friends using that label to reach your remaining Apple devices (a normal use case!), then remove the label yourself before ditching your iphone: - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201349 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201349 - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203042 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203042 Or, remove it yourself after: - https://selfsolve.apple.com/deregister-imessage/ https://selfsolve.apple.com/deregister-imessage/

theta_d 5y ago

I think OPs point is that Android allows you to use an app other than the stock app to send SMS, Apple does not.