10 ms·

Tim Cook says ‘buy your mom an iPhone’ if you want to end green bubbles

37 points by mvd7793 4y ago

thesuperbigfrog 4y ago
This seems like typical Apple behavior. They will probably avoid supporting RCS interoperability standards until compelled to by European regulators.
superchroma 4y ago
In my corporate training, we're counselled to never refer to what competitors do, and particularly not to discuss affecting competitor sales (even braggadociously), matters of marketshare etc. to avoid running into risk of bad legal outcomes if such material were to be brought up in trial. Interesting how Apple does not feel compelled to hold itself to the same standard.
- lostlogin 4y ago
  Is saying “no comment” really a better standard? Also, a few hundred billion in the bank might alter ones response.
  - superchroma 4y ago
    We don't have hundreds of billions, but we are one of the largest companies on the planet :)
- shapefrog 4y ago
  > corporate training I guess Apple, with its $2.5 trillion in market cap and net profit margin of 24% still has a lot to learn from Joe at "Corporate Training e-books LLC".
- bell-cot 4y ago
  Your training is based on both the legal / regulatory / marketing situation in your industry, and issues which can be created by many loose tongues in the trenches. (Especially legal "discovery".) Vs.: (1) Tim Cook's behavior is based on the situation in his industry, (2) a CEO's "public" job is quite different from the jobs in the trenches, and (3) any edgy statements which Tim seems to make have been gone over, in advance, by the best legal team which money can hire. (And note that legal discovery cannot apply to either the CEO's public statements, nor the legal council he receives regarding those - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_professional_privilege https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_professional_privilege .)
gigatexal 4y ago
wly_cdgr 4y ago
- g42gregory 4y ago
- dang 4y ago
  Would you please stop posting flamebait and/or unsubstantive comments? You've been doing it repeatedly, unfortunately, and we ban such accounts. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
lazyeye 4y ago
Tim is too busy focusing on growing the Chinese economy to be concerned with this kind of petty issue. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/dec/07/apple-china-deal-tim-cook https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/dec/07/apple-chi...
- smoldesu 4y ago
  Skate to where the puck is going to be, human rights be damned!
kioleanu 4y ago
How big of a problem is this in the states? In Europe, nobody I know, and I really mean I don’t know one single person that uses SMS or SMS-like apps like iMessage. If I open my messages app, I only have there my 2FA messages. It’s either WhatsApp or Signal
- izacus 4y ago
  That is not true at all. Even close, why does someone always spew this stuff here? There's billions of SMS messages delivered every day in Europe - from businesses to people who don't have Facebooks WhatsApp/Messenger preinstalled. Why is it so hard to understand that your little life bubble isn't the whole world?
  - ratg13 4y ago
    I've lived many places in Europe and I'd say it's accurate. It's not that text messages aren't sent, it's just that they are only ever a fallback for when primary communication channels are not available. Pretty much everyone's SMSes are just MFA codes, "your pizza is ready", "your package is delivered", and so on. Almost nobody that talks to each other regularly uses SMS.
    - izacus 4y ago
      Again, that is nowhere near true and it's easy to verify. And we didn't even get to the point that the communications platform used instead of an open standard is owned by a single corporation - Facebook.
      - marginalia_nu 4y ago
        Really? I'm yet another European who only ever gets SMS from my elderly mother, for 2FA (usually only when dealing with American companies), parcel deliveries, and so on. Oh, and spam and frauds, that's like 75% of the messages I get.
        4y ago
panny 4y ago
>buy your mom an iPhone Maybe buy yourself an Android. That should work too.
chaosbolt 4y ago
When your only innovation is a cut out hole and always on display, both of which have been on other phones for years, your only play is the color in which the messages appear.
- bdcravens 4y ago
  I'm sure the ability to use satellite for emergency service in the event you don't have cellular service qualifies as an innovation.
  - thesuperbigfrog 4y ago
    >> I'm sure the ability to use satellite for emergency service in the event you don't have cellular service qualifies as an innovation. T-Mobile and SpaceX are doing that with existing mobile phones: https://www.t-mobile.com/news/un-carrier/t-mobile-takes-coverage-above-and-beyond-with-spacex https://www.t-mobile.com/news/un-carrier/t-mobile-takes-cove...
    - bdcravens 4y ago
      Increased access is always good, but reading the article it looks likes it'll be a limited rollout starting next year >> starting with a beta in select areas by the end of next year
pjmlp 4y ago
Looking from the rest of the World where Android and feature phones dominate, the whole issue with the green bubbles is hilarious.
- smoldesu 4y ago
  The whole act of discriminating text messages based on which brand of phone they herald from is ridiculous.
- mderazon 4y ago
  It's not that different from the rest of the world. In other places there are other bubbles - Whatsapp bubbles, Messenger bubbles. They are not tied to specific phone vendors, but tied to a giant corporate as well. Apples is just a special case of the problem that there is no open standard for text communication. RCS is supposed to be that thing, but I would like to see Whatsapp, Signal, Messenger and the rest switch to use it
hulitu 4y ago
> If you’ve tried to send a video from Android to iOS (or vice versa) using your regular text messaging app, then you know that your videos come out completely fuzzy on the other end. Why would i want to send a video using a text messaging app ? It't like using a hammer instead of keys to open a door. There are apps made for video messaging.
- johnebgd 4y ago
  You are technical. People in general are not. They do not understand why the video shouldn’t be sent by a text messaging app. They know it works best when on an apple device. This keeps people on apple devices.
throw310822 4y ago
What I don't understand: it seems iOS just passed the mark of 50% market share in the US in the last year, and it's now at 50-something. Which means that Apple users prefer to have a crippled experience when talking to approx. 50% of their contacts rather than switching to an equivalent app that doesn't signal their belonging to the Apple tribe. Or, in alternative, this means that those 50% of people almost never talk to the the other 50% of people. Not sure which is worse.
- goosedragons 4y ago
  Alternatively 95% iOS users have no idea RCS is a thing and just think Android sucks because it can't handle video messages the same as iOS. So rather than pressure Apple to add RCS they pressure their friends to get iPhones.
prirun 4y ago
I don't so much care that I can't send videos to Android users. But I do think it's shitty that Apple uses white text on lime green, which is very hard to read, instead of using black text on green.
vehemenz 4y ago
Normally I don't care about this stuff, but at work, one member of my team of 9 refuses to use an iPhone, ruining any potential group chats. The obvious solution is that this person gets an iPhone. That said, it would be nice if the SMS indicator was more subtle instead of white text on a green background, which is objectively harder to read than an iMessage. And it would be nice if Apple provided a cloud facility to send images/video to people easily given the obvious limitations of SMS.

37 points by mvd7793 4y ago

This seems like typical Apple behavior. They will probably avoid supporting RCS interoperability standards until compelled to by European regulators.

superchroma 4y ago

In my corporate training, we're counselled to never refer to what competitors do, and particularly not to discuss affecting competitor sales (even braggadociously), matters of marketshare etc. to avoid running into risk of bad legal outcomes if such material were to be brought up in trial. Interesting how Apple does not feel compelled to hold itself to the same standard.

lostlogin 4y ago
Is saying “no comment” really a better standard? Also, a few hundred billion in the bank might alter ones response.
- superchroma 4y ago
  We don't have hundreds of billions, but we are one of the largest companies on the planet :)
shapefrog 4y ago
> corporate training I guess Apple, with its $2.5 trillion in market cap and net profit margin of 24% still has a lot to learn from Joe at "Corporate Training e-books LLC".
bell-cot 4y ago
Your training is based on both the legal / regulatory / marketing situation in your industry, and issues which can be created by many loose tongues in the trenches. (Especially legal "discovery".) Vs.: (1) Tim Cook's behavior is based on the situation in his industry, (2) a CEO's "public" job is quite different from the jobs in the trenches, and (3) any edgy statements which Tim seems to make have been gone over, in advance, by the best legal team which money can hire. (And note that legal discovery cannot apply to either the CEO's public statements, nor the legal council he receives regarding those - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_professional_privilege https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_professional_privilege .)

gigatexal 4y ago

wly_cdgr 4y ago

g42gregory 4y ago
dang 4y ago
Would you please stop posting flamebait and/or unsubstantive comments? You've been doing it repeatedly, unfortunately, and we ban such accounts. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

lazyeye 4y ago

Tim is too busy focusing on growing the Chinese economy to be concerned with this kind of petty issue. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/dec/07/apple-china-deal-tim-cook https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/dec/07/apple-chi...

smoldesu 4y ago
Skate to where the puck is going to be, human rights be damned!

kioleanu 4y ago

How big of a problem is this in the states? In Europe, nobody I know, and I really mean I don’t know one single person that uses SMS or SMS-like apps like iMessage. If I open my messages app, I only have there my 2FA messages. It’s either WhatsApp or Signal

izacus 4y ago
That is not true at all. Even close, why does someone always spew this stuff here? There's billions of SMS messages delivered every day in Europe - from businesses to people who don't have Facebooks WhatsApp/Messenger preinstalled. Why is it so hard to understand that your little life bubble isn't the whole world?
- ratg13 4y ago
  I've lived many places in Europe and I'd say it's accurate. It's not that text messages aren't sent, it's just that they are only ever a fallback for when primary communication channels are not available. Pretty much everyone's SMSes are just MFA codes, "your pizza is ready", "your package is delivered", and so on. Almost nobody that talks to each other regularly uses SMS.
  - izacus 4y ago
    Again, that is nowhere near true and it's easy to verify. And we didn't even get to the point that the communications platform used instead of an open standard is owned by a single corporation - Facebook.
    - marginalia_nu 4y ago
      Really? I'm yet another European who only ever gets SMS from my elderly mother, for 2FA (usually only when dealing with American companies), parcel deliveries, and so on. Oh, and spam and frauds, that's like 75% of the messages I get.
      - 4y ago

panny 4y ago

>buy your mom an iPhone Maybe buy yourself an Android. That should work too.

chaosbolt 4y ago

When your only innovation is a cut out hole and always on display, both of which have been on other phones for years, your only play is the color in which the messages appear.

bdcravens 4y ago
I'm sure the ability to use satellite for emergency service in the event you don't have cellular service qualifies as an innovation.
- thesuperbigfrog 4y ago
  >> I'm sure the ability to use satellite for emergency service in the event you don't have cellular service qualifies as an innovation. T-Mobile and SpaceX are doing that with existing mobile phones: https://www.t-mobile.com/news/un-carrier/t-mobile-takes-coverage-above-and-beyond-with-spacex https://www.t-mobile.com/news/un-carrier/t-mobile-takes-cove...
  - bdcravens 4y ago
    Increased access is always good, but reading the article it looks likes it'll be a limited rollout starting next year >> starting with a beta in select areas by the end of next year

pjmlp 4y ago

Looking from the rest of the World where Android and feature phones dominate, the whole issue with the green bubbles is hilarious.

smoldesu 4y ago
The whole act of discriminating text messages based on which brand of phone they herald from is ridiculous.
mderazon 4y ago
It's not that different from the rest of the world. In other places there are other bubbles - Whatsapp bubbles, Messenger bubbles. They are not tied to specific phone vendors, but tied to a giant corporate as well. Apples is just a special case of the problem that there is no open standard for text communication. RCS is supposed to be that thing, but I would like to see Whatsapp, Signal, Messenger and the rest switch to use it

hulitu 4y ago

> If you’ve tried to send a video from Android to iOS (or vice versa) using your regular text messaging app, then you know that your videos come out completely fuzzy on the other end. Why would i want to send a video using a text messaging app ? It't like using a hammer instead of keys to open a door. There are apps made for video messaging.

johnebgd 4y ago
You are technical. People in general are not. They do not understand why the video shouldn’t be sent by a text messaging app. They know it works best when on an apple device. This keeps people on apple devices.

throw310822 4y ago

What I don't understand: it seems iOS just passed the mark of 50% market share in the US in the last year, and it's now at 50-something. Which means that Apple users prefer to have a crippled experience when talking to approx. 50% of their contacts rather than switching to an equivalent app that doesn't signal their belonging to the Apple tribe. Or, in alternative, this means that those 50% of people almost never talk to the the other 50% of people. Not sure which is worse.

goosedragons 4y ago
Alternatively 95% iOS users have no idea RCS is a thing and just think Android sucks because it can't handle video messages the same as iOS. So rather than pressure Apple to add RCS they pressure their friends to get iPhones.

prirun 4y ago

I don't so much care that I can't send videos to Android users. But I do think it's shitty that Apple uses white text on lime green, which is very hard to read, instead of using black text on green.

vehemenz 4y ago

Normally I don't care about this stuff, but at work, one member of my team of 9 refuses to use an iPhone, ruining any potential group chats. The obvious solution is that this person gets an iPhone. That said, it would be nice if the SMS indicator was more subtle instead of white text on a green background, which is objectively harder to read than an iMessage. And it would be nice if Apple provided a cloud facility to send images/video to people easily given the obvious limitations of SMS.