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Tim Cook's response to Android texting compatibility: 'buy your mom an iPhone'
- vhodges 4y agoThis is why I don't buy or recommend apple products anymore. I was never a fanboi, but rather had some nice experiences (about 10 years ago - eg I am just retiring my 2012 Retina MBP - and it still works, just a little slow these days). Besides, get mom onto Signal and it doesn't matter any more.
- princevegeta89 4y agoWhat are you replacing your MacBook with?
- vhodges 4y agoFrame.work DIY 1240p.
- DoneWithAllThat 4y agoYou don’t buy or recommend Apple products because non-iMessages are shown in green?
- _whiteCaps_ 4y agoIt's not that the messages are in green, it's that videos and pictures sent over SMS are terrible. My dad sent me a video the other day, and it was 176 x 144 @ 10fps.
- lotsofpulp 4y agoTechnically, videos and picture are sent over MMS.
- mrguyorama 4y agoI recently was a part of my fathers wedding. His new wife sent me tens of pictures and videos that I was excited for because I'm bad at taking pictures. Each and every picture and video had absurdly low resolution, to the point that they were useless and unviewable. I don't know why apple struggles to do something my damn flip phone from 2005 could do no problem, other than doing it on purpose.
- lotsofpulp 4y agoMMS (flip phone from 2005) is not sending 4K 10MP photos and videos. I do not think any chat protocols promises sharing multimedia at original quality. iMessage is the only one I know of, and that is only when both users are on wifi. If the goal is to send and receive full quality media, then messaging protocols are not the proper way.
- _whiteCaps_ 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Communication_Services https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Communication_Services RCS was designed to fix this, but Apple won't implement it.
- vhodges 4y agoNo, I don't because they are increasingly a company that doesn't listen to its users.
- colinmhayes 4y agoThe messages being green isn't the problem. The fact that they take 10+ seconds to send and media quality is straight out of the 90s is.
- Nomentatus 4y agoThe lack of interoperability is strictly illegal since it's being leveraged to expand Apple's already formidable market power (using market power to extend market power is the strictly illegal part) by pushing people to buy an iphone. Cook can hardly deny that's a conscious thought at Apple, 'cause he just said the quiet part out loud. FRO - IINAL but I do know "monopoly" is not the correct term in law, "market power" is. You don't need to be a monopoly to violate the laws.
- emodendroket 4y agoIf you’re telling me that any sort of vendor lock-in is illegal then this law is being flagrantly violated all the time by everything from computers to razors to Diaper Genies.
- pydry 4y agoHe isnt. The illegality or lack thereof is determined by your level of market power.
- emodendroket 4y agoThat seems awfully woolly. What he actually said is “using market power to extend market power” is illegal, but without any kind of market power vendor lock-in is pointless.
- MagnumOpus 4y agoNot wooly at all. The "abuse" of a "dominant market position" is illegal. Vendor lock in to raise prices above the competitive level or to extend market share is the abuse, and "dominant market position" is well defined through law and thousands of precedent cases in antitrust. (In Europe Hoffman-La Roche vs. Commission is one of the cases defining it.)
- Nomentatus 4y agoNot pointless, but nothing like as powerful, true. Any lock-in can create market power over a subsection of the market, however small, illegally; but small potatoes stuff is rarely prosecuted. Huge potatoes are rarely prosecuted, post-Bork.
- kurupt213 4y agoWhy is iMessage even an issue? All phones can send conventional texts to each other
- emodendroket 4y agoAccording to the article, some videos and things like this, and also the phone showing non-iMessage SMS in a different color, an apparent source of embarrassment to teens. But personally I can’t say I have ever noticed this limitation.
- kurupt213 4y agoBut there are other ways to send these media files. Why is apple obligated to provide a solution to android
- emodendroket 4y agoWell I guess that’s Cook’s argument as well.
- Aaronstotle 4y agoOr use a messenger like WhatsApp or Signal
- felixdaq 4y agoThe average Joe does not know the difference between SMS and the more advanced features that iMessage offers when messaging withing the apple ecosystem. All they see is that androids are unable to send high quality images, send reactions etc.
- gw99 4y agoErr yeah they do know. Everyone just uses WhatsApp.
- angryasian 4y ago
- hotpotamus 4y agoI think the funniest aspect of this is that I'm planning on buying my mom an iphone next month to solve this issue.
- fezfight 4y agoThat's not funny, that's sad.
- hotpotamus 4y agoIn the sad world that tech has built for us, you have to find the humor where you can ;)
- overboard2 4y agoYou don't have to buy her an iPhone
- KerrAvon 4y agoIf you want to minimize your tech support calls? Come on.
- mrguyorama 4y agoOh, like when my mother had to spend over a year using her phone only while plugged in because the battery was so underspecced for the task that it literally could not boot the phone despite showing 80% battery, and everything else about her phone basically stopped functioning, and she couldn't buy a new one because they're $1000 and she's an average person without a shitload of money to burn? Oh wait, that was her iPhone, that she bought because she needed a more modern phone that wouldn't cause her issues like android.
- fezfight 4y agoIs there a word for self inflicted schadenfreude? If so, that, I suppose.
- princevegeta89 4y agoTried an iPhone for a month when my Samsung S21 went in for repair. The perceived sheer lack of features and big UX gaps and missing features instantly made me profoundly dislike iPhone. Just my opinion.
- philliphaydon 4y agoUX gaps? Are you talking about android? The UX is highly inconsistent in vanilla android let alone across apps…
- danogentili 4y agoHow is that a bad thing? I remember android 2.x apps having the coolest UIs, nowadays android apps all use the same boring material design components. You can still find some 2.x apps on the play store though, they're a refreshing blast from the past. Websites still have a bit of originality, given the vast variety of UI frameworks (and now canvas apps allow for even more versatility).
- mrguyorama 4y agoYou're missing a huge point: Even though all those apps had different looks and feels and even did things differently, Back always GOES BACK. It's a global interaction and just makes so many things so much easier than a la cart back buttons for each interaction in random places, or whatever "gestures" are.
- zffr 4y agoCan you be more specific? I feel that an iPhone user might say the same about android if they were to switch.
- princevegeta89 4y agoSure, one missing simple feature is to be able to use keypad to do alphabetical search (for contacts) at the same time. Ex: You could not type "42779" for "HARRY". There is also nothing like Secure Folder on iOS as well AFAIK.
- RichardCNormos 4y ago
- blendergeek 4y agoI use a Purism Librem 5. It doesn't run Android. You're welcome.
- metadat 4y agoStop being a snobby elitest. Choosing an Apple phone doesn't make you better than, and making life-choices based on such matters.. well, good luck with that.
- fezfight 4y agoAgreed. Choosing Apple is like watching The Big Bang Theory. Or buying some burnt trash from Starbucks.
- metadat 4y agoExactly. The problem enters the scene when someone begins believing they are smarter or superior to other people, especially when it's rooted in such a superficial quality. It reveals a lot about the individual behind the opinion, which can be informative.
- fsniper 4y agoWow. "I don't like one type of product so loose your preferences, stop thinking and start using what ever I say so!"
- dvngnt_ 4y agosounds like a troll comment
- shpx 4y agoIt is, but I’m disappointed that it’s flagged because regardless of how much we might dislike it, it’s still a common view.
- metalliqaz 4y agoRemember how much shit Microsoft got when they did crap like this with Windows and IE? I guess Bill Gates just wasn't charming enough.
- thih9 4y agoSomehow I don’t mind this time. I like what Apple is doing and the UX they have been able to achieve so far. I wouldn’t want to force them to adopt some third party protocol, especially if this is initiated by Google (who has a history of failed text/chat products).
- kangalioo 4y agoThey don't have to change their protocol, they'd just have to port to Android
- thih9 4y agoI assumed the latest idea was for Apple to adopt RCS > But Apple can adopt RCS—the modern industry standard—for these threads instead. Source: https://www.android.com/get-the-message/ https://www.android.com/get-the-message/ , published around the beginning of August as far as I recall.
- metalliqaz 4y agoThey already support good, old-fashioned text messages, they could just do it without being petty.
- thih9 4y agoMessages is a complex app. I imagine adding a new protocol (with its own quirks) and ensuring it stays compatible with everything else is in the best case not easy.
- smrtinsert 4y agoTurtlenecks go a long way
- sys_64738 4y agoIn some ways his comment is correct. iPhones can be had for pretty cheap and are functional for a long time compared to their Android counterparts. Most non-techies are more comfortable with iPhones in my experience. Your experience might differ.
- abc_lisper 4y agoLol. It’s not like there is a dearth of platform agnostic messaging. Sure his mom could use whatsapp or signal. Dude tried to emotionally load his argument and win over Tim Cook
- cloogshicer 4y agoThankfully, shit like this will soon be illegal in the EU when the Digital Markets Act hits. Hopefully they'll plug all the loopholes and actually enforce it. I don't understand how anyone can defend business practices like this, which are exclusively there for the purpose of platform lock-in.
- hbosch 4y agoWhat will be illegal, exactly? There is actually nothing stopping iPhones from communicating with Android phones. iMessage, a proprietary messaging app, colors data messages blue and SMS messages green for the user's benefit. There is an entire world of messaging apps that aren't iMessage. The main gripe from Android users seems to be a mere social issue. Also, isn't it my understanding that in EU most people use other messaging apps already?
- nyuszika7h 4y agoNot everyone is American. Texts are usually not free in Europe unless you're on the highest plan. And some people don't use other apps. Before iOS 15 I had a problem even though my mom uses Viber: iOS didn't allow me to set Viber to bypass Do Not Disturb, it was only possible with calls and SMS/iMessage.
- DavideNL 4y ago> What will be illegal, exactly? "During a close to 8-hour long trilogue (three-way talks between Parliament, Council and Commission), EU lawmakers agreed that the largest messaging services (such as Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger or iMessage) will have to open up and interoperate with smaller messaging platforms, if they so request. Users of small or big platforms would then be able to exchange messages, send files or make video calls across messaging apps, thus giving them more choice." https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/nl/press-room/20220315IPR25504/deal-on-digital-markets-act-ensuring-fair-competition-and-more-choice-for-users https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/nl/press-room/20220315IP...
- phendrenad2 4y ago
- larsnystrom 4y agoI don’t get why RCS has to involve carriers. Apple could implement iMessage without involving carriers, so it should be possible to implement a messaging protocol which doesn’t rely on them (but also isn’t proprietary). By involving carriers you’re making it harder (impossible?) to create a client to be used on devices not on the cellular network. I just don’t see the point.
- chimeracoder 4y ago> By involving carriers you’re making it harder (impossible?) to create a client to be used on devices not on the cellular network. I just don’t see the point. On the contrary, RCS allows you to text over Wi-Fi, which SMS does not.
- solarkraft 4y agoCan I use RCS without a phone plan?
- pwinnski 4y agoDoes RCS work for devices that do not have a phone number? My reading suggests it does not, that there is still a carrier dependency. iMessage has no carrier dependency, no phone number dependency at all. Kids all over the world use iMessage over Wi-Fi without working phone service at all.
- toast0 4y agoRCS involves carriers because the username is a phone number. iMessage also involves carriers when using the phone number as the username (there's verification of the number that you usually don't see). RCS is also a standard the GSMA (gsm carrier association) came up with and didn't deploy terribly much. I don't think 'it's a standard' stands for much when it's only moving forward because one company is pushing it unilaterally. (It doesn't help that that company has a history of abandoning messaging products)
- taneq 4y agoI switched to iPhone a while ago and while, for me, it was a worthwhile compromise to get my data away from Google while still getting a reliable appliance-like (rather than science-project-like) phone, the text entry system is pretty bad.
- rahimnathwani 4y ago"the text entry system is pretty bad" Have you tried installing Gboard?
- KerrAvon 4y agoWhat do you miss from the Android text experience?
- SllX 4y agoHa! This is actually sound advice though. My mother needs a phone and left to her own devices her friends of the same age would probably convince her to buy a cheap Android (which would end up frustrating her eventually), or she just wouldn’t even buy a phone at all. So I buy her phones. I pay for her service, and I pay for AppleCare, some peripherals and other services that make it useful. It’s the least I could do for her giving me life. She gets a camera too, doesn’t get caught on one side of the digital divide and more importantly, she retains the means of having a social life as she gets older.
- yamtaddle 4y ago> My mother needs a phone and left to her own devices her friends of the same age would probably convince her to buy a cheap Android (which would end up frustrating her eventually), or she just wouldn’t even buy a phone at all. My parents do that. Have plenty of money but just can't bring themselves to spend more than ~$300 on a phone. And, to be fair, if they spent double or even triple that but still bought Android they're correct that it wouldn't be an improvement, since the UI's the main problem. > So I buy her phones. Having watched my parents' experience over the years, I assure you you're doing the right thing.
- dougmwne 4y agoHe is right on multiple levels. If your mom is suffering the buggy, slow, bad UX of an android phone, be a good child and buy her an iPhone. It’s objectively better unless you are harboring some irrational grudge. The walled garden is Apple’s thing. They have no reason to interoperate with Android unless they are legally forced. And why are you sending SMS anyway? There’s a universe of messaging apps that are far more feature complete than iMessage.
- bananarchist 4y agoYeah idk why people are still texting. This must be a North American/European thing? In Asia and Latin America nobody texts.
- benjymo 4y agoOnly US specific I think. In the EU, everyone uses WhatsApp, Facebook messenger or some other App depending on the country.
- pwinnski 4y agoEvery thread like this, people pop up in the comments and say, "Nobody in my country texts at all, we all use XApp," but amusingly, XApp varies by thread/country/day. Sometimes it's WhatsApp, sometimes Signal, sometimes Telegram, sometimes LINE, sometimes WeChat, sometimes Facebook, sometimes something else.
- therobot24 4y agoyou should really step out of your bubble every so often, sounds like you're projecting your experience onto everyone else without really thinking about or considering what life is like in other places
- dougmwne 4y agoOh I have a decent handle on that I think:) I mean if your mom is texting with SMS, she’s in North America. If she’s texting with a lot of iPhone users your family is in a certain economic position already. If you are on this site you are in a certain economic position and get called in for a lot of family tech support. If your mom has an android, supporting it is probably not worth your time in terms of the hourly rate you usually get. On top of all that, an iPhone SE is one of the best deals in phones and its long support life will save money over a parade of crap cheapest-available androids. I am just speaking to my audience.
- strict9 4y agoThere is a solution to the problem of sending videos or collections of photos via SMS from iPhone to Android: go to a video, and click 'copy iCloud link'. Send the link to the Android user, and it's an easy process to download the full resolution file. I have a family member who refuses to use Apple products out of principle and this is a convenient workaround.
- franczesko 4y agoOr using a chat app of some sort. I was surprised that in USA sms is still used.
- lotsofpulp 4y agoI do not know a single person in the USA that does not use WhatsApp. It must be older Americans who have zero international connections that are oblivious to other chat apps. Asians, Latinos, Europeans, Africans, Canadians, everyone is using WhatsApp (or iMessage). No one would pay for exorbitant international SMS/MMS costs.
- colinmhayes 4y agoI do not know a single person in the USA that does use whatsApp. Everyone is either on iMessage or facebook messenger with a few on signal.
- pwinnski 4y agoThat says something about the people you know, but not much about people in the USA. I have never used Facebook Messenger and don't know anyone who does (although... how would I, since I don't have a Facebook account?), but I use WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, and iMessage.
- colinmhayes 4y agoMaybe that says something about the people you know, but not much about the people in the USA.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- hbosch 4y agoThe comedy of this whole thing is that if the roles were reversed, and Google had a dominant messaging platform and a popular line of phones that kept Apple users "outside of the circle" a la "green bubbles" or otherwise, it's hard to imagine that they would actually do what they are asking Apple to do.
- freedomben 4y agoI don't think Google is a benevolent actor by any means, but they do have a history of build iPhone versions of their apps with a first-class experience. At times the iOS version has actually been better/ahead of the android version (although that's usually a short term thing). What product has Google made that they don't make available on iphone? Apple definitely has a history of only supporting their own system, while Google doesn't. I think it's wildly cynical to assume Google would do the same thing as Apple if the roles were reversed. One company has a long track record of behaving like that, while the other doesn't.
- pwinnski 4y agoIf it enables Google to sell more ads, they will port anything to any platform.
- amalter 4y agoThey would make 7 different messaging apps managed by 3 different business units, disband 4 of them, combine the remaining 3 into 2, deprecate those 2 and create 2 new ones, combine those 2 into 1, then suggest a vague international standard while rewriting that 1 into a new 1 that's incompatible with all the old ones. Then complain that the competition is not "interoperable". (Oh wait, that's actually what happened.)
- rchaud 4y ago> Former marketing chief Phil Schiller famously said that porting iMessage to Android "would hurt us more than help us," and another former Apple exec said in an email that "iMessage amounts to serious lock-in." Thank all that is holy that innovations like email came from government and academia, and were designed for federated interoperability from day 1. I still remember all the adulation for Steve Jobs' "open letter to Flash". Only a few voices at the time warned that his criticisms were motivated more by Apple's need to position the App Store as a walled garden for entertainment that did not have to compete with free Flash game websites and Flash video streaming sites.
- freedomben 4y agoDidn't Jobs originally want to create an email that only worked (on and to) Apple computers? I think that might have been in a movie about him that I watched
- pwinnski 4y agoNeXT mail was amazing, and is probably what you're remembering.
- throw7 4y agoOne thing missing in RCS, it doesn't have web access (not the messages tunneling thing). I don't know whether that's by design or not. It's the only thing I want really.
- _23sd 4y agoReminds me of the time a few years ago when my mom had a problem: her 1 year old cheap Android phone wasn't reliably getting push notifications from LINE anymore. Opening the app would always catch it up, but if she forgot, then notifications could arrive hours or days later, or never. Changing settings to disable battery optimization made battery life worse as described, but didn't fix the notification problem. We switched the family to Signal, which helped for a bit since it's a lighter app, but less than 6 months later that started failing, too. The solution to this messaging problem was, in fact, to buy my mom a new phone (though it wasn't an iPhone, sorry Tim). The point of this story is that while I think the real solution to the reporter's problem is to get one of the many great messaging apps out there, I fundamentally disagree with the idea that we should just forget about having a real messaging standard. A lot of techies want phones to just be internet machines, but they do have some fundamental features that people rely on, namely calls and texts. Apple should remember that when Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone, he spent just as much time touting its great phone and messaging UX as he did showing off its web browser and other apps.
- angryasian 4y agoWhat happened to this HN community. Apple took what was an open standard for interoperability, added "paywall" features on top of it, and its even to the point where people are ostracized for not buying into this paywall. This behavior should be condemned not celebrated.
- tiahura 4y agoIt just goes to show how much Google is really really hated.
- tpoacher 4y agoSo iPhone warns their users when someone else is using a superior phone. big deal. i dont see the problem here.
- bb88 4y agoI keep thinking that one day I'll buy an Apple product. I haven't owned once since an Apple IIc as a kid. The Mac Mini is rather a good price, and works really well. But then this shit happens, and Apple shows how divisive and exclusive they are. And then I want to stick with the devil I know which today is Linux/Microsoft instead of the one I don't.
- rcarmo 4y agoAs someone who works in the telco industry and spent a lot of time dealing with SMS and MMS, I actually find RCS to be almost as klunky. But as an European whose family and friends mostly use WhatsApp (and occasionally Signal), I think it’s time is past. Sure, Google would (assuming they’re finally settling their messaging strategy) very much like to have full parity with iMessage, and they have been feeding carriers the notion that they might even get some extra revenue out of it, but for most Android users, even SMS doesn’t matter anymore. A note on the carrier angle: if you have an iPhone and a flat data plan, iMessage can’t be billed. But if you have to have an RCS gateway, then you can bill on a per-message basis again, even if SMS pricing (at least en Europe) has gone sub-cent. That is what Google has been trying to lobby on, regardless of their outspoken stance on interoperability…
- rcarmo 4y ago