4 ms·

I'd argue that iMessage is one of the most monopolistic elements of the iPhone. With their market share as large as it is, and with only one remotely viable com

I'd argue that iMessage is one of the most monopolistic elements of the iPhone. With their market share as large as it is, and with only one remotely viable competitor, they should be forced to open up an API allowing other people to create clients. (Anyone remember the glory days of GAIM/Pidgin and multi-account messengers?)

Hellion 4y ago
It’s vastly more complicated than “apple opens an api”. iMessage does a lot more than just messaging, and key components of apples spam and fraud story are tied to individual devices. For Apple to open iMessage, would require that android manufacturers enroll the devices. I use an iPhone, and I try to get all my friends to use signal
- ryan93 4y ago
  By her own admission she was on an unimportant part of the project when she joined in 1965. She was recorded working on completely unrelated stuff in 63. When she was actually promoted to leadership the work was already done
- warning26 4y ago
  I like that Signal is open source, but I dislike their insistence on shutting down third party clients, because I believe third party clients are almost universally better than first-party ones. In addition, their continued reluctance to add an export or any kind of meaningful history backup is also a negative.
  - Hellion 4y ago
    The chat landscape is dire. I view Signal as a least bad option for my friends to use.
    - kaba0 4y ago
      I think telegram is a great tradeoff. Not as secure (by default it is not even e2e), but their clients on every platform are just slick and very great.
  - HKH2 4y ago
    Yep, they've started nagging for donations too. Signal, no means no.
    - Hellion 4y ago
      You can just not donate.
asdff 4y ago
OTOH I bet the majority of users have no idea that imessage and sms are different things. Iphones show up blue but thats about all the average end users notice about the protocol.
- warning26 4y ago
  I've got to hand it to Apple for implementing it that way; the seamless UX works so well. The fact that Google never built a competitor that functioned similarly is utterly baffling.
  - asdff 4y ago
    I think part of the reason was also to put messages on data. when the iphone came out you could get unlimited data from att, but I think you still might end up with a plan with finite text messages. Being able to text over wifi or 3g would save you from running up sms. blackberry had something similar too.
rootusrootus 4y ago
> (Anyone remember the glory days of GAIM/Pidgin and multi-account messengers?) Such things still exist, and even include iMessage ;-)

Hellion 4y ago

It’s vastly more complicated than “apple opens an api”. iMessage does a lot more than just messaging, and key components of apples spam and fraud story are tied to individual devices. For Apple to open iMessage, would require that android manufacturers enroll the devices. I use an iPhone, and I try to get all my friends to use signal

ryan93 4y ago
By her own admission she was on an unimportant part of the project when she joined in 1965. She was recorded working on completely unrelated stuff in 63. When she was actually promoted to leadership the work was already done
warning26 4y ago
I like that Signal is open source, but I dislike their insistence on shutting down third party clients, because I believe third party clients are almost universally better than first-party ones. In addition, their continued reluctance to add an export or any kind of meaningful history backup is also a negative.
- Hellion 4y ago
  The chat landscape is dire. I view Signal as a least bad option for my friends to use.
  - kaba0 4y ago
    I think telegram is a great tradeoff. Not as secure (by default it is not even e2e), but their clients on every platform are just slick and very great.
- HKH2 4y ago
  Yep, they've started nagging for donations too. Signal, no means no.
  - Hellion 4y ago
    You can just not donate.

asdff 4y ago

OTOH I bet the majority of users have no idea that imessage and sms are different things. Iphones show up blue but thats about all the average end users notice about the protocol.

warning26 4y ago
I've got to hand it to Apple for implementing it that way; the seamless UX works so well. The fact that Google never built a competitor that functioned similarly is utterly baffling.
- asdff 4y ago
  I think part of the reason was also to put messages on data. when the iphone came out you could get unlimited data from att, but I think you still might end up with a plan with finite text messages. Being able to text over wifi or 3g would save you from running up sms. blackberry had something similar too.

rootusrootus 4y ago

> (Anyone remember the glory days of GAIM/Pidgin and multi-account messengers?) Such things still exist, and even include iMessage ;-)