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Microsoft somehow brings iMessage to Windows – will it last?
- afavour 4y agoFascinated to know what API enables this. Is there some sort of Bluetooth access to notifications, perhaps? Wouldn't explain non-participation in group messages, though.
- Nextgrid 4y agoI believe that's an API used by non-Apple smartwatches that allows basic notification access and I guess text replies. I assume they just parse out the text messages from the notifications?
- surajrmal 4y agoIt is probably using the Message Access Profile[1], commonly used by cars. Its likely very stable, but is very limited. 1: https://www.bluetooth.com/specifications/specs/message-access-profile-1-4-2/ https://www.bluetooth.com/specifications/specs/message-acces...
- mrbuttons454 4y agoI believe this is just using the Bluetooth features meant to sync with car infotainment systems. I don't see that going away, but I also don't see this as performing like anything more than a clunky hack.
- Macha 4y agoWouldn't be the first time that Microsoft has tried to integrate with a third party chat service against said chat service's wishes: https://www.theverge.com/2014/4/21/5635488/msn-messenger-vs-aol-aim-chat-wars https://www.theverge.com/2014/4/21/5635488/msn-messenger-vs-... And Microsoft has been on the other side of this with third party skype users, too.
- tripdout 4y agoAnd that means Microsoft is the problem, not the third party chat service!
- nebula8804 4y agoAfter nearly 24 years we have come full circle: Here is an episode of Silicon Spin featuring John C Dvorak (yes that John C Dvorak) from ZDTV (yes that ZDTV) discussing the issue. I remember seeing this live when I was in elementary school lol [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcJBXgmdX44 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcJBXgmdX44 Wonder what happened to all these 'pundits' :) [EDIT]: LOL @ 5:50 "Coming up on Silicon Spin, streaming is free but how long will THAT last?!"
- sjoerger 4y agoDvorak is at least still around doing "stuff". I have never listened to his podcast. https://www.noagendashow.net/john-c-dvorak https://www.noagendashow.net/john-c-dvorak
- TSUTiger 4y agoDid you guys read the article? It just transmits messages the same way your car would when connected to Bluetooth.
- Macha 4y agoSure, Windows is using an API designed for cars rather than reverse engineering the protocol. It's still true that Apple do not want iMessage on competitor platforms. There's a non-zero chance they lock down this API further in response.
- bmitc 4y agoHaving switched back to Android, it can be infuriating dealing with iPhone users. I get slammed with "messages" when someone reacts to a message and oftentimes, messages just don't show up or messages go to my iPad and not my phone. Apple makes this extremely confusing. The iPhone users never know of their message goes through or what they're actually sending to (my iCloud account or my phone number).
- jwestbury 4y agoFor what it's worth, those reaction messages are a problem in both directions. I get separate text messages with reactions on my iPhone from my Android-using parents.
- afavour 4y agoSounds like you need to deactivate iMessage: https://selfsolve.apple.com/deregister-imessage/ https://selfsolve.apple.com/deregister-imessage/
- hcurtiss 4y agoYou can do that a dozen times and if other people pick up an old thread you participated in by iMessage -- you don't even see the message. It's just lost to the ether! You have no control over how those other people group text, and unless they pick up a new green bubble group text, you're just left out. Absolutely infuriating. Because so much of my extended family is on iPhone/iMessage, this issue -- alone -- has kept me chained to iPhone for years, despite repeated attempts to escape. I'm pretty excited about this development and am saddened there appears to be no way to get it immediately.
- kube-system 4y agoThe feature in this article won't be of any use to you if you don't have an iPhone. > The new version of Phone Link for Windows uses Bluetooth to link a user’s iPhone to their Windows PC. It then “passes commands and messages” to the Messages app on that paired iPhone.
- barelysapient 4y agoI think this is a trojan integration. MS will promptly appeal to the regulators (and possibly litigate) as soon as Apple breaks this.
- smoldesu 4y agoBased on what, exaxtly?
- dento 4y agoLikely the new EU Digital Markets Act, which requires interoperabilty from messaging applications.
- smoldesu 4y agoI'm more curious what they mean by "Trojan integration". Considering how Microsoft has been a trusted Apple app developer for over 20 years, that's a pretty heavy accusation.
- scarface74 4y agoAnd seeing that MS is using publicly available APIS that have been built into iOS since at least 2014
- scarface74 4y agoYou realize that MS isn’t using some type of secret hack? iOS has supported sending messages and notifications over BT forever. It’s how third party watches were able to display notifications before the Apple Watch was introduced.
- rootusrootus 4y agoWhy would Apple try to break it? It poses zero risk to their product line, and in fact might help a little. You still have to buy an iOS device to do iMessage.
- nonfamous 4y agoThis seems similar to the limited messaging integration in some cars (e.g. Teslas). You can send and receive SMS and iMessages, but no media or group texts. The latter is a serious limitation in practice.
- rootusrootus 4y agoThis is mostly a Tesla problem. Almost every other car produced today supports CarPlay and Android Auto. It is a regular source of frustration for me when I'm driving our Model 3, sending/receiving text messages using the Tesla voice interface is an exercise in frustration.
- 015a 4y agoRefusing to implement a closed-box proprietary connection like CarPlay, and experiencing a degradation of service because the service provider limits the capabilities of cheaper, simpler, and more open protocols, isn't a Tesla problem; its an Apple problem. Imagine if Google suddenly started forcing people to use the Gmail app to send multi-recipient emails, such that the Apple Mail app over IMAP could only send to one person.
- rootusrootus 4y agoMy frustrations with the Tesla app are 100% about the poor UI and voice interaction, not the inability to send multi-recipient text messages from the car. The degradation has nothing to do with any limitation by Apple or its API, but rather Tesla's choice to lock users out of two well-established mobile platforms. Why do you feel like Tesla is the good guy here, they have the smallest, most exclusive, least open garden in this conversation.
- 015a 4y agoI don't feel Tesla is a good guy. Landscapes like this aren't binary, and your insinuation is expanding the context of this discussion further than originally intended, then drawing false conclusions. In the specific issue of remote text messaging protocols: yeah, Tesla should support Android Auto and Apple CarPlay; but this absolutely also has everything to do with limitations in Apple's bluetooth text message access APIs, or at minimum their lack of industry leadership in moving these open standards forward to support more capabilities.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 4y agoOk. This does not happen very often, but: nice job MS! For once, a feature added to Windows is actually a feature that people may find useful.
- cube00 4y agoTo be fair implementing iMessage support is not entirely within their control, the joy of the walled garden.
- scarface74 4y agoYes because all other messaging protocols allow any random third party to attach to their service. Microsoft is using an 8 year old documented iOS API.
- withinrafael 4y agoWhich API? (Genuinely curious, thanks in advance!)
- scarface74 4y agoI just know there is one that smartwatches used before the Apple Watch was introduced. It allows third party watches to receive notifications. Others are thinking MS is just using the standard BT profile for messages that all modern cellphones support
- goosedragons 4y agoBut that API doesn't allow for replies. Only notifications. So they aren't doing it the same way as Fitbit or Garmin and other smartwatch companies.
- scarface74 4y agoThat’s why I’m leaning toward the Bluetooth protocol for messages. https://www.bluetooth.com/specifications/specs/message-access-profile-1-1/ https://www.bluetooth.com/specifications/specs/message-acces...
- viggity 4y agoIf someone at Apple is reading this, please, for the love of god, let me pay to have iMessage on my windows machine. I'd easily pay $100/year.
- Steltek 4y agoI can't see them loosening access to iMessage willingly. It's like the App Store: a moat to keep users confined to the Apple ecosystem. Allowing users choice and freedom is anathema to Apple's business model.
- WorldMaker 4y agoApple seems to be on friendlier terms with Windows these days. Their apps are getting better on Windows, and they are looking to support their PassKey infrastructure on Windows. With paid subscription services like Apple TV and Apple Music they have an increasing reason to support all of a user's devices and mixed ecosystem devices are statistically the norm. iMessage is not its own subscription service yet, but the days where it was explicitly an Apple hardware moat may be drawing to a close the more that Apple finds increased relevance (and shareholder appeal) in software as a service. I expect that if that were to happen, Apple might try to make a good marketing effort of "works best on Apple hardware" and Apple might never support iMessage on Android, but Windows support sounds oddly plausible in 2023.
- philistine 4y agoThe strongest arugement I heard that Apple will not open iMessage to other platforms at this point is spam-prevention. When was the last time you received a spam iMessage compared to an SMS? That spam prevention hinges on real Apple hardware.
- WorldMaker 4y agoOutside of political spam, I receive far more iMessage spam than SMS spam.
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- seiferteric 4y agoInteresting... A while back there was a store about running MacOS X in a VM and I believe you could sign into iCloud. I had an idea that someone could do a startup to sell iMessage as a service on other platforms by wrapping the iMessage app on a VM into an API/service. If that failed, you could buy up olf iPhones/iPads and automate them with an custom app to do the same maybe?
- lostlogin 4y agoYou can sign a vm into iCloud. I have a ridiculous system for backing up photos where a VM downloads them and then the machine uses a script at various intervals with Rsync to get them out the vm. I disable messages on it, but by default they arrived.
- dustyharddrive 4y agoGuides on running macOS VMs always seem to involve downloading some EFI build with opaque origins. Is there a safer option?
- axutio 4y agoCheck out Blue Bubbles (self hosted, open source), Beeper, Sunbird, and texts.com.
- gzer0 4y agoThis is the same mechanism utilized by Tesla and their "iMessage" integration. It won't be patched (any time soon at least); however, it is severely limited. No prior history is able to be loaded; no sending/receiving/viewing of pictures, group chats don't function... the list goes on.
- ben174 4y agoYea, when I saw these limitations, the first thing I thought of was Tesla. And Tesla makes it very clear with their messaging, when you first pair your phone, something like 'Due to limitations by Apple, you won't be able to participate in group chats.' It seems obvious to me Apple always wants to keep one critical thing inaccessible for iMessage, to lock people into using their platforms. They'd rather Tesla use car play, that way they can lock the integration down so others (like Windows) can't use the same integration.
- TSUTiger 4y agoI'll echo the other top-level threads and say it's the same technology as what happens in your car and it reads/replies to your messages. Sidenote: Can someone school me and tell me how Apple got this iMessage thing "right" when Blackberry/BBM didn't? Or is iMessage eventually going to go the way of BBM? I suspect it's more than just iMessage, like Apps (pre-BBM days) and tighter integration, but I'd like to start a dialogue here.
- Kab1r 4y agoiMessage succeeded because the iPhone maintained market share. BBM failed because people stopped buying Blackberries. I don't think any of iMessage's unique features materialy contributed to it's success.
- TSUTiger 4y agoSimilarly to the iPhone (and Android) dethroning Blackberry, will there be a new "iPhone" -- and will we finally see iMessage on Windows/Android by then?
- Kab1r 4y agoApple's grip on the messaging space is pretty tight but I have hopes that the EU's DMA regulation will force to loosen it's grip. I've been using iMessage on Android, desktop and the web using Mautrix-iMessage and Beeper for a while now.
- ics 4y agoI don't think it was so much a Apple getting it right in a technical sense, rather that when it debuted US carriers were still charging real money for texting and Apple stopped tip-toeing around the issue when they had enough partners. Recall the iPhone was originally exclusive to AT&T, then AT&T + Verizon, then Sprint, T-Mobile, etc. Sure, many people were on omnibus family plans for $X00s/month, but those people grew up to get their own plans, actual fast data was becoming a thing, and priorities just shifted. Why would you pay $$ just to text, if it's just text? I'm having a hard time looking up what the average costs were for Blackberry, but by the time they were in the hands of the masses, kids to adults, the iPhone and iMessage had too much momentum.
- not_a_shill 4y agoWeirdly enough Dell has had this tech since ~2018 but you had tk spoof your computer as a Dell to use it on non-dell computers. Looks like Intel bought the company that made it in 2021 and the Dell app is being discontinued.
- nateb2022 4y agoGood find! Here are some links for anyone interested: Dell Mobile Connect on Windows Store: https://apps.microsoft.com/store/detail/dell-mobile-connect/9PH12KTNDN3M?hl=en-us&gl=us https://apps.microsoft.com/store/detail/dell-mobile-connect/... Dell Mobile Connect and Alienware Mobile Connect End of Service Announcement : https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-us/000199082/dell-mobile-connect-and-alienware-mobile-connect-end-of-service-announcement https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-us/000199082/dell-mobi...