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Having 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,

by bmitc 4y ago

Having 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 ago
For 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 ago
Sounds like you need to deactivate iMessage: https://selfsolve.apple.com/deregister-imessage/ https://selfsolve.apple.com/deregister-imessage/
- hcurtiss 4y ago
  You 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 ago
    The 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.
    - hcurtiss 4y ago
      If I didn't have an iPhone, I wouldn't need it. I do have an iPhone for the reasons mentioned above, and I'm excited to have this new tool as a way of texting from my work Windows PC. While I would like to use a Pixel phone, I cannot escape iMessage.
    - frosted-flakes 4y ago
      I see no reason why that wouldn't work with any phone, even an old BlackBerry. It's just using standard Bluetooth protocols.
      - kube-system 4y ago
        The 'participating in iMessage' part doesn't work on any phone.
- interestica 4y ago
  And sometimes the problem lies with the receiving idevice. It's all quite absurd that Apple has hijacked the protocol like this and made it completely separate from the user. My parents have a perfectly good phone that can't receive my text messages because it somehow still thinks my contact is an imessage contact.
eertami 4y ago
Having lived all over the world, but not the US, I don't think I've sent or received an SMS/text message once in the last decade (except for bad 2FA implementations). Apple's weird and semi-transparent (to the user) hybrid system of mixing a proprietary web protocol and SMS in the same app is obviously problematic, and the rest of the world moved on to other messaging services, but it's weird that the US is still stuck on this.
- afavour 4y ago
  It is a little odd that the US is so iMessage-heavy when the rest of the world isn't but IMO relying on another proprietary protocol (i.e. WhatsApp) really isn't great either. I kind of think everyone is in an awful place.
  - qwytw 4y ago
    I think text massages (SMS) are much more popular in US than in some other countries (obviously there are a lot of places where people still use SMS besides US). Not sure how accurate is the data but this seems interesting: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1263720/mobile-messaging-apps-usage-by-country/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1263720/mobile-messaging...
    - tgma 4y ago
      US historically was much more into "unlimited" plans vs pay-per-use was/is more of a common thing in poorer countries. That may explain the prevalence of SMS in the US.
    - liotier 4y ago
      Seen from my window, Whatsapp gained traction as free international messages and voice - which are only attractive for usage across international boundaries, which is uncommon in the USA... Maybe that partly explains why SMS lasted longer in the USA.
      - cryptonym 4y ago
rhaway84773 4y ago
All this BS Apple has been doing is why my family and friends have largely switched exclusively to WhatsApp, although unfortunately that’s a little more troublesome now with Meta’s privacy issues.
- jtmarl1n 4y ago
  Facebook bought WhatsApp in 2014. You make it sound like Facebook's involvement and their known issues are something new.
- ezfe 4y ago
  Signal
partiallypro 4y ago
My biggest gripe is when iPhone users share video or images, they are grainy nonsense. If Apple just moved to RCS this would be solved, but they refuse simply because they know it handicaps their competitor. The react thing has largely been fixed by Google on newer versions of messenger. It's impossible to fix the video stuff. People outside the US don't get it. They say everyone should switch to Whatsapp, etc, but getting millions of people to do that across tons of fractured messaging apps when there is one protocol that everyone can use...isn't easy or even viable at this point.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  > People outside the US don't get it Oh we get it. It's like trying to get everyone off WhatsApp to Signal.
- hbn 4y ago
  Apple hasn't moved to RCS because it's not an actual industry-accepted standard, despite what Google will trick people into believing. The version of RCS that's on Android is Google's own fork of RCS and is primarily routing messages through Google's own servers. And therein we have the reason why Google keeps pushing these smear campaigns about how Apple isn't "getting on board with the new standard," -- Google wants to become the new standard. If Apple did what Google wanted, Google basically gets to be in the same position they are with controlling web standards with the Chrome near-monopoly.
  - ericmay 4y ago
    Yep. And when I see Google running ads [1] around RCS it signals to me not to touch it with a 100ft poll. If it were a good protocol you wouldn't have to run ads (like USB-C). [1] https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/09/google-new-campaign-pressure-apple-adopting-rcs/ https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/09/google-new-campaign-pressu...
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  > They say everyone should switch to Whatsapp Anyone who advises me to switch one of my most important phone functions over to Facebook instantly loses a great deal of credibility. I can appreciate that the network effect makes it look very appealing when you're stuck inside, but if you are not already stuck in that garden, why do it? Just go back to SMS. It is the only standard that is universal.
tinus_hn 4y ago
If you still have your iPhone, you can turn off iMessage so the system tells other users you’re no longer using it.
Spooky23 4y ago
I’m the opposite. There’s always one PITA android user breaking text threads for teams or school things. The worst was one of the crappier phones that would send a half dozen differently scaled pictures.
willyt 4y ago
I wish there was a way we could tag threads so that I can have threads tagged with "iMessage bubble colour" automatically collapsed. I can see both sides of the argument but I'm totally bored of reading it for the 100th time by this stage.
foepys 4y ago
This will improve once the EU's Digital Markets Act takes full effect on 2024-03-06 and will force Apple to cooperate with other chat providers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Markets_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Markets_Act
- Longhanks 4y ago
  Ah, just like the famous EU cookie policy suddenly made the internet a better place, right? Just like websites, which have become a pain in the ass, making the opt-out just painful enough so that 99% of users just click "track me anyway", this will have exactly zero positive influence. The EU just doesn’t "get" the internet. Even worse, most websites now even have explicit consent to actually track visitors. Apple is surely going to find the point of where they comply with the law, but create so much friction, that nothing changes at all. Except that smaller services will have a very hard time complying with the EU bureaucracy (same as the GPDR, with has been nothing but a PITA for small- to medium sized businesses).
  - frosted-flakes 4y ago
    Are you really complaining about GDPR? The cookie law is a farce, but the protections that GDPR provides to consumers are by no means onerous to businesses.
  - foepys 4y ago
    Smaller services are not affected because they are explicitly not included. Unless you define 7.5 billion Euro annual revenue in the EEA as small. The cookie law is good, it's the websites that are either actively non-compliant or lazy. There is no need to request permission to track users. Just don't do it and any cookie banner is obsolete.
anotherman554 4y ago
From what I recall when you switch to Android best practice is to disable Imessage. You shouldn't ever get messages on your IPAD after doing that.
racked 4y ago
I have a pet theory that everything Apple produces is deliberately made slightly unusual for the purpose of (a) vendor lock-in and (b) enhancing the feeling in their cult that they are above non-Apple users because Apple products do things in "smarter" ways. Those blinded fools have no idea what abuse they are putting up with, they rationalize every inconvenience and will happily evangelize the Word of Apple. (Disclaimer: In principle, I love all people regardless of their use of OS/product/whatever ^_^)
Obscurity4340 4y ago
I refuse to use iMessage for many reasons, but one is that it is super not-robust when it comes to messaging other iPhone users who have a different iMessage setting. If I have it enabled and you don't, many times the message will simply get lost in transit or into the aether. Vice-versa: same deal.

by bmitc 4y ago

jwestbury 4y ago

For 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 ago

Sounds like you need to deactivate iMessage: https://selfsolve.apple.com/deregister-imessage/ https://selfsolve.apple.com/deregister-imessage/

hcurtiss 4y ago
You 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 ago
  The 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.
  - hcurtiss 4y ago
    If I didn't have an iPhone, I wouldn't need it. I do have an iPhone for the reasons mentioned above, and I'm excited to have this new tool as a way of texting from my work Windows PC. While I would like to use a Pixel phone, I cannot escape iMessage.
  - frosted-flakes 4y ago
    I see no reason why that wouldn't work with any phone, even an old BlackBerry. It's just using standard Bluetooth protocols.
    - kube-system 4y ago
      The 'participating in iMessage' part doesn't work on any phone.
interestica 4y ago
And sometimes the problem lies with the receiving idevice. It's all quite absurd that Apple has hijacked the protocol like this and made it completely separate from the user. My parents have a perfectly good phone that can't receive my text messages because it somehow still thinks my contact is an imessage contact.

eertami 4y ago

Having lived all over the world, but not the US, I don't think I've sent or received an SMS/text message once in the last decade (except for bad 2FA implementations). Apple's weird and semi-transparent (to the user) hybrid system of mixing a proprietary web protocol and SMS in the same app is obviously problematic, and the rest of the world moved on to other messaging services, but it's weird that the US is still stuck on this.

afavour 4y ago
It is a little odd that the US is so iMessage-heavy when the rest of the world isn't but IMO relying on another proprietary protocol (i.e. WhatsApp) really isn't great either. I kind of think everyone is in an awful place.
- qwytw 4y ago
  I think text massages (SMS) are much more popular in US than in some other countries (obviously there are a lot of places where people still use SMS besides US). Not sure how accurate is the data but this seems interesting: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1263720/mobile-messaging-apps-usage-by-country/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1263720/mobile-messaging...
  - tgma 4y ago
    US historically was much more into "unlimited" plans vs pay-per-use was/is more of a common thing in poorer countries. That may explain the prevalence of SMS in the US.
  - liotier 4y ago
    Seen from my window, Whatsapp gained traction as free international messages and voice - which are only attractive for usage across international boundaries, which is uncommon in the USA... Maybe that partly explains why SMS lasted longer in the USA.
    - cryptonym 4y ago

rhaway84773 4y ago

All this BS Apple has been doing is why my family and friends have largely switched exclusively to WhatsApp, although unfortunately that’s a little more troublesome now with Meta’s privacy issues.

jtmarl1n 4y ago
Facebook bought WhatsApp in 2014. You make it sound like Facebook's involvement and their known issues are something new.
ezfe 4y ago
Signal

partiallypro 4y ago

My biggest gripe is when iPhone users share video or images, they are grainy nonsense. If Apple just moved to RCS this would be solved, but they refuse simply because they know it handicaps their competitor. The react thing has largely been fixed by Google on newer versions of messenger. It's impossible to fix the video stuff. People outside the US don't get it. They say everyone should switch to Whatsapp, etc, but getting millions of people to do that across tons of fractured messaging apps when there is one protocol that everyone can use...isn't easy or even viable at this point.

ChuckNorris89 4y ago
> People outside the US don't get it Oh we get it. It's like trying to get everyone off WhatsApp to Signal.
hbn 4y ago
Apple hasn't moved to RCS because it's not an actual industry-accepted standard, despite what Google will trick people into believing. The version of RCS that's on Android is Google's own fork of RCS and is primarily routing messages through Google's own servers. And therein we have the reason why Google keeps pushing these smear campaigns about how Apple isn't "getting on board with the new standard," -- Google wants to become the new standard. If Apple did what Google wanted, Google basically gets to be in the same position they are with controlling web standards with the Chrome near-monopoly.
- ericmay 4y ago
  Yep. And when I see Google running ads [1] around RCS it signals to me not to touch it with a 100ft poll. If it were a good protocol you wouldn't have to run ads (like USB-C). [1] https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/09/google-new-campaign-pressure-apple-adopting-rcs/ https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/09/google-new-campaign-pressu...
rootusrootus 4y ago
> They say everyone should switch to Whatsapp Anyone who advises me to switch one of my most important phone functions over to Facebook instantly loses a great deal of credibility. I can appreciate that the network effect makes it look very appealing when you're stuck inside, but if you are not already stuck in that garden, why do it? Just go back to SMS. It is the only standard that is universal.

tinus_hn 4y ago

If you still have your iPhone, you can turn off iMessage so the system tells other users you’re no longer using it.

Spooky23 4y ago

I’m the opposite. There’s always one PITA android user breaking text threads for teams or school things. The worst was one of the crappier phones that would send a half dozen differently scaled pictures.

willyt 4y ago

I wish there was a way we could tag threads so that I can have threads tagged with "iMessage bubble colour" automatically collapsed. I can see both sides of the argument but I'm totally bored of reading it for the 100th time by this stage.

foepys 4y ago

This will improve once the EU's Digital Markets Act takes full effect on 2024-03-06 and will force Apple to cooperate with other chat providers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Markets_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Markets_Act

Longhanks 4y ago
Ah, just like the famous EU cookie policy suddenly made the internet a better place, right? Just like websites, which have become a pain in the ass, making the opt-out just painful enough so that 99% of users just click "track me anyway", this will have exactly zero positive influence. The EU just doesn’t "get" the internet. Even worse, most websites now even have explicit consent to actually track visitors. Apple is surely going to find the point of where they comply with the law, but create so much friction, that nothing changes at all. Except that smaller services will have a very hard time complying with the EU bureaucracy (same as the GPDR, with has been nothing but a PITA for small- to medium sized businesses).
- frosted-flakes 4y ago
  Are you really complaining about GDPR? The cookie law is a farce, but the protections that GDPR provides to consumers are by no means onerous to businesses.
- foepys 4y ago
  Smaller services are not affected because they are explicitly not included. Unless you define 7.5 billion Euro annual revenue in the EEA as small. The cookie law is good, it's the websites that are either actively non-compliant or lazy. There is no need to request permission to track users. Just don't do it and any cookie banner is obsolete.

anotherman554 4y ago

From what I recall when you switch to Android best practice is to disable Imessage. You shouldn't ever get messages on your IPAD after doing that.

racked 4y ago

I have a pet theory that everything Apple produces is deliberately made slightly unusual for the purpose of (a) vendor lock-in and (b) enhancing the feeling in their cult that they are above non-Apple users because Apple products do things in "smarter" ways. Those blinded fools have no idea what abuse they are putting up with, they rationalize every inconvenience and will happily evangelize the Word of Apple. (Disclaimer: In principle, I love all people regardless of their use of OS/product/whatever ^_^)

Obscurity4340 4y ago

I refuse to use iMessage for many reasons, but one is that it is super not-robust when it comes to messaging other iPhone users who have a different iMessage setting. If I have it enabled and you don't, many times the message will simply get lost in transit or into the aether. Vice-versa: same deal.