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I have seen this argument so many times and it has never made sense to me. There is so much quality software that is free and open and interoperable. It is more

I have seen this argument so many times and it has never made sense to me. There is so much quality software that is free and open and interoperable. It is more than possible to be both open in nature and of high quality, to me that is indisputable. Apple obviously has a financial incentive to be locked down, they're not locked down out of any sort of necessity or as a concession for the sake of quality. In the case of Beeper Mini, the proof is in the pudding. You have evidence right in front of your face that an Android client for iMessage is possible, because one now exists. Does your iPhone suddenly feel lower quality to you?

ceejayoz 3y ago
> You have evidence right in front of your face that an Android client for iMessage is possible, because one now exists. Sure, but I'm not the one who has to handle customer service for it. Apple can have a test suite that encompasses every possible supported device (and OS combination). That's much tougher if they want to support Android. > Does your iPhone suddenly feel lower quality to you? No, but that's missing the point. If Beeper catches on, and all my Android friends install it, and some of my messages start getting lost, delayed, what have you, that's when I'd start to feel it.
- Nextgrid 3y ago
  > some of my messages start getting lost, delayed, what have you, that's when I'd start to feel it. Then you can blame their phone... just like you would now if your SMS messages to them were getting lost.
  - ceejayoz 3y ago
    If the iMessages fail, and give me the "try as SMS instead", I'm likely to blame iMessage.
- freedomben 3y ago
  > If Beeper catches on, and all my Android friends install it, and some of my messages start getting lost, delayed, what have you, that's when I'd start to feel it. You realize that's been Apple's fault right, intentionally breaking Beeper?
  - ceejayoz 3y ago
    > You realize that's been Apple's fault right, intentionally breaking Beeper? Sure, it's impossible that Beeper's app or services could ever just malfunction on their own. The first bug-free app!
    - freedomben 3y ago
      Oops, meant this to be a reply to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38603599 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38603599
      - ceejayoz 3y ago
        Same answer either way; Beeper could break things in a way that results in delivery failures, and Apple could be blamed.
- skeaker 3y ago
  Apple doesn't need to provide support for Android if they simply open their protocol and let whoever develops the Android client take care of that, as evidenced by Beeper Mini. > If Beeper catches on, and all my Android friends install it, and some of my messages start getting lost, delayed, what have you, that's when I'd start to feel it. In that case, you might be shocked to learn that before Beeper Mini you simply couldn't send iMessages to Android devices at all. Imagine that, ALL of your iMessages to them getting dropped and having to go through SMS instead...
  - ceejayoz 3y ago
    > Apple doesn't need to provide support for Android if they simply open their protocol and let whoever develops the Android client take care of that, as evidenced by Beeper Mini. Now they have to support an open standard/protocol, though. That's not negligible effort. > In that case, you might be shocked to learn that before Beeper Mini you simply couldn't send iMessages to Android devices at all. Imagine that, ALL of your iMessages to them getting dropped and having to go through SMS instead... But that's seamless; I've never had to wait or make that choice. When there's some kind of iMessage failure, though, they sit around and don't send, until I get a delivery failure and "send as SMS" as the fallback. This is rare, but extremely annoying. Adding third-party services into the mix doesn't seem like it's going to reduce these instances.
    - skeaker 3y ago
      > Now they have to support an open standard/protocol, though. That's not negligible effort. Evidently not, given the existence of Beeper Mini without intervention on their part. In fact, they're actively spending effort on breaking a working implementation that took them no effort. And either way, they have trillions of dollars and some of the brightest people in tech under their belt. If your argument is that they're not capable of making that protocol work, you're wrong. >But that's seamless; I've never had to wait or make that choice. It's seamlessly giving you less functionality, sure. This is not a matter of opinion: Being able to send iMessages to Android users is a feature that iPhones currently do not have at all. Apple is choosing to not give you that functionality when they could be. With something like Beeper Mini, you as an iPhone user gain more functionality by being able to send iMessages to some Android users. Even if it fails sometimes, it is still functionality that simply did not exist at all before. This is only beneficial to you as an iPhone user because you now have functionality that you did not before. I don't know if that can be phrased any more directly.

ceejayoz 3y ago

> You have evidence right in front of your face that an Android client for iMessage is possible, because one now exists. Sure, but I'm not the one who has to handle customer service for it. Apple can have a test suite that encompasses every possible supported device (and OS combination). That's much tougher if they want to support Android. > Does your iPhone suddenly feel lower quality to you? No, but that's missing the point. If Beeper catches on, and all my Android friends install it, and some of my messages start getting lost, delayed, what have you, that's when I'd start to feel it.

Nextgrid 3y ago
> some of my messages start getting lost, delayed, what have you, that's when I'd start to feel it. Then you can blame their phone... just like you would now if your SMS messages to them were getting lost.
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  If the iMessages fail, and give me the "try as SMS instead", I'm likely to blame iMessage.
freedomben 3y ago
> If Beeper catches on, and all my Android friends install it, and some of my messages start getting lost, delayed, what have you, that's when I'd start to feel it. You realize that's been Apple's fault right, intentionally breaking Beeper?
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  > You realize that's been Apple's fault right, intentionally breaking Beeper? Sure, it's impossible that Beeper's app or services could ever just malfunction on their own. The first bug-free app!
  - freedomben 3y ago
    Oops, meant this to be a reply to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38603599 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38603599
    - ceejayoz 3y ago
      Same answer either way; Beeper could break things in a way that results in delivery failures, and Apple could be blamed.
skeaker 3y ago
Apple doesn't need to provide support for Android if they simply open their protocol and let whoever develops the Android client take care of that, as evidenced by Beeper Mini. > If Beeper catches on, and all my Android friends install it, and some of my messages start getting lost, delayed, what have you, that's when I'd start to feel it. In that case, you might be shocked to learn that before Beeper Mini you simply couldn't send iMessages to Android devices at all. Imagine that, ALL of your iMessages to them getting dropped and having to go through SMS instead...
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  > Apple doesn't need to provide support for Android if they simply open their protocol and let whoever develops the Android client take care of that, as evidenced by Beeper Mini. Now they have to support an open standard/protocol, though. That's not negligible effort. > In that case, you might be shocked to learn that before Beeper Mini you simply couldn't send iMessages to Android devices at all. Imagine that, ALL of your iMessages to them getting dropped and having to go through SMS instead... But that's seamless; I've never had to wait or make that choice. When there's some kind of iMessage failure, though, they sit around and don't send, until I get a delivery failure and "send as SMS" as the fallback. This is rare, but extremely annoying. Adding third-party services into the mix doesn't seem like it's going to reduce these instances.
  - skeaker 3y ago
    > Now they have to support an open standard/protocol, though. That's not negligible effort. Evidently not, given the existence of Beeper Mini without intervention on their part. In fact, they're actively spending effort on breaking a working implementation that took them no effort. And either way, they have trillions of dollars and some of the brightest people in tech under their belt. If your argument is that they're not capable of making that protocol work, you're wrong. >But that's seamless; I've never had to wait or make that choice. It's seamlessly giving you less functionality, sure. This is not a matter of opinion: Being able to send iMessages to Android users is a feature that iPhones currently do not have at all. Apple is choosing to not give you that functionality when they could be. With something like Beeper Mini, you as an iPhone user gain more functionality by being able to send iMessages to some Android users. Even if it fails sometimes, it is still functionality that simply did not exist at all before. This is only beneficial to you as an iPhone user because you now have functionality that you did not before. I don't know if that can be phrased any more directly.