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Because Apple embraced texting by supporting SMS, then extended it by forcing all the text conversations that they could into their own proprietary infrastructu

Because Apple embraced texting by supporting SMS, then extended it by forcing all the text conversations that they could into their own proprietary infrastructure, and is extinguishing it by using punitive product design to create pressure on communities of people to all use their products so that everything goes over their proprietary network. I don't want an over the top chat app, I just want to text people.

Terretta 3y ago
How do you want Apple to tell iPhone users whether their messages to someone are being recorded by that person's telco and made available to other plan holders on that phone plan? How do you want Apple to indicate if this chat participant is costing you money by the message or free? Everyone's concerned about teens. Presumably teens know that T-Mobile and the other carriers give the family plan adults the ability to read their dependents text messages. As a teen I would want to stick with the encrypted bubbles your parents can't read and tell my parents about, thank you very much. It's not punitive product design. It's seamlessly integrated and meaningful, both on chat leaks and on costs of messaging: Blue sky, text safely. Green could literally cost you.
- brandon272 3y ago
  I have recent experience talking to non-techie younger people recently about this very issue and none of them were aware of the security differences of SMS vs. iMessage. Teenagers know that blue = iPhone and green = non-iPhone/SMS and that blue offers significantly more features and functionality vs SMS (delivered/read receipts, group chats, stickers, rich media, memojis, etc), which is the overwhelming reason why blue is preferred.
  - HenryBemis 3y ago
    Plus the cost. Over here in the EU, back in 2010 (?) SMS was an expensive thing, you would pay dearly for each or have to buy a "50/100/500 SMS package" or similar. So lowering the cost of 3G made it more economical if your friends had iPhones as now you could spend €20/month for '1GB' (which was mostly iMessage & web browsing at the time) and avoid spending that simply on SMS. (excuse the price inaccuracies if any, it's been a while since I had that iPhone 3GS)
    - em500 3y ago
      Back in 2010 iPhones were expensive status symbols in the EU, approximately nobody bought them to save money on SMS. In some markets the really heavy texters bought Blackberries for a while just for BBM, but that got killed pretty quickly by Whatsapp.
- stonogo 3y ago
  T-Mobile does not give primary account holders access to messaging content of other lines, regardless of the relationship between users.
  - filoleg 3y ago
    It doesn’t anymore, but it used to for pretty much all phone carriers in the US. And even now, on T-Mobile (as that’s the one I use, so the only one I can verify myself), if you have an account with multiple lines (e.g., a family plan), you can go into your account, click “Usage”, then “Text messages”, and it will show you all text info for all lines on the account (but no actual text content). And not just for “kid lines”, but for all regular lines as well. You can look by individual line or download that data as a bulk file. I just checked my t-mobile account, and despite it not showing the text content (which t-mobile certainly has access to, unlike imessage; t-mobile cannot even track metadata for those individually), it shows an entry for each text with the phone number with info on who was the sender vs receiver, timestamp, and other metadata. Luckily, T-Mobile only shows that I had 8 incoming messages (all of them were just automated verification code texts) and no outgoing messages this month, because pretty much all my messaging these days is either on discord or imessage. Even without the actual text content though, that metadata is still some very sensitive info that teenagers almost definitely wouldn’t want their parents to track. Hell, I am not a teenager, have nothing interesting in that data (doubt anyone would care to know about existence of those 8 automated verification messages, and neither would I be embarrassed if someone did), and still absolutely wouldn’t want anyone else to be able to see that info.
    - stonogo 3y ago
      I've been with T-Mobile for twenty years and in that time it has never released messaging content to account holders. Their cybersecurity record may be trash, but misinformation isn't really helpful. I'm not convinced that handing everything to a different company is a solution, but I'm glad you found a plan you're comfortable with.
      - filoleg 3y ago
- 8note 3y ago
  Did you get this before? All your messages have been recorded by the government, since the government has been collecting all push notifications on iPhones, and iMessage runs over push notifications
  - rezonant 3y ago
    Actually no, the end to end encryption on iMessage is envelopes inside the push notifications. The message content is not readable, even if you intercept APNs messages.
    - keep_reading 3y ago
      And it wasn't a blanket capture of push notifications anyway, right? Nobody has confirmed so far this is a Room 641a situation
denkmoon 3y ago
>Because Apple embraced texting by supporting SMS what? sms is a basic phone function, how is supporting sms "embracing" anything? If you, as an iOS user, don't want to use iMessage you simply go flip the toggle. If you "just want to text people", it's just that easy. Really.
- viraptor 3y ago
  Making iMessage which handles SMS, but by default transparently upgrades you to another protocol is the first two parts of EEE. Realistically, no normies flip that switch.
  - joshmanders 3y ago
    > Realistically, no normies flip that switch. Got stats to back this up? I have 3 friends who use iPhone's that do have that toggle flipped.
    - viraptor 3y ago
      2022, est. - 1.36 billion iPhone users - 1.3 billion iMessage users https://www.demandsage.com/iphone-user-statistics/ https://www.demandsage.com/iphone-user-statistics/ https://www.usesignhouse.com/blog/imessage-stats https://www.usesignhouse.com/blog/imessage-stats

Terretta 3y ago

How do you want Apple to tell iPhone users whether their messages to someone are being recorded by that person's telco and made available to other plan holders on that phone plan? How do you want Apple to indicate if this chat participant is costing you money by the message or free? Everyone's concerned about teens. Presumably teens know that T-Mobile and the other carriers give the family plan adults the ability to read their dependents text messages. As a teen I would want to stick with the encrypted bubbles your parents can't read and tell my parents about, thank you very much. It's not punitive product design. It's seamlessly integrated and meaningful, both on chat leaks and on costs of messaging: Blue sky, text safely. Green could literally cost you.

brandon272 3y ago
I have recent experience talking to non-techie younger people recently about this very issue and none of them were aware of the security differences of SMS vs. iMessage. Teenagers know that blue = iPhone and green = non-iPhone/SMS and that blue offers significantly more features and functionality vs SMS (delivered/read receipts, group chats, stickers, rich media, memojis, etc), which is the overwhelming reason why blue is preferred.
- HenryBemis 3y ago
  Plus the cost. Over here in the EU, back in 2010 (?) SMS was an expensive thing, you would pay dearly for each or have to buy a "50/100/500 SMS package" or similar. So lowering the cost of 3G made it more economical if your friends had iPhones as now you could spend €20/month for '1GB' (which was mostly iMessage & web browsing at the time) and avoid spending that simply on SMS. (excuse the price inaccuracies if any, it's been a while since I had that iPhone 3GS)
  - em500 3y ago
    Back in 2010 iPhones were expensive status symbols in the EU, approximately nobody bought them to save money on SMS. In some markets the really heavy texters bought Blackberries for a while just for BBM, but that got killed pretty quickly by Whatsapp.
stonogo 3y ago
T-Mobile does not give primary account holders access to messaging content of other lines, regardless of the relationship between users.
- filoleg 3y ago
  It doesn’t anymore, but it used to for pretty much all phone carriers in the US. And even now, on T-Mobile (as that’s the one I use, so the only one I can verify myself), if you have an account with multiple lines (e.g., a family plan), you can go into your account, click “Usage”, then “Text messages”, and it will show you all text info for all lines on the account (but no actual text content). And not just for “kid lines”, but for all regular lines as well. You can look by individual line or download that data as a bulk file. I just checked my t-mobile account, and despite it not showing the text content (which t-mobile certainly has access to, unlike imessage; t-mobile cannot even track metadata for those individually), it shows an entry for each text with the phone number with info on who was the sender vs receiver, timestamp, and other metadata. Luckily, T-Mobile only shows that I had 8 incoming messages (all of them were just automated verification code texts) and no outgoing messages this month, because pretty much all my messaging these days is either on discord or imessage. Even without the actual text content though, that metadata is still some very sensitive info that teenagers almost definitely wouldn’t want their parents to track. Hell, I am not a teenager, have nothing interesting in that data (doubt anyone would care to know about existence of those 8 automated verification messages, and neither would I be embarrassed if someone did), and still absolutely wouldn’t want anyone else to be able to see that info.
  - stonogo 3y ago
    I've been with T-Mobile for twenty years and in that time it has never released messaging content to account holders. Their cybersecurity record may be trash, but misinformation isn't really helpful. I'm not convinced that handing everything to a different company is a solution, but I'm glad you found a plan you're comfortable with.
    - filoleg 3y ago
8note 3y ago
Did you get this before? All your messages have been recorded by the government, since the government has been collecting all push notifications on iPhones, and iMessage runs over push notifications
- rezonant 3y ago
  Actually no, the end to end encryption on iMessage is envelopes inside the push notifications. The message content is not readable, even if you intercept APNs messages.
  - keep_reading 3y ago
    And it wasn't a blanket capture of push notifications anyway, right? Nobody has confirmed so far this is a Room 641a situation

denkmoon 3y ago

>Because Apple embraced texting by supporting SMS what? sms is a basic phone function, how is supporting sms "embracing" anything? If you, as an iOS user, don't want to use iMessage you simply go flip the toggle. If you "just want to text people", it's just that easy. Really.

viraptor 3y ago
Making iMessage which handles SMS, but by default transparently upgrades you to another protocol is the first two parts of EEE. Realistically, no normies flip that switch.
- joshmanders 3y ago
  > Realistically, no normies flip that switch. Got stats to back this up? I have 3 friends who use iPhone's that do have that toggle flipped.
  - viraptor 3y ago
    2022, est. - 1.36 billion iPhone users - 1.3 billion iMessage users https://www.demandsage.com/iphone-user-statistics/ https://www.demandsage.com/iphone-user-statistics/ https://www.usesignhouse.com/blog/imessage-stats https://www.usesignhouse.com/blog/imessage-stats