4 ms·

Apple didn't replace SMS. It is still there on every iPhone, and they expanded SMS reach for iPhone users who have other devices like iPad and macOs systems. I

Apple didn't replace SMS. It is still there on every iPhone, and they expanded SMS reach for iPhone users who have other devices like iPad and macOs systems. In what universe do you exist where SMS was removed?

talldayo 3y ago
HN tells me that there's only one more step left after embracing and extending. Apple didn't make some mistake putting iMessage and SMS in the same app, they want you reliant on their service so that SMS seems (rightfully) poor by comparison. There would be nothing wrong with that if Apple wasn't equally as miserly with that power as the carriers they want to valiantly protest against. I'm no fan of cell carriers either, but now that we see Apple's end-goal I don't think their cause is righteous at all. In the friendliest of interpretations, they are a competing alternative enabled by disproportionate first-party integration on Apple's behalf. It doesn't take long to extrapolate their motives for deliberately neglecting cross-platform interoperability to bolster their market presence. If it harms the market, prevents fair competition, and doesn't benefit the general public, there is no rational reason to let iMessage persist the way it is today.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- threeseed 3y ago
  Apple never got rid of SMS. And there has been no embrace or extend. All they did was put an optional message service in the same app. One that isn’t even the most popular making it strange to say there is no competition.
  - FireBeyond 3y ago
    > All they did was put an optional message service in the same app. They did a bit more than that. There were the glory days that if you ever left the Apple ecosystem, but iMessage ever had an awareness of your number, no other iMessage users could reach you until or unless you did some incantations that Apple didn't make obvious, ideally from an Apple device (that you may not own anymore), to allow your friends to keep sending you even green bubble messages? I know multiple people who had to go to Apple stores to try to do this process.
    - pixl97 3y ago
      Ya I got bit switching to android when people started calling wondering what happened when I wouldn't respond to their texts.
    - tcmart14 3y ago
      However, the same thing happened to me when I switched from my pixel 3a to an iPhone. I wasn't able to text from my iPhone for a week. I ended up contacting Verizon and they actually had their network engineers investigating. What they ended up discovering, and sent me a contact number for it, was that some how Google's RCS was still holding a lock on my number or something. So this isn't an exclusive Apple problem.
  - Repulsion9513 3y ago
    > there has been no embrace or extend Embrace: include SMS Extend: add iMessage
    - threeseed 3y ago
      That's not what the phrase means. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...
      - Repulsion9513 3y ago
        Embrace: include HTML Extend: add ActiveX Yeah, it is.
        endemic 3y ago
        Could users still access functionality of pages with ActiveX content, albeit in a “degraded” state?
        talldayo 3y ago
        Given that it never fully replaced HTML, yes.
- simonh 3y ago
  I don't see that removing or crippling an option a lot of users rely on improves the market, or competition. Doesn't benefit the public? Are happy iPhone users that rely on iMessage every day including it's SMS integration not benefited, or not the public?
  - talldayo 3y ago
    > I don't see that removing or crippling an option a lot of users rely on improves the market, or competition. It certainly doesn't need to be removed, just expanded. Apple can't have their cake and eat it too, you either replace SMS and the multiplatform commitments that come with it or you don't. Pretending to hold down a halfway-house to keep selling iPhones is not only a bundling tactic, but combined with Apple's negligence towards alternatives it's genuinely anticompetitive. > Are happy iPhone users that rely on iMessage every day including it's SMS integration not benefited, or not the public? ...no, those are happy iPhone users. The public inherently means people that are not paying customers of Apple; regular citizens with no outstanding obligations to any corporation. I don't understand how you could possibly interpret "the public" to mean "satisfied iPhone customers" in this situation.
    - Jtsummers 3y ago
      > Apple can't have their cake and eat it too, you either replace SMS and the multiplatform commitments that come with it or you don't. You keep suggesting that Apple replaced SMS. They didn't. So per this new statement, they have no multi-platform commitments because they haven't done anything to warrant it.
      - nerdix 3y ago
        Is there an example of Microsoft ever actually "extinguishing" something? The extinguish bit is more about making the competing services non-viable. Microsoft's whole strategy was built around making it so a user on its platform either couldn't or wouldn't want to use a particular technology without their proprietary extensions. That perfectly describes iMessage if we're to believe all the commentary on social media about how iPhone users get the "ick" from seeing a green bubble. In fact, I'd argue that iMessage has been one of the most successful implementations of EEE ever. Maybe only behind ActiveX and Microsoft's slow adoption of web standards in the late 90s - mid 00s (but MS never actually replaced HTML or JavaScript with its proprietary stuff).
- inkyoto 3y ago
  > HN tells me that there's only one more step left after embracing and extending. It is a wild projection, a common one amongst members of this esteemed congregation. Removing SMS supports invalidates and revokes the 3G/4G/5G network compliance with standards and certification, whether you are Apple or an invisible fifth column. It also voids the right to display the very same 3G/4G/5G sign in the upper part of the smartphone screen and opens a very expensive path to litigation from all sorts of patent holders from the 3/4/5G patent pool.
  - talldayo 3y ago
    You don't have to remove support to extinguish a protocol; just sufficiently degrade it to the point that it's unusable. With that in mind (and how outrageously useless SMS is in 2024), I think you can absolutely accuse Apple's reluctance to standardize as extinguishing. Unless they correct course, iMessage's greatest contribution to text-messaging will be making it a proprietary affair. That would be the lamest way to go down in history, which is why I really hope Apple does the right thing and either a) commits to a better standard than RCS or b) extends iMessage to some more reasonable and open protocol.
    - inkyoto 3y ago
      I am not following the train of thought. All I am reading is yet another wild projection. SMS is the lowest common denominator across all mobile networks and is the ultimate fallback option for a smartphone if more modern messaging standards or extensions (RCS, iMessage or whatever) are not supported. Degrading SMS means losing 3/4/5G certification and losing the telecommunication authority certification in every single country around the world, consequently instantly losing sales. No sane company that is in the business of selling phones would dare to lose the certification on a global scale. SMS messaging has worked like a charm on iPhones, and I am not sure what the insinuation is all about. GSMA, the governing body of 3/4/5/6G, has neither adopted nor endorsed RCS up to date, and it is supported at the core network layer only by a fraction of mobile operators across the world. SMS, being a 21st century rotary dial phone equivalent, is supported by every mobile network today however outdated it is. RCS is not. The original spat over RCS, however, concerned a few sticking points: 1. Google becoming a gatekeeper and holding messages until they could be delivered to the recipient; 2. RCS not being end-to-end encrypted; 2½.Google providing a proprietory encryption protocol with no open source implementation and – *at first* – encryption only being available to P2P conversations (aka FaceBook Messenger style secret chats but not to group chats[0]); 3. Owing to (1), Google gaining the ability to track users via the use of metadata; 4. Only a limited number of Android handsets supporting RCS in the beginning. I have no stake in the game, but, if I were Apple, I would have not agreed to RCS, either, considering the constraints. As of May 2024, RCS is still not part of the GSMA portfolio of standards. From the mobile network perspective, it does not exist. [0] Added later.
- raincole 3y ago
  > HN tells me that there's only one more step left after embracing and extending. Perhaps you should read HN less then. Along this line of thinking, any business adopting any open standard is a bad thing. Don't you think it's a very weird take?
- lenerdenator 3y ago
  The problem with "prevents fair competition" with regards to iMessage is that there were plenty of chances for fair competition and others (particularly Google) kept messing it up. How many chat platforms did they blow through? I can absolutely install other messaging apps (WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, etc.) on my iPhone and contact other people on an Android device using that app. The thing that keeps me from doing so isn't the fact that said applications are locked out of a decent percentage of the phone market, but that the network effect helps Apple. Most of my friends don't know, or care to know, what Signal is, even though it's a better application re: privacy than iMessage.
  - Jtsummers 3y ago
    > How many chat platforms did they blow through? https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/08/a-decade-and-a-half-of-instability-the-history-of-google-messaging-apps/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/08/a-decade-and-a-half-... Which, to me, demonstrates the core problem: Apple succeeded by remaining focused. Google failed because it has some form of institutional ADHD when it comes to messaging services. Google even had a six year head start on Apple with Google Talk, and still managed to fail because they couldn't remain focused. People are upset that Apple succeeded, but they aren't even running the most popular messaging service out there.
    - zarzavat 3y ago
      It is so funny how differently the Messages app is viewed. In NA, Messages is the true source of Apple’s power and the key to their evil anticompetitive empire, the only ones who can stop their masterplan are the men in suits from the DOJ. Outside of NA, it’s the app you use to get TOTP codes and phishing attempts. You’re right that the real story isn’t that Google missed out competing with iMessage, it’s that they missed out competing with WhatsApp despite having control over the OS and being able to bundle their own messaging app! Google is not even competitive with third tier apps such as Viber which is really funny. I read HN compulsively yet I don’t know what the name of Google’s current chat app is or even if they have one.
      - 3y ago
- tekknik 3y ago
  Generally companies need to do something wrong before being regulated, as self regulation is the goal. There’s a lot of opinions in this post as well, with “extrapolating”. Have you asked the actual customers how they feel? I’m an Apple customer, and really wish the Android customers would focus on their own wants and needs. Blue bubbles are not a need.

talldayo 3y ago

HN tells me that there's only one more step left after embracing and extending. Apple didn't make some mistake putting iMessage and SMS in the same app, they want you reliant on their service so that SMS seems (rightfully) poor by comparison. There would be nothing wrong with that if Apple wasn't equally as miserly with that power as the carriers they want to valiantly protest against. I'm no fan of cell carriers either, but now that we see Apple's end-goal I don't think their cause is righteous at all. In the friendliest of interpretations, they are a competing alternative enabled by disproportionate first-party integration on Apple's behalf. It doesn't take long to extrapolate their motives for deliberately neglecting cross-platform interoperability to bolster their market presence. If it harms the market, prevents fair competition, and doesn't benefit the general public, there is no rational reason to let iMessage persist the way it is today.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
threeseed 3y ago
Apple never got rid of SMS. And there has been no embrace or extend. All they did was put an optional message service in the same app. One that isn’t even the most popular making it strange to say there is no competition.
- FireBeyond 3y ago
  > All they did was put an optional message service in the same app. They did a bit more than that. There were the glory days that if you ever left the Apple ecosystem, but iMessage ever had an awareness of your number, no other iMessage users could reach you until or unless you did some incantations that Apple didn't make obvious, ideally from an Apple device (that you may not own anymore), to allow your friends to keep sending you even green bubble messages? I know multiple people who had to go to Apple stores to try to do this process.
  - pixl97 3y ago
    Ya I got bit switching to android when people started calling wondering what happened when I wouldn't respond to their texts.
  - tcmart14 3y ago
    However, the same thing happened to me when I switched from my pixel 3a to an iPhone. I wasn't able to text from my iPhone for a week. I ended up contacting Verizon and they actually had their network engineers investigating. What they ended up discovering, and sent me a contact number for it, was that some how Google's RCS was still holding a lock on my number or something. So this isn't an exclusive Apple problem.
- Repulsion9513 3y ago
  > there has been no embrace or extend Embrace: include SMS Extend: add iMessage
  - threeseed 3y ago
    That's not what the phrase means. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...
    - Repulsion9513 3y ago
      Embrace: include HTML Extend: add ActiveX Yeah, it is.
      - endemic 3y ago
        Could users still access functionality of pages with ActiveX content, albeit in a “degraded” state?
        talldayo 3y ago
        Given that it never fully replaced HTML, yes.
simonh 3y ago
I don't see that removing or crippling an option a lot of users rely on improves the market, or competition. Doesn't benefit the public? Are happy iPhone users that rely on iMessage every day including it's SMS integration not benefited, or not the public?
- talldayo 3y ago
  > I don't see that removing or crippling an option a lot of users rely on improves the market, or competition. It certainly doesn't need to be removed, just expanded. Apple can't have their cake and eat it too, you either replace SMS and the multiplatform commitments that come with it or you don't. Pretending to hold down a halfway-house to keep selling iPhones is not only a bundling tactic, but combined with Apple's negligence towards alternatives it's genuinely anticompetitive. > Are happy iPhone users that rely on iMessage every day including it's SMS integration not benefited, or not the public? ...no, those are happy iPhone users. The public inherently means people that are not paying customers of Apple; regular citizens with no outstanding obligations to any corporation. I don't understand how you could possibly interpret "the public" to mean "satisfied iPhone customers" in this situation.
  - Jtsummers 3y ago
    > Apple can't have their cake and eat it too, you either replace SMS and the multiplatform commitments that come with it or you don't. You keep suggesting that Apple replaced SMS. They didn't. So per this new statement, they have no multi-platform commitments because they haven't done anything to warrant it.
    - nerdix 3y ago
      Is there an example of Microsoft ever actually "extinguishing" something? The extinguish bit is more about making the competing services non-viable. Microsoft's whole strategy was built around making it so a user on its platform either couldn't or wouldn't want to use a particular technology without their proprietary extensions. That perfectly describes iMessage if we're to believe all the commentary on social media about how iPhone users get the "ick" from seeing a green bubble. In fact, I'd argue that iMessage has been one of the most successful implementations of EEE ever. Maybe only behind ActiveX and Microsoft's slow adoption of web standards in the late 90s - mid 00s (but MS never actually replaced HTML or JavaScript with its proprietary stuff).
inkyoto 3y ago
> HN tells me that there's only one more step left after embracing and extending. It is a wild projection, a common one amongst members of this esteemed congregation. Removing SMS supports invalidates and revokes the 3G/4G/5G network compliance with standards and certification, whether you are Apple or an invisible fifth column. It also voids the right to display the very same 3G/4G/5G sign in the upper part of the smartphone screen and opens a very expensive path to litigation from all sorts of patent holders from the 3/4/5G patent pool.
- talldayo 3y ago
  You don't have to remove support to extinguish a protocol; just sufficiently degrade it to the point that it's unusable. With that in mind (and how outrageously useless SMS is in 2024), I think you can absolutely accuse Apple's reluctance to standardize as extinguishing. Unless they correct course, iMessage's greatest contribution to text-messaging will be making it a proprietary affair. That would be the lamest way to go down in history, which is why I really hope Apple does the right thing and either a) commits to a better standard than RCS or b) extends iMessage to some more reasonable and open protocol.
  - inkyoto 3y ago
    I am not following the train of thought. All I am reading is yet another wild projection. SMS is the lowest common denominator across all mobile networks and is the ultimate fallback option for a smartphone if more modern messaging standards or extensions (RCS, iMessage or whatever) are not supported. Degrading SMS means losing 3/4/5G certification and losing the telecommunication authority certification in every single country around the world, consequently instantly losing sales. No sane company that is in the business of selling phones would dare to lose the certification on a global scale. SMS messaging has worked like a charm on iPhones, and I am not sure what the insinuation is all about. GSMA, the governing body of 3/4/5/6G, has neither adopted nor endorsed RCS up to date, and it is supported at the core network layer only by a fraction of mobile operators across the world. SMS, being a 21st century rotary dial phone equivalent, is supported by every mobile network today however outdated it is. RCS is not. The original spat over RCS, however, concerned a few sticking points: 1. Google becoming a gatekeeper and holding messages until they could be delivered to the recipient; 2. RCS not being end-to-end encrypted; 2½.Google providing a proprietory encryption protocol with no open source implementation and – *at first* – encryption only being available to P2P conversations (aka FaceBook Messenger style secret chats but not to group chats[0]); 3. Owing to (1), Google gaining the ability to track users via the use of metadata; 4. Only a limited number of Android handsets supporting RCS in the beginning. I have no stake in the game, but, if I were Apple, I would have not agreed to RCS, either, considering the constraints. As of May 2024, RCS is still not part of the GSMA portfolio of standards. From the mobile network perspective, it does not exist. [0] Added later.
raincole 3y ago
> HN tells me that there's only one more step left after embracing and extending. Perhaps you should read HN less then. Along this line of thinking, any business adopting any open standard is a bad thing. Don't you think it's a very weird take?
lenerdenator 3y ago
The problem with "prevents fair competition" with regards to iMessage is that there were plenty of chances for fair competition and others (particularly Google) kept messing it up. How many chat platforms did they blow through? I can absolutely install other messaging apps (WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, etc.) on my iPhone and contact other people on an Android device using that app. The thing that keeps me from doing so isn't the fact that said applications are locked out of a decent percentage of the phone market, but that the network effect helps Apple. Most of my friends don't know, or care to know, what Signal is, even though it's a better application re: privacy than iMessage.
- Jtsummers 3y ago
  > How many chat platforms did they blow through? https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/08/a-decade-and-a-half-of-instability-the-history-of-google-messaging-apps/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/08/a-decade-and-a-half-... Which, to me, demonstrates the core problem: Apple succeeded by remaining focused. Google failed because it has some form of institutional ADHD when it comes to messaging services. Google even had a six year head start on Apple with Google Talk, and still managed to fail because they couldn't remain focused. People are upset that Apple succeeded, but they aren't even running the most popular messaging service out there.
  - zarzavat 3y ago
    It is so funny how differently the Messages app is viewed. In NA, Messages is the true source of Apple’s power and the key to their evil anticompetitive empire, the only ones who can stop their masterplan are the men in suits from the DOJ. Outside of NA, it’s the app you use to get TOTP codes and phishing attempts. You’re right that the real story isn’t that Google missed out competing with iMessage, it’s that they missed out competing with WhatsApp despite having control over the OS and being able to bundle their own messaging app! Google is not even competitive with third tier apps such as Viber which is really funny. I read HN compulsively yet I don’t know what the name of Google’s current chat app is or even if they have one.
    - 3y ago
tekknik 3y ago
Generally companies need to do something wrong before being regulated, as self regulation is the goal. There’s a lot of opinions in this post as well, with “extrapolating”. Have you asked the actual customers how they feel? I’m an Apple customer, and really wish the Android customers would focus on their own wants and needs. Blue bubbles are not a need.