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Last time I tried this I couldn’t even find an iOS client that supported reactions. Hate on the complexity of Matrix all you like, but at least when you ask you

by pkulak 1y ago

Last time I tried this I couldn’t even find an iOS client that supported reactions. Hate on the complexity of Matrix all you like, but at least when you ask your family to use it, they get a modern experience and don’t feel like they’re giving up everything vs every other messenger they are used to.

bogwog 1y ago
I recently tried to move people over, and the iOS situation is bleak. It seems like notifications don't work at all in any app, which is a big problem for chat. Also, one of them (I think Siskin?) doesn't display sender name/avatar in group chats, so you can't tell who sent what. There's also some weird behavior with how E2EE works, which is causing me problems in group chats. Initially it worked, but now people are unable to read some messages with errors like "this message was not encrypted for this device" FWIW, everything works great on Android with the Conversations app, and also I admit I haven't really RTFM'd too much so it may be my fault as a lazy admin. Edit: this is with ejabberd btw
- fishgoesblub 1y ago
  Monal works great on iOS in my families experience. They've never missed a notification and E2EE (OMEMO) never failed. We are using the conversations.im server however.
- morshu9001 1y ago
  My experience with XMPP server hosting is that the defaults are not what you actually want, and many bare minimum features (not even talking about reactions) are bolted on.
- nicoco 1y ago
  For (repliable) notifications on iOS, you need mod_cloud_notify server-side.
ccakes 1y ago
I’m using Monal and it’s decent. Agree reactions are a big thing missing, but notifications etc have been flawless which was a harder requirement for me
dingnuts 1y ago
when my family used matrix for a couple years the e2ee features would randomly fail to decrypt history and would present my non technical family with that "match these emojis to unlock your account" screen all the time. between that and the unwanted features (federation, spaces) that aren't useful in a texting context, no way to search message logs, and a server to maintain. ... I went back to RCS
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- Arathorn 1y ago
  fwiw, the vast majority of Matrix encryption errors got fixed by 2024 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHzh2Y7BABQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHzh2Y7BABQ etc). Search on mobile (in Element X) is on its way and is making good progress: https://youtu.be/Q6NSmptZIS4?t=1297 https://youtu.be/Q6NSmptZIS4?t=1297 from a demo from a few days ago. Finally, self-maintaining servers now exist (https://element.io/server-suite https://element.io/server-suite, complete with AGPL distro: https://element.io/server-suite/community https://element.io/server-suite/community) (On the other hand, notification reliability on Android is still a known problem on Element X for some users that we're working on.)
  - dingnuts 1y ago
    [flagged]
- morshu9001 1y ago
  Noticed Facebook Messenger added E2EE which has made it way more glitchy and annoying. Used to be solid for things where you don't need super security. And there's no way it's more secure anyway, cause your secret is just a 4-digit pin.
neilalexander 1y ago
There isn't a single XMPP client for iOS that properly follows the iOS HIG and isn't ugly or unusable. There are very few clients that are even fully featured. The XMPP landscape on macOS is even more bleak.
- WhyNotHugo 1y ago
  Isn’t this true of most open source software in iOS? The intersection of developers who want to develop on and for a proprietary walled platform and also want to work on open source clients for open standard, descentralised protocol must be pretty small.
  - MattJ100 1y ago
    As an open-source XMPP project, we tried hard to find iOS developers willing to help with development (as volunteers, or even paid) and it's just so hard to find people in this intersection of interests. If anyone reading this thread has iOS dev skills and cares about improving open-source messaging on iOS, feel free to get in touch.
  - morshu9001 1y ago
    I'm not even against the walled garden, it's just that developing on iOS is really painful compared to, say, web.
    - morshu9001 1y ago
      Oh and I have made an iOS app that uses XMPP before, but it wasn't general purpose chat.
jauntywundrkind 1y ago
And alas web push notifications on iOS remain very critically buggered beyond measure. https://webventures.rejh.nl/blog/2024/web-push-ios-one-year/ https://webventures.rejh.nl/blog/2024/web-push-ios-one-year/ I get that not everyone would accept a web-app replacement, but it sure would be nice if iOS wasn't actively obstructing the possibility of some folks using a web-app messaging service.
bawolff 1y ago
> Last time I tried this I couldn’t even find an iOS client that supported reactions. Hate on the complexity of Matrix all you like, but at least when you ask your family to use it, they get a modern experience and don’t feel like they’re giving up everything vs every other messenger they are used to. Now if only it actually worked consistently and reliably. I'm not being snarky, the app is flakey as hell. Reactions are nice and all but pointless if they don't have the send a message part down.
- bigstrat2003 1y ago
  > Now if only it actually worked consistently and reliably. It does. I use a self hosted Matrix server for chat with friends (multiple servers federated, even!) and it is rock solid.
- pkulak 1y ago
  I dunno, it works great for me. I've been self-hosting a Matrix server for 5 years and I'd not describe it as "flakey" at all.
WhyNotHugo 1y ago
XMPP lacked good, modern clients, so folks designed a terrible protocol, and then made modern clients with this kind of feature for that protocol. There’s an extra step that could have been skipped entirely there and we’d be better off.
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 1y ago
  It would be cool for clients and protocols to be separated by an abstraction layer, it might change the n times m to n plus m but I suppose it's difficult
  - tcfhgj 1y ago
    what do you mean? client - server - server like?
  - WhyNotHugo 1y ago
    We have precedent of exactly this. Pidgin implemented support for various networks under an abstraction layer and had a unified UI for all of them. XMPP implements this via gateways. I used to talk from XMPP with folks who used MSN or Yahoo on their end. We have gateways for Telegram, WhatsApp and Signal nowadays. The Nokia N900 used the Telepathy framework to expose a local D-Bus messaging service which itself connected to various networks (SMS, MSN, XMPP, etc). The UI was a single unified one for all these networks.
- pkulak 1y ago
  > designed a terrible protocol Have you looked at the protocol? Have you built things in both? I have, and I think the Matrix protocol is pretty good. The goals are different. It's not a send once and forget kind of thing, like XMPP, Signal and email. It's about keeping your chats synced on your server, and with any other server you happen to be federating with. It's Discord or Slack, except federated. That's not easy, and it's not simple, but it has huge advantages too.
  - SJC_Hacker 1y ago
    > It's not a send once and forget kind of thing, like XMPP, Signal and email. It's about keeping your chats synced on your server, and with any other server you happen to be federating with. It's Discord or Slack, except federated. That's not easy, and it's not simple, but it has huge advantages too. And huge disadvantages. I don't understand why everything has to be centralized/ routed through an intermediary. Well I do understand it, modern big corps wants to be that intermediary for various reasons, but thats a business reason not a technical one.
dingnuts 1y ago
i bet you could write an iOS client with support for reactions before matrix implements custom emoji

by pkulak 1y ago

bogwog 1y ago

I recently tried to move people over, and the iOS situation is bleak. It seems like notifications don't work at all in any app, which is a big problem for chat. Also, one of them (I think Siskin?) doesn't display sender name/avatar in group chats, so you can't tell who sent what. There's also some weird behavior with how E2EE works, which is causing me problems in group chats. Initially it worked, but now people are unable to read some messages with errors like "this message was not encrypted for this device" FWIW, everything works great on Android with the Conversations app, and also I admit I haven't really RTFM'd too much so it may be my fault as a lazy admin. Edit: this is with ejabberd btw

fishgoesblub 1y ago
Monal works great on iOS in my families experience. They've never missed a notification and E2EE (OMEMO) never failed. We are using the conversations.im server however.
morshu9001 1y ago
My experience with XMPP server hosting is that the defaults are not what you actually want, and many bare minimum features (not even talking about reactions) are bolted on.
nicoco 1y ago
For (repliable) notifications on iOS, you need mod_cloud_notify server-side.

ccakes 1y ago

I’m using Monal and it’s decent. Agree reactions are a big thing missing, but notifications etc have been flawless which was a harder requirement for me

dingnuts 1y ago

when my family used matrix for a couple years the e2ee features would randomly fail to decrypt history and would present my non technical family with that "match these emojis to unlock your account" screen all the time. between that and the unwanted features (federation, spaces) that aren't useful in a texting context, no way to search message logs, and a server to maintain. ... I went back to RCS

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
Arathorn 1y ago
fwiw, the vast majority of Matrix encryption errors got fixed by 2024 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHzh2Y7BABQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHzh2Y7BABQ etc). Search on mobile (in Element X) is on its way and is making good progress: https://youtu.be/Q6NSmptZIS4?t=1297 https://youtu.be/Q6NSmptZIS4?t=1297 from a demo from a few days ago. Finally, self-maintaining servers now exist (https://element.io/server-suite https://element.io/server-suite, complete with AGPL distro: https://element.io/server-suite/community https://element.io/server-suite/community) (On the other hand, notification reliability on Android is still a known problem on Element X for some users that we're working on.)
- dingnuts 1y ago
  [flagged]
morshu9001 1y ago
Noticed Facebook Messenger added E2EE which has made it way more glitchy and annoying. Used to be solid for things where you don't need super security. And there's no way it's more secure anyway, cause your secret is just a 4-digit pin.

neilalexander 1y ago

There isn't a single XMPP client for iOS that properly follows the iOS HIG and isn't ugly or unusable. There are very few clients that are even fully featured. The XMPP landscape on macOS is even more bleak.

WhyNotHugo 1y ago
Isn’t this true of most open source software in iOS? The intersection of developers who want to develop on and for a proprietary walled platform and also want to work on open source clients for open standard, descentralised protocol must be pretty small.
- MattJ100 1y ago
  As an open-source XMPP project, we tried hard to find iOS developers willing to help with development (as volunteers, or even paid) and it's just so hard to find people in this intersection of interests. If anyone reading this thread has iOS dev skills and cares about improving open-source messaging on iOS, feel free to get in touch.
- morshu9001 1y ago
  I'm not even against the walled garden, it's just that developing on iOS is really painful compared to, say, web.
  - morshu9001 1y ago
    Oh and I have made an iOS app that uses XMPP before, but it wasn't general purpose chat.

jauntywundrkind 1y ago

And alas web push notifications on iOS remain very critically buggered beyond measure. https://webventures.rejh.nl/blog/2024/web-push-ios-one-year/ https://webventures.rejh.nl/blog/2024/web-push-ios-one-year/ I get that not everyone would accept a web-app replacement, but it sure would be nice if iOS wasn't actively obstructing the possibility of some folks using a web-app messaging service.

bawolff 1y ago

> Last time I tried this I couldn’t even find an iOS client that supported reactions. Hate on the complexity of Matrix all you like, but at least when you ask your family to use it, they get a modern experience and don’t feel like they’re giving up everything vs every other messenger they are used to. Now if only it actually worked consistently and reliably. I'm not being snarky, the app is flakey as hell. Reactions are nice and all but pointless if they don't have the send a message part down.

bigstrat2003 1y ago
> Now if only it actually worked consistently and reliably. It does. I use a self hosted Matrix server for chat with friends (multiple servers federated, even!) and it is rock solid.
pkulak 1y ago
I dunno, it works great for me. I've been self-hosting a Matrix server for 5 years and I'd not describe it as "flakey" at all.

WhyNotHugo 1y ago

XMPP lacked good, modern clients, so folks designed a terrible protocol, and then made modern clients with this kind of feature for that protocol. There’s an extra step that could have been skipped entirely there and we’d be better off.

01HNNWZ0MV43FF 1y ago
It would be cool for clients and protocols to be separated by an abstraction layer, it might change the n times m to n plus m but I suppose it's difficult
- tcfhgj 1y ago
  what do you mean? client - server - server like?
- WhyNotHugo 1y ago
  We have precedent of exactly this. Pidgin implemented support for various networks under an abstraction layer and had a unified UI for all of them. XMPP implements this via gateways. I used to talk from XMPP with folks who used MSN or Yahoo on their end. We have gateways for Telegram, WhatsApp and Signal nowadays. The Nokia N900 used the Telepathy framework to expose a local D-Bus messaging service which itself connected to various networks (SMS, MSN, XMPP, etc). The UI was a single unified one for all these networks.
pkulak 1y ago
> designed a terrible protocol Have you looked at the protocol? Have you built things in both? I have, and I think the Matrix protocol is pretty good. The goals are different. It's not a send once and forget kind of thing, like XMPP, Signal and email. It's about keeping your chats synced on your server, and with any other server you happen to be federating with. It's Discord or Slack, except federated. That's not easy, and it's not simple, but it has huge advantages too.
- SJC_Hacker 1y ago
  > It's not a send once and forget kind of thing, like XMPP, Signal and email. It's about keeping your chats synced on your server, and with any other server you happen to be federating with. It's Discord or Slack, except federated. That's not easy, and it's not simple, but it has huge advantages too. And huge disadvantages. I don't understand why everything has to be centralized/ routed through an intermediary. Well I do understand it, modern big corps wants to be that intermediary for various reasons, but thats a business reason not a technical one.

dingnuts 1y ago

i bet you could write an iOS client with support for reactions before matrix implements custom emoji