Oops, you're right, I mixed up the posts. This is the actual duplicate, still has 700 plus comments so I was correct that this is a duplicate of a story that has already been covered extensively:
Just based on the most cursory look, which took less time than it took you to write your comment (considering the links you added taking more time than typing…), they are different repositories by different people for different things.
I mixed up the posts. There have been a lot of high ranking Beeper posts lately. The one I was thinking of only had 700 comments, but I think it's fair to say that this is a duplicate:
Something worth noting: unless I'm missing something, this isn't Beeper Mini (the Android app) but the iMessage-Matrix bridge Beeper created. However, this is still handy if you have a Mac or jailbroken iPhone (edit: for registration, seems like it's not required after the initial setup) as you can self-host it.
I was using regular Beeper to consolidate my chat apps into one, but this mess with Android to iPhone has made everything so unstable that I dropped iMessage from the app. I wish they hadn't rocked the boat with Mini, it's affecting the users who don't try to circumvent Apple's lock-in too.
Beeper (before mini) was working with iMessage by relaying messages from VMs, probably one VM for x users.
November 15 ( or a bit earlier, but communicated on that date) they switched to new iMessage bridge, where Beeper client directly communicated with Apple servers.
Beginning of December they launched Beeper Mini.
My theory is: their move to move from VM relay to new bridge caused problems, but VM relay was not sustainable with growth. Maybe Apple started to require re-validation, maybe it was like this to begin with.
So eventually they rolled the dice with Beeper Mini and in the end existing Beeper users have to provide a Mac for validation.
I think this will be good for Beeper, as I guess slowly they will retire iMessage totally. And focus on the on the other bridges. They are a bit more sustainable now.
If code has been released as open source then the code is out there now. Seems too late to stop. I would also question if apple has any benefit in launching an android app. iMessage is interesting to apple as long as it forces people to buy apple products.
I got an iPhone 15 Pro Max last month. It's great, I dig it. I'm a case-free dude and there are zero scratches on the screen or titanium, the industrial design is tight and amazing. There's finally USB-C, and the camera is great. This was an expensive phone, but it's a timeless design and unless something crazy happens, I strongly suspect it's actually going to take me into 2030.
But I have to tell you. Not a single friend has commented that I'm now on an iPhone. I asked my elderly mom - yes, I previously got her an iPhone before I did, I'm a good son - if I had obtained the magic blue bubbles. She was like "oh yes, I thought something had changed." I am not sexier, thinner or more popular since I suddenly appeared with blue bubbles on iMessage. My own (iPhone-toting) adult daughter didn't mention it. IMO, nobody outside of teenagers care.
This is fundamentally the wrong analysis. The idea that people care about being "cool" to get blue bubbles or whatever is not what this is about.
This is about the fact that messaging between an iOS device and Android just sucks at present if the iOS user is on iMessage. I won't hash over all the details, but Google's site trying to convince iMessage to support RCS (which Apple has said they will do in 2024) gives a good overview of the problems: https://www.android.com/get-the-message/
I'm not a teenager, but I certainly care. I'm the only Android user in my family, and I'm sick of getting pixelated videos from my parents. I'm sick of the "Bob liked an image" messages. I'm sick of random messages not showing up in group chats. And while it's not a huge everyday concern, it sucks that there is no secure encryption when I message my family, and worse, all of the group chats that I'm part of result in nobody, even all the other iOS users, getting encryption in those chats.
So, Google resolved the interop issue with "liked an image" and similar reactions back in 2020. I can't remember that being an issue for years with reasonably modern Android phones.
Yeah, I've had some isues in the past with pixelated videos but again, almost zero in the past few years. But there are ten billion better places to post videos than via group chats, especially to conserve memory on people's devices, and pretty much everyone knows it at this point. Literally everyone I know has been posting videos via Youtube or Facebook or Instagram or Whatsapp or Discord or Slack or Google Drive or Dropbox for years at this point.
But yes, Apple should absolutely support RCS for encrypted messaging in group chats with other devices. 100% with you on that one.
These types of responses are so aggravating. Congrats, it's not an issue for you. But it is for tons of other people, and your response is the equivalent of "well, works on my machine." Just sick of this borderline gaslighting where people are basically unable to imagine this is a significant issue just because it doesn't affect them personally.
> So, Google resolved the interop issue with "liked an image" and similar reactions back in 2020.
Except they didn't. I'm looking at a group chat from 2 days ago on a Pixel 7 that has a "Loved an image" response on it. About 90% of the emoji responses are "correctly reinterpreted", but I still often get the text printed out like that for whatever reason.
> Literally everyone I know has been posting videos...
Congrats, again, so this issue doesn't affect you. But literally whenever I go on a vacation with a group everyone posts pictures and videos in the chat. And they're barely viewable if I'm in the chat.
I don't doubt at all that Google is biased, but I don't care. Their bias in this instance, which is that users on different platforms should be able to have a good messaging experience between each other, is the correct one IMO.
All I want is to be able to have a good messaging experience with my friends and family without trying the useless push of "Let's all use WhatsApp" or whatever (it's a losing battle when there are 10 other iMessage users and you're the only Android one), or worse, have people complain about your presence in a group chat because now all the videos look awful.
People say only teenagers are keyed into it, but I’ve gotten comments from people in their 40s that my Android phone was lame or “I don’t know why you bought that thing”. Not to the extent that it affected my relationships with them though.
It’s not because they thought my Samsung was cheap, rather they believed Android is inelegant or tacky compared to iOS. Another part of it was the lack of interoperability with FaceTime and iMessage.
Honestly, it's probably just small talk. Normal people tend to try to have opinions on things to signal worldliness to other people. It's akin to when a coworker mentions hating a teenage pop star, or a sport. The vast majority of the time, they aren't expressing deeply-held conviction: They're just trying to fill the air with noise in a way that provokes a sense of comradery.
I don't have an iPhone and I don't really use text messages with anyone that does, so I can't speak first hand. But teenage bullying and status symbols / materialistic people aside, my understanding is that the big blue bubble / green bubble thing is group chats and photos and videos. Group chats "just work" via iMessage where as they can be strange via SMS, and photos and videos end up compressed and ugly via SMS.
If you don't group chat or send and receive photos or videos, then yeah, it probably makes zero difference. But e.g. for a family with a new baby, I think I'd be pretty upset if I was the Android user in the sea of iPhones and the baby photos group chat was janky and gave me 10x10 pixel photos.
As a professional adult I have never come across anyone who has ever commented on someone else’s phone positive or negative or neutral except once in a while someone gets the just released latest and greatest Y and someone may say “oh you got the latest and greatest Y phone, cool, how do you like it?” and that’s it.
I can’t imagine interacting with someone professionally who even thinks for one second positively or negatively about someone based on their phone choice, from five year old Androids to yesterday’s iPhone pro.
Usually the problem I run into is iPhone users can't be bothered to install other messaging apps so it's either MMS, email, or iMessage. MMS ruins picture quality so is pretty useless
Attaching pictures to email is pretty crappy as well
Status symbol products don't make you a more loved or more valuable person? What a concept.
This isn't meant to be condescending to you, I have just gotten SO MUCH CRAP from friends, coworkers, and the like for using a sort-of-old Android phone. We shouldn't be praising Apple for switching to USB-C, we should be asking why they didn't do it 9 years ago.
Google Messages (the current RCS client) is very good. It's far from the first good messaging app they've built. The 99 messaging apps meme is about Google just making another one for no reason. Kind of like "that's enough slices"
Is that really a thing? Do Android users en mass want an additional app specifically to chat with iPhone users? There are so many alternative messaging apps that work fantastically. iPhone users aren’t really clamoring for a Google RCS app. This feels like one of those things that everyone would lose interest in as soon as they got it; it’s just the denial of it that works them up, like not being invited to a party they didn’t really want to go to. I think if Apple had organically offered iMessage for Android, it would largely be either neglected or actively boycotted by Android users.
At this point I wish people from the EU would just understand "Congrats, this doesn't apply to you." The messaging preferences in the EU are totally different due to historical reasons, primarily the high cost of SMSes at the end of the aughts. In the US, the iMessage is by far the dominant, default messaging system for iPhone users. And iPhone market share is much higher in the US than the EU.
I don't think anyone wants an iMessage specific messaging app. But if it works on Android like iMessage does on iPhone, I bet people would use it. On iPhone iMessage isn't a specific app, the single app just communicates via iMessage or SMS depending on the participants.
In my circle in the US I don't know anyone that uses a 3rd party messaging app on either platform because that really only works if everyone you want to talk to also uses that specific messaging app. Switching depending on who you're talking to is annoying, so (people I know) don't.
I guess this kind of fully removes the "they're making money out of it" argument from the discussion on the moral(?) implications of reverse engineering the iMessage proto.
Now it's just a matter of: is Apple justified in actively sabotaging interoperability in general?
Our monopoly laws are indeed outdated. But I don't think adoption is the right metric; adoption without alternatives is much closer to a reasonable consumer protection.
I don't think iMessage is in a position of "adoption without alternatives."
> Our monopoly laws never envisioned self contained platforms/marketplaces
What do you mean by this? Don't most lines of business naturally trend towards monopolies and captive markets...? Railroads, newspapers, grocery stores, utilities, cloud services...?
What justification is there for this, though? There is nothing specifically unique to iMessage that makes life, liberty, or property difficult to pursue.
So you see iMessage as the only available option for people to use in order to obtain open messaging? Worth violating society's understanding of ownership and property (you may think corporations aren't people, but people do own corporations, and those people have property rights).
And how far does "most people want <X>" go? If "most people want" to prevent people from being married, is that justifiable?
People are not granted limited liability like corporations are. The original intention was not that corporations are given permission to pursue profits without regard to any other factors.
What would be so wrong with the people mandating a next generation messaging standard and requiring all cell phone manufacturers add support for the new standard? Kind of like Europe did with charging cables. Would that make the world a better or a worse place?
I never said anything about making iMessage the only available option. Apple users could keep iMessage, too. Worst case their users have more options.
I agree that it is an interesting question on how far the will of the people goes, i.e. democracy vs mob rule. But I wouldn't put corporate profits on a pedestal over all other considerations.
We're not discussing "the people mandating a next-generation messaging standard." We're discussing the suggestion that the US government nationalize iMessage.
This has nothing whatsoever to do with "corporations as people" or "corporate greed." iMessage is not critical to living life in the United States or globally, so the notion that a government ought to take it from Apple anyway seems to be completely unjustified.
But I never said anything about nationalizing iMessage. Maybe someone else said that, or there's some other misunderstanding?
I mentioned that mandated support on phones for a new and better messaging standard seems like a reasonable idea. There's even precedent for such things - the European Universal Charger Mandate.
How is that taking iMessage from Apple? They can still run their own separate messenger, like they do now. Are you worried about them loosing the advantage they have by using their market size to keep users on their proprietary messaging system and not wanting more competition? Is that kind of like how they used to make extra money selling proprietary charging cables?
I think you’re forgetting who you responded to. My question was how nationalizing iMessage is a justified position, because that’s what the person I replied to said. That’s the topic, that’s what I was discussing.
Ah, I see where someone mentioned "obliged to make their products/services interoperable".
By "nationalize" I assume you were thinking of things like mandates that Apple servers be required to support third-party iMessage clients, or that the government takes over Apple's iMessage servers. I don't like these ideas, either.
But I think there are a lot of other possibilities, and precedents. The U.S. regulates and imposes on carriers to handle wiretaps and spam, Europe mandates that phone manufacturers use interoperable power adapters, baseband chips in phones are heavily regulated, etc. Other industries like banking and mining and construction are steeped in regulation. Justified as being for the public good.
Perhaps a better interoperable messaging standard could be implemented as a mandated replacement for sms and mms. The goal is better baseline messaging for all users. Companies can still do their own thing besides that, like they do now.
> At a certain level of adoption, they should be forced to, IMO. Our monopoly laws never envisioned self contained platforms/marketplaces
with this comment:
> What justification is there for this, though? There is nothing specifically unique to iMessage that makes life, liberty, or property difficult to pursue.
You then said:
> Devil's advocate...
> Historically the reason corporations were given limited liability was in return for them performing a public good.
> If in a democracy most people want open messaging, I see no reason why they shouldn't have it.
> Corporations are not the same as people, they are tools.
When one says "[To play] Devil's advocate", one is taking on the position opposite of the person they're speaking with. My position is, "What is the justification for forcing Apple to open iMessage?" That means you're taking the position of, "There is justification for forcing Apple to open iMessage." You then do this by saying your third line, that if a democracy has a majority of people wanting something, you see no reason why they shouldn't have it.
Intentional or not, you took on the position that iMessage should be taken from Apple by the US government and forcibly open-sourced because that's the will of the people. When I responded, I was responding to the comments you had made in this direction, which you continued to make.
What I think is that iMessage is owned by Apple, and since it doesn't provide any critical and otherwise unobtainable service, it should not be nationalized. That was what we were discussing. I didn't opt to participate in an open-ended discussion that bounces around on the general topic of open sourced messaging platforms, I responded to a specific argument with a specific counterpoint.
In hindsight I assume that you were thinking of the government taking iMessage from Apple? I didn't see anyone mention that specifically, and I never assumed that would be how the government would approach this.
Everybody knows that social democracies have plenty of legal justification and precedent for doing such things. They impose on industry all the time, in many different sectors. They have done such things as mandate interoperability, and they could do so in order to allow for more capable messaging for everyone, perhaps updates to existing sms/mms like I mentioned, without targeting one company specifically. When enough voters care about an issue our representatives respond within regulatory and constitutional limits. Whether you agree or not, that's how the world we live in works. We don't live in an Ayn Rand novel.
My initial reply spoke to the moral justification underpinning the legal justification for such things, i.e. the public good.
> Intentional or not, you took on the position...
I tried to correct your erroneous assumptions about my position in our thread, and ask questions to learn more about yours. That has not gone well. One might wonder if you are deflecting for some reason.
> I didn't opt to participate in an open-ended discussion that bounces around on the general topic of open sourced messaging platforms, I responded to a specific argument with a specific counterpoint.
Sometimes back and forth is required to avoid misunderstandings, to better explore a nuanced topic, and to narrow things down instead of talking in circles. Fine by me if you'd rather not.
None of this is relevant to what you originally said or what I asked, and at this point I think you know that.
But why try so hard to steer this wildly far from the original topic? Initially I presumed malice, but at this point I'm guessing you don't get to have these kinds of conversations a lot and are just vomiting anything that comes to your mind.
If you want to continue the discussion, directly answer the following question:
What justification is there for using governmental authority to force Apple to make iMessage interoperable with any/every other chat service?
You wanted to play the Devil's advocate, right? So do it. Or don't, but the above was the topic.
The topic was not, "People ought to be allowed to make a separate messaging protocol if they want to." Of course that's obviously fine, by the way, nobody suggested it wasn't, and in fact that's exactly what RCS is purporting to be. Or pick any of a dozen other protocols, the concept is the least controversial possible position on the topic to take. Why are you so intent on talking about what is the single most unoriginal and boring aspect of this entire debate (because everybody agrees with what you're saying)?
> What justification is there for using governmental authority to force Apple to make iMessage interoperable with any/every other chat service?
Justifications, in order of specificity:
1) Political philosophy: "government action is occasionally the only feasible or cost-effective way of bringing about an outcome which each person sees as beneficial - or would see as beneficial under idealized epistemic conditions - but which they lack the power to bring about unilaterally" [1]
2) Better user experience: "When a sector is extremely concentrated, the people who are willing to trade the public good and foundational democratic values for incremental increases in their employer’s profitability get a hearing within the company and take over the company’s decision making. When a business doesn’t have to worry about losing its customers due to abusing them ... eventually becomes a serious hazard to human rights." [2]
3) U.S. Supreme Court ruling: "The U.S. Supreme Court - just like the EU - recognized that interoperability was a critical user benefit that assured innovation and lowered cost" [3]
4) Legal precedent: The 1996 Telecommunications Act "sets obligations for incumbent carriers and new entrants to interconnect their networks" [4]
5) Proposed new law: "The U.S. ACCESS Act of 2021 mandates data portability from big tech companies." [5] This specific law didn't address messaging, but does address other services. Quite a few other anti-trust reforms have been implemented and are being discussed.
6) Department of Justice investigation: The DOJ is currently looking into "whether Apple is doing something it shouldn't be - blocking access to iMessage for reasons other than privacy and security." [6]
7) Current law: "The EU Digital Markets Act mandates that messaging services like iMessage are required to offer other companies some level of interoperability if they’re deemed to be big and important enough." [7] This law in Europe does exactly what you asked about, with WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, forcing them to allow access from other clients. I don't know that anybody considers these as nationalized. Apple's iMessage is being reviewed, at this time it might not be big and important enough in Europe to be covered.
Shared values, legal precendent, new laws and the courts are how we collectively make decisions in constitutional representative social democracies. In practicality no further justification is required. If enough people want interoperability they'll eventually get it, like what already is happening in Europe, and is being talked about in the U.S. This is how our governments are designed to operate. Politics ends up reflecting the culture, and we don't live in an anarcho-capitalist society. That's not what most people want.
Do you have a position different than the above that you can speak to? Perhaps something that might persuade others to consider an alternate point of view?
Exploring this topic in more detail I'm glad to learn that the system appears to be in headed in the direction I'd hoped for. I'm content.
I'm happy to let you have the last word if this all seems like more vomit to you, maybe another pedantic zinger for old times sake ;-)
No need for a zinger, every single one of your examples presumes falsely that iMessage provides a unique service that isn’t available elsewhere, a fact you yourself have already admitted isn’t true. Further, you seem to believe iMessage itself is of some critical value to society such that the absence of its availability to others is of sufficient pain so as to justify the violation of the concept of ownership, but you do this without justification.
What it seems to boil down to is entitlement. You feel entitled to this product because it’s common. That’s a wild violation of the social contract and demonstrates a thoroughly unconsidered approach to how society handles the reward of novel ideas and if normalized would utterly kill innovation and ruin the very things you seem to care about.
So you’re faced with a choice; let Apple continue to control iMessage, or give up on the idea of rewarding innovation. You don’t get both, despite your apparent belief that you are entitled to the works of others.
Funny that back in the day Apple reverse-engineered MS office formats to make Mac software that could open Microsoft documents [1]. Sounds like you and them want to prevent anyone from doing what they did when they were a smaller growing company. Kind of ironic, huh?
> your examples presumes falsely that iMessage provides a unique service
You know that anti-trust laws apply to all kinds of anti-competitve situations and not just monopolies on a unique good, right? Things like building walled gardens and buying up the competition can fall into this category.
> violation of the concept of ownership
There's nothing sacred about current ideas of ownership. They changes over time. It used to be that peasants and women and children were property and kings owned all the land. Intellectual property rights have changed. We compromise ownership rights with things like imminent domain, property taxes, zoning and libraries. Why do you assume that a messaging protocol should be owned the same way as other property?
> but you do this without justification
The root of this issue is that people are unsettled with the direction big tech has taken, concentrated in so few companies, they way they embrace and extend, weaponize the legal system, lobby politicians, profit off people's privacy, attention and well being, etc. Governments are taking action because this is what people want. That's how the world works.
Do you assume that people are supposed to adhere to your principals when they are unhappy with what big tech is doing? This is all new, why would you assume that the rules shouldn't be adjusted for new situations?
> You feel entitled to this product because it’s common
This isn't just me and this isn't just this product. It's much bigger than that. People are unhappy with the direction big tech is going. In general they are exploiting old rules with new technology. You're not providing any answers here.
> violation of the social contract
The social contract is not guaranteed to stay the same for you or anyone else. It evolves when there are significant changes. Things like the bubonic plague, the printing press, the new world, the industrial revolution, large scale farming and container ships and other things all drove significant societal changes, some good and some not so good. The amount and pace of change due to the internet and mobile computing is unprecedented. Stuff like this prompts changes to the social contract, in an attempt to fix problems. The social contract is always changing, every generation there are tweaks.
The people who wanted to keep slavery legal said the same thing you're saying - it's not fair to violate the social contract. Well sometimes that's the right thing to do.
> if normalized would utterly kill innovation
Wouldn't open protocols tend to encourage innovation, like what happened with the internet and open source software? Instead of these companies milking profits for years because of network effects and their ability to lock out the competition wouldn't it be better if switching costs were lowered? Wouldn't that create a lot of possibilities for alternatives, and lower prices, and a better balance between these big companies and the rest of society? That's what people want.
Innovation is not Apple reverse-engineering MS Office formats then later using the legal system to stop others from doing the same thing.
What is it that you are afraid of? Do you think these big companies can't compete if they had to open some of their protocols? Do you ever worry that a few big tech companies have carved up the world and will stifle anything or anyone that gets in the way of their profits?
So in other words, you want to benefit from your own ownership, but strip good ideas from others because you want them? Hypocritical, shortsighted, and even more selfish than I initially thought.
…or you would be if you actually believed any of this. Of course you don’t in any meaningful sense, otherwise you would live substantially differently, to the point that even using HN would be impossible. So it’s just hateful, selfish rhetoric then. It costs nothing to you to write these completely unsubstantiated ideas on the Internet, but it would cost you everything you enjoy to actually implement.
It’s abundantly clear you’ve never considered any of this before, and have zero conception of the consequences of what you’re suggesting. HN wouldn’t exist, your job wouldn’t exist, nor would whatever you do for fun, the main ways food is delivered to your grocery stores, clean water into your home… nothing you value would operate if we eschewed basic ownership concepts such as what your suggestions here would require.
You claim to want to return us to the stone age, so forgive me if I in no way believe you.
I presented all that detail - philosophical justifications, legal precedents, court rulings, new laws, how the social contract and concepts of ownership have changed historically to address conflicts between new technology and old rules, how open standards foster innovation as opposed to letting companies manipulate the legal system to maintain profits, and how even Apple themselves did such things in the past.
But you know, without even addressing any of that, you have changed my mind! You just kept repeating the same things about ownership and entitlement, and that making changes was all my crazy idea. You even pointed out a couple times that I was thinking thoughts I didn't know I had.
I had no idea that hacker news would cease to exist if we mandated open protocols for big tech messaging. I don't see how that's related, but it must be, you said so. I'm surprised hacker news made it as far they did with all the open protocols that already exist. We'd be so much better off if CERN never opened the http protocol. Just like how mandating telephone network interoperability decades ago will destroy that industry. Any day now I'm sure.
All of those people and their concerns about big tech, and all of those countries passing new laws about big tech, I just saw one about Japan cracking down on app store monopolies, they must all be wrong. Because those companies own that stuff, like you said. Those who want choice are wrong. All of those people and governments must be hateful and selfish like me. We should let those big companies do what they want. These companies got big first and that entitles them to continue to control how most of us communicate, censuring us with their algorithms, etc. No big deal, it's not like communication is important to people. Too bad for those other companies that weren't in the right place at the right time, they don't have a moat or a enough lawyers and lobbyists to protect themselves. The printing press showed us how inconsequential communication revolutions are, just the whole reformation and enlightenment happening afterwards, no big deal. And what's with these new copyright laws at the time? If you own a book you should be able to copy it! Rules are rules and can't be changed. If we make any changes to mandate open protocols we'll utterly kill innovation, just like you said. The success of the everything built on the open internet and OSS proves that. It'll be another stone age if we keep that up, like you said.
Why didn't I see this before? Maybe I think too much, that must be my problem. Who needs logic or historical context to understand this stuff when emotional words like kill and hate and destroy carry much more weight and make so much more sense. So insightful. The current order is paramount, no matter how the world changes. I never knew how reassuring it was to be a reactionary and just dig in and ignore everything to the contrary, sure that I'm always right. I like this feeling of not having to challenge my preconceived notions, or explain myself. It's comfortable.
Over and over again you play this game of “hide the ball” where you respond as if you’re advocating for the subsumption of Apple’s iMessage product, then flip over to responding as if you merely are here to advocate for an open messaging protocol. My responses have always addressed the former, and ignore the latter, as the latter is an uninteresting and wholly obvious concept.
Should people be able to agree on a shared and open protocol for communication? Yes. Should the US government nationalize iMessage? No.
Suggesting that iMessage, and not SMS/data connectivity, is “core infrastructure” is bizarre, especially given that no one else in the world uses it or cares about it - essentially proving that it’s not.
Welcome to Europe, that's exactly how the new Digital Markets act works. And Apple would have to open up iMessage if only they were actually popular outside of the US
While that makes sense if you of one company, but if you think of the interconnectedness of everything digital, it becomes problematic for the end user and there should be rules of interoperability they need to abide by.
Because email is a decentralized network! iMessage isn't! iMessage isn't email! It's nothing like email! Also if an email provider wanted to charge other email providers to federate with them, they can. No one would pay it because there's too much competition for email services - it's hard to compete with free - but nothing is stopping anyone from charging for e-mail peering the same way ISPs do for regular internet currently.
Because Google chose to implement an open protocol and to operate their email service as part of the broader email network. Apple chose a different path with their iMessage system, and that's fine too.
Going down the protocol route here - this would be more like Sony blocking game developers from allowing interoperability between Playstations and Xboxes. Crossplay is most definitely a thing - without requiring Xbox versions of games running on Sony hardware.
As a non-North-American, Beeper mini keeps me thinking if the whole point of this feud is about the colour of the bubble surrounding a message. Of, course, I know there is more than that, I mean, there must be... but so far, the debate of whether or or not the common user cares about the cryptographic security of their conversations online does not seem to strike me as the selling point for this type of implementation.
There’s been too much focus on the color of the bubble, or security, or specific features.
But the real issue boils down to human in/out group dynamics. Being excluded from group chats or having people get frustrated by the lone Android user in the group are powerful forms of peer pressure. And that pressure exists because Apple has pretty clearly made the experience intentionally frustrating.
That said, in the specific feature category: lacking the ability to send a reasonable quality photo or video is also a pretty big issue in 2023.
> But the real issue boils down to human in/out group dynamics. Being excluded from group chats or having people get frustrated by the lone Android user in the group are powerful forms of peer pressure.
There is an odd coincidence/overlap with friend groups and overall lifestyle/ideology and imessage vs android or blue vs green bubbles. I have like a few obscure friends who use android and they are all maga or counterculture weirdos. Meanwhile everyone else that I know (literally everyone, including a huge group chat for my gym weightlifting group, all close and extended family) uses an iPhone and iMessage.
Back to don draper: Android users cry about being excluded, but the rest of us don't even think about android users.
It's not Apple's responsibility or obligation to fix this.
This comment right there is why I will always believe that people will trade convenience over freedom the first chance they get. I've somewhat made my peace with it, because I don't even know if it really matters anymore.
If you, as an individual, really wanna be free and make real choices, you'll have to be willing to be a loner, and risk being considered by the groupthink a "counterculture weirdo", as this comment put it. Otherwise your choices are dictated by those who belong. You may screams your lungs out about all the dangers of going left and all the benefits of going right, if your social circle says it's left, it's going to be left.
Better get comfortable with that reality and plan accordingly.
> Android users cry about being excluded, but the rest of us don't even think about android users.
While I think you’ve illustrated the point that the issue is not just a technical one, I’d rather not be counted in that group. I’m deeply in the Apple ecosystem, but I do think about my Android friends. When possible, I use chat clients that work well for them, because otherwise we can’t share quality photos with each other. I don’t shun people for their technology choices, just as I’d hope they wouldn’t shun me for mine.
> It's not Apple's responsibility or obligation to fix this.
Do you believe that companies have any responsibilities to their customers? Especially when the nature of the relationship is one of directly exchanging money for hardware and services, it seems reasonable to expect Apple to listen to me as a customer and to build capabilities that solve the problems I think are important as a user.
As an Apple customer, I am deeply unhappy with their iMessage stance. In 2023, I want to be able to take a photo with the much-vaunted camera built into the device (one of the reasons we feel justified in spending $800-$1200+ on a “phone”) and I want my device to have the ability to send that photo to other modern devices out of the box. And if that capability doesn’t exist, I’d like a company of Apple’s size/stature to use their position to push forward new industry standards, as have the many companies that built up the modern web over the years. I’m not naive enough to think they’ll do this - they’ve shown us how they operate - but I think it’s reasonable to want this as someone who believes current tech giants owe their existence to this kind of leadership from companies in years past.
I’ve been a product manager. My customers reasonably expected me to listen to their requests, if for no other reason because they were willing to continue spending significant yearly $$$ for the ability to use my product. That doesn’t mean I could always say yes to every request, and I agree I wasn’t obligated to to implement every request, but I did have a responsibility to listen and to try to build a product that my customers would find valuable.
We don’t have to speculate about why Apple is doing this. It’s a matter of public record now from those emails revealed in discovery during a recent trial. The stance is pro-Apple at best, and arguably anti-customer. Given Apples profitability and market position, it’s hard to feel that Apple’s behavior here is really justifiable, even if it’s understandable. And by “understandable” I mean we’ve come to expect anti-consumer behavior and so it’s not surprising that Apple is perpetrating more of it. But I think they should be criticized soundly for it, even if it is their right to not give a shit.
> And that pressure exists because Apple has pretty clearly made the experience intentionally frustrating.
That pressure exists because the individuals involved in those group settings choose to exert such pressure. It’s not on Apple…just like my getting bullied three decades ago for not having a pair of Pumps was never on Reebok.
Apple has explicitly chosen to keep this feature gap for the purpose of locking customers into the ecosystem and forcing people to switch. This is well documented.
I agree that users are exerting pressure. But those users don’t exist in a vacuum, and Apple knowingly made the decision to force the kinds of social dynamics we’re describing, making them as much a part of this as the users themselves.
I think in a world where we didn’t have the emails between Federighi and Cue, maybe someone can more convincingly argue that this is just bad behavior by users. But all of this has to be taken together. The dynamics exist based on the interactions of all involved players, and I think it displays poor behavior by both users and Apple. And when a lot of that poor behavior is playing out in the halls of schools, I think it highlights Apple’s role even more.
Yeah, that's Apple actively degrading the user experience on both sides specifically because one side isn't their customer. To the point that the color itself violates their own accessibility guidelines.
This effectively attempts to lock people into their ecosystem, including their App Store, and it's... honestly kind of wild to me (as an American, for GP's reference) that we've been allowing this to continue, in a country with a specific history of using antitrust law to go after phone companies for abusing their network effect to create monopolies.
That makes it sound like android phones are at fault. It's an iOS problem where they refuse to be compatible. People who use iOS should be asking Apple to fix it if they cared about this problem at all.
Not Android, but SMS. SMS is a terrible messaging layer; Apple is not going to sink (very expensive) engineer time into papering over its badness when they already have a working alternative that their customers use.
RCS is not SMS; it’s a significantly easier protocol to build a smooth UX around.
I’m not claiming Apple is beyond criticism here; they absolutely treat iMessage as a moat. But RCS also clearly burdened by competitive interests, including the unclear state of E2EE in RCS.
My point is that RCS exists essentially to “paper over the badness” of SMS. So does iMessage. And implementing support for RCS at this stage of the game is Apple investing resources in fixing their SMS problem, using an imperfect solution that was introduced to paper over the issues with SMS.
Maybe I misunderstood what you meant by papering over the badness.
As a dumb question, how does Apple make a change that would allow android messaging to work without a cellphone? How does apple make a change so that android's messaging system isn't unencrypted by default? RCS is not encrypted, google has an extension that makes it encrypted that only recently supported encrypting beyond 1:1 chats.
It's not Apple's fault google half assed messaging on android for a decade+.
> It's not Apple's fault google half assed messaging on android for a decade+.
It’s also clear that Apple was never interested in pushing for an industry solution to this problem either. These two companies are in the unique position to provide leadership in this category, and they haven’t.
In the earlier days of the web and in other areas of innovation, the companies at the forefront of their respective industries industry champion new standards to support their broader goals. This was a use case ripe for better standards, but all parties involved are more motivated by greed than interoperability/supporting the consumer.
> It’s also clear that Apple was never interested in pushing for an industry solution to this problem either.
The industry (cell carriers) don't want a solution, at least not one that interests non-carriers. It's almost a rehash of the Netheads vs Bellheads fight.
Carriers want a messaging system that requires a SIM and thus a paid subscription to their services. They own network infrastructure and want end users beholden to them to access services. Cell carriers loved the days of WAP and MMS where anything done on a phone was a for-pay service from the carriers. They resent anything that bypasses their ability to nickel and dime people.
Neither Apple nor Google (or WhatsApp or Signal) want a messaging system that requires a SIM and any dependence on carriers' infrastructure. They want an entirely over the top service that transits a completely agnostic Internet layer. Just in practical terms they don't want to only be able to provide service to devices with cellular radios.
RCS is top to bottom a protocol designed by carriers. It requires a SIM for access and hasn't included E2EE because carriers love their data mining. It's a capable replacement for SMS/MMS but it's still tied to carriers. Google and Apple have provided leadership with messaging but carriers are not interested in the direction they're leading. WhatsApp grew primarily because of carriers charging stupid texting rates, especially international rates.
The core problem is groups wanting Internet based messaging get no buy-in from carriers. Even though smartphones are an overwhelming majority of the messaging landscape they're not the only devices used. If the carriers had their way you'd never be able to send a message from your laptop to my phone unless the laptop had a cellular radio and a service plan.
These issues existed before Google started pushing RCS.
On a side note, I still believe iMessage was in response to Google Talk, whose protocol was both open-source and interoperable with platforms outside of Google.
> iMessage works on wifi without a cell connection
How often are you in a situation where you do have WiFi but don't have a cellular connection? In my experience, the opposite is much more common--not having WiFi but having reliable cellular data.
In any case, WhatsApp, Telegram, Messenger, and open source solutions/protocols like Signal also work on WiFi without a cellular connection.
> green txts constantly break group messaging to the point where I refuse to add my friends partners who dont have iOS
Wow. I feel sorry, not for you, but for your friends who chose to be friends with someone so shallow.
> there are no abilities to admin group messaging with green txts (change the name, add/remove people, etc.)
Who cares? In more than two decades I have never once felt compelled to change the title of a group text, of all things. How often do you need to add and remove people from an existing group text anyways? Group texts, at least for me, have always been ephemeral--for example, a few messages exchanged to coordinate a date and time for dinner plans, and that's it. If I need to add someone, I'll just make a new group text or relay the information independently, it's not that hard.
How often are you in a situation where you do have WiFi but don't have a cellular connection? In my experience, the opposite is much more common--not having WiFi but having reliable cellular data.
Your experience is only your experience. It is not the only experience. Off the top of my head in the last year: Cruise ships, hunting lodges, rural restaurants, in tall buildings, a factory, various places underground like hotel laundry facilities.
Wow. I feel sorry, not for you, but for your friends who chose to be friends with someone so shallow.
Wow. I feel sorry for you not having a job that entails using a phone. But many other people do, and are in department-wide our team group chats. Again, your experience is not the only experience.
In more than two decades I have never once felt compelled to change the title of a group text
Congratulations. I envy your simple, orderly, uncomplicated life.
> How often are you in a situation where you do have WiFi but don't have a cellular connection?
Ummm, all of the time. Traveling, on a plane, etc.
> Wow. I feel sorry, not for you, but for your friends who chose to be friends with someone so shallow.
Huh? When your group message constantly breaks so you can't communicate properly its far more respectful to make sure the couple gets the message than not.
> How often do you need to add and remove people from an existing group text anyways?
I get added to group chats all of the time that I want to leave (due to spamming stuff) but can't because ONE person has an android phone.
I think we’re saying the same thing re: your 2nd and 3rd points.
WiFi is an interesting one, and some providers already provide SMS over WiFi via the “WiFi calling” feature. It’s certainly more convenient (or at least involves less setup) when iMessage is involved, but I suspect this isn’t the top reason people are clamoring for iMessage.
Example - I start a group message with 1 android user (droid) and 3 iOS users (foo, bar, and doof). `doof` sends a message to the group and it shows up as a group txt. `bar` sends a message and it now shows up as a direct message. I don't know whether `bar`'s message was a group message or a DM.
For me, the big selling point is better quality photos/videos. Whether I get a video from a non-RCS user it looks like a VHS rip. Sure there's other apps you can use, but realistically I'm not going to convince my friend's grandma to install Signal so she can send me a 10 second cat video
No it’s because I’m not sure if the messages I send to them can be easily harvested. Same goes for photos I have shared. Maybe it’s naked photos. Maybe they are photos which show me doing something considered illegal. Idk let’s say I’m speeding on my private road and I send the video which seen out of context is damaging to me.
When the user uses iMessage I can be sure if it leaks - he was either hacked or shared the photo. If he uses a 3rd party client MY data can now be harvested by the 3rd party without my consent or knowledge. The knowledge is the key here because apart from the original 2 reasons for a leak now it’s also the other option of 3rd party app harvesting data.
Get China as an investor is a year or two and… now my data 100% will be harvested.
Don't worry, Apple's harvesting your data these days as well. More importantly though, end to end encryption means Beepers servers never see the videos of you breaking the law, but if you're truly paranoid, the closed nature of iMessage should scare you because we don't know that the NSA doesn't have decryption keys - iMessage in China is not run by Apple, which means the CCP has decryption keys for messages sent in China; who's to say theres not a similar arrangement with the US intelligence community. I'm not remotely Edward Snowden but if that's your worry, I wouldn't trust iMessage either.
I already get increasing iMessage spam (e.g. random “hello”). I don’t love the idea of opening the door to a large population of additional users unless they are subjected to equivalent abuse controls. And I can’t tell from the discussion so far whether that’d be true or not.
Having worked on large scale fraud systems before, the only controls that work are those where users are risking something of value when they commit abuse. A paid account with a lot of valuable history is great. Banning a free and easy to replace/farm account is useless.
I support the idea that Apple should be allowed to keep it exclusive. I think it makes the experience of using their products worse, but that's their prerogative and the government shouldn't step in to intervene. Signal, WhatsApp, Discord, and others are all available to fill in the gap, so this isn't a monopoly case except insofar as a certain segment of the US population has an irrational reaction to blue bubbles.
I support the fact that messaging should be interoperable and accessible by any client application.
I want applications like Beeper to succeed because I’m totally fed up to be forced to use 3 or 4 messaging applications. I’m fed up to not be able to join Messenger groups because I don’t trust Meta enough to install their app.
Instant messaging is now all about being forced to use the official client to be able to use the network. In fact, IM is in a worst state than 15 years ago. That’s stupid.
I don’t want Apple to be allowed to keep it exclusive, as much as I don’t want Telegram, Signal, Facebook, WhatsApp … to force me to install their apps just to be allowed to join my friend’s group.
I’m fed up by the fact that in 2023, you have to follow the rules of whatever corporation to join your friends group because corporations have actively fought against standardized protocols. Even Google is just faking it with their homemade implementation of RCS.
That’s stupid, we should have had some chat equivalent to emails since at least two decades (hello XMPP/Jabber, nice try) and we are here discussing about the exclusivity of iMessage. In an alternative universe we are laughing about the uselessness of an exclusive IM like we would laugh if Apple tried to implement its own exclusive email protocol.
Not what I asked. Let's take as a given that they are allowed to keep it exclusive. The question is why should them?
I am also not interested in "it makes sense for their business". Unless you are an Apple employee or a significant stockholder, why would anyone prefer iMessage to be exclusive?
You're asking specifically why would any particular iPhone user want iMessage to be exclusive? It's not that they actually affirmatively want it to be exclusive, it's that they simply don't care. They either only communicate with other iPhone users, or a few green bubbles don't bother them. Most of the advocates for iMessage on Android are Android users. It's not complicated. Why would Apple put in the effort to open up iMessage when their customers don't care about it and only their competitor's customers do?
Because it's their right to, and there's no good reason why they should be forced to open it up. It's all the little rights that add together to arrive at the vibrant ecosystem we have now. Apple had and still has the right to create a closed, but coherent ecosystem that consumers are willing to pay a (arguably small) premium to enter with the promise that the quality advertised is the quality received. Taking away that choice from those consumers does not appear to gain back much in other ways. Would Android users be happier? Yes. But there's no evidence that Apple users would be better off _in the long term_. In the short term, both sides might be happier, but that would be shortsighted thinking. It would be removing a reason for Apple to develop future first-party apps that serve as a counterweight to apps owned by corporations interested in selling ad space.
There's also no evidence that iMessage is anti-competitive and a true lock-in experience. People talk about network effects, but iMessage is only a significant messaging app in one country in the entire world. The rest of the world uses a mix of other apps. This is true even in Japan, where iPhones are popular. If people want to use another app, they can. Let the people choose.
Why ask a question in bad faith? You may not agree with my answer, but you asked for the opposing viewpoint and I gave it, but now I see it was a waste of time.
I really like iMessage. I don't get spam on it, it's feature rich, and many of my friends use it.
I'd love to see Apple bring it to Android/Windows, but I'm okay with Apple limiting third-party clients. Usually I'm a strong supporter of open APIs, third party clients, etc., but I just don't want the platform to become full of spam like SMS is.
I think the more interesting question is: why do some think that Apple has some obligation to open up iMessage to the world? There is plenty of competition when it comes to messaging apps.
Apple sees a business advantage by keeping the platform closed, so it is a very reasonable decision to not allow third-party clients. There are many problems in tech; iMessage being closed does not rank high on my list.
Did you ask the question just so you could interpret any given answer as uncharitably as possible and pretend that the people answering are actually Bad People?
They are not Bad People, but they have bad rationalizations .
We already have decades worth of lectures and essays that explain why open standards are good for everyone. It is basically impossible that the people here haven't been exposed to any of those ideas, so they are not ignorant. Therefore, it really makes no sense for me to try to rehash those and the best I can do is to simply expose the cognitive dissonance.
I think most people who think Beeper Mini was a bad idea think that independently of any opinion about iMessage exclusivity. I support higher fidelity cross platform communication. Whether that's over iMessage or RCS, I don't care.
I don't support the idea that anyone is entitled to steal from another company to run their business, even if it's a $3T company they're stealing from.
Let me turn it around, why should Apple be forced to open it up? I don't really quite understand why iMessage is being treated as some almighty program that those who don't have it are left feeling inferior. It's just about the same as any other messaging app I've used. I sort of get the argument that it has an advantage on iPhones by being the app that handles SMS, but that doesn't seem like a reason to force them to put it on Android. It seems weird to force a developer to make an app for a given platform. If I being really conspiratorial, it seems that all this attention towards forcing Apple to port their app has covered up Google's continued lackluster efforts, and I wonder if there's not an intention behind that.
They shouldn't be forced to it. But by not doing it they are showing how all their talk about inclusiveness and working for the common good is just marketing bullshit.
And the more people I see (on Hacker News of all places) that keep supporting this marketing, the less faith I have in techies' ability to critical thinking.
When Beeper was alive I received like 20+ fake messages from "girls" from 3rd world countries to scam me. With blue bubbles. We can somewhat trust blue bubbles to be real phones and treat these messages that way so our interaction will change when these bubbles are open to anyone.
Sorry, I don't believe you. You are saying that spammers went out of their way to use a $9.99 service to spam? Why can't they do that with used/old phones and macs before?
Also, if you are relying on "blue bubbles" to ignore spam, perhaps Apple should be forced to become smarter about spam handling?
Sorry, you don't need to believe me. I received these messages and they are undeleted. It is HN though, people treat it as Reddit and never believe what they read. These particular spam messages aligned with when Beeper was alive. If I find time I will screenshot them and send them to your email listed in one of your links.
Honestly? Because it’s Apple’s service to do with what they wish. I don’t view iMessage to be enough of a public good that Apple should be forced to make it public. There’s a lot of other apps like WhatsApp that provide open messaging and so the space is competitive enough.
I would argue that it would be more important for Facebook to open up its social network or Google to open up its ads than for Apple to open up its messaging platform.
This whole debate seems asinine to me. Erik must know he's in the wrong here. The idea that we can force any company to allow third party clients to their service by regulation is an obviously bad idea. Just because Beeper (probably) isn't doing something shady with user data doesn't mean Apple must be required to trust them.
What if I make a 3rd party client that actively records my users' iMessages and sells them to Facebook? Should Apple be required to support my app too? If not, are they expected to audit and vouch for every third party client? If yes, how is Apple supposed to make any claims about the security of iMessage if I have no control over the client my recipient might be using?
The whole interoperable API argument comes from the same place as "encryption where the good guys have keys," yet somehow demands for interoperability seem to be much more popular on HN. The E2E in E2E encryption stands for end-to-end, which inherently requires trusting both ends. Otherwise you might as well not have encryption.
Note that whether or not companies should be required to support third party clients is a different debate than whether or not Apple should be required to support Android, even if the end result happens to be similar in this case. I think most people defending Beeper are interested in the latter and are willing to burn down encryption to get it via the former. As a user, sure I'd love for my Android friends to use iMessage too. But this is not the way.
(To be clear, I don't think we should regulate that Apple has to support Android either. If I develop a new OS, would every company be required to build a client for their service for my new OS too? But at least I understand the merits of that debate.)
This project exists so Google can go to the (EU) regulators and demand Apple stop anti-competitive actions and lets poor small-time startups like Beeper freely interact with iMessage. The EU is much more likely to protect Beeper from Apple than Google due to them being in the same weight class, so this is a solid strategy.
Edit: 700+ comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38722246
Edit: correct link: https://blog.beeper.com/p/imessage-and-phone-registration-ar...