kirklennon @ kirklennon @kbin.social

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2 yr. ago

Anyone texting in from hardware other than an iPhone will still get the funky balloon color, eh?

Green was always the default in the Messages app. Apple added blue to distinguish new iMessages. I see no reason for RCS not to stay with the default green.

the ending years of apple’s golden era

When exactly was that? Apple's never been more popular than they are now.

Other than support for superior data transfer speeds, energy carrying ability, and durability? Yeah, it would be that it is an almost universal standard outside of the Iphone.

I specifically said the physical design of Lightning is superior

A defacto standard for more or less only Iphones, as Apple switched almost all of their other products to use USB-C once it reached mass adoption.

The iPhone and all of Apple's accessories (such as AirPods) used Lightning up until a couple of months ago. The keyboards and mice still use Lightning. A connector used on well over a billion devices has all of the practical advantages for consumers of being a standard even if it's nominally proprietary.

You could make this argument against the adoption of any new standard, again baring in mind that once upon a time lightning stood was the new standard that faced this exact criticism.

Yes, which is why companies should always be reluctant to change unless the new option is significantly better. Lightning was way better than anything else available and was worth the inconvenience of the change. The benefits were real and obvious to all users. The transition to USB-C is ... less compelling for users.

how is Lightning better than a USB-C?

It's physically smaller, doesn't require the thin little piece inside the port on the device, and the rounded corners make it easier to insert without lining up perfectly. To clarify, I'm not saying this makes USB-C bad, but the physical design just isn't as good.

Be real here: Apple only stuck with Lightning because it’s stupid easy money for them. Cables are hella cheap to make, and if you make them in-house, you basically spend like $2 at most to manufacture 1 cable.

Third parties sell Lightning cables and Apple sells USB-C cables (really nice ones, actually). There's no significant monetary impact to Apple regardless of which connector they have.

Lightning has the upside of both that and forcing people into the Apple ecosystem because their old phone cables can charge the new phones.

I thought the whole argument in favor of USB-C was that because it's a standard, people already have cables for it or can buy them for dirt cheap. If that's the case, the fact that people also have Lightning cables wouldn't be a major reason to stick with an iPhone when upgrading.

They might be able to relay them in a way that the end to end encryption is actually handled on the phone and the relay only relays encrypted messages.

They'd need to control the app on both phones in order to control what it's encrypting/decrypting. Their system only works because they've got a device in the middle separately decrypting/re-encrypting each message. Google's Messages app can't read iMessages; Apple's Messages app can't read Google's proprietary encrypted RCS messages.

Of course if you want universally cross-platform messaging, complete with full-resolution photos and available with end-to-end encryption, there's this crazy new technology called "email." I feel like there's a missed opportunity for making setting up S/MIME easier.

Yes, that's two years, and we're also needing to look at hardware engineering decisions made in 2011 (since major components are finalized long in advance). Even if they knew then that USB-C would be ready in three years, that doesn't mean it necessarily justifies keeping the dock connector that much longer, but there was also no guarantee it would be a viable option in 2014. How long do you stick with inferior options when you can just to it better yourself sooner? We have to keep in mind the reason we like industry standards in the first place. Ideally they lead to a better customer experience; they are not a goal in and of themselves, just because they are a standard.

My point is that there were very real, entirely legitimate reasons why it was good for Apple's customers that Apple introduced Lightning.

Back when that would've been a good argument... but why then when USB-C did become a thing, and became robust and well-supported enough that even Apple used it on every other device they sold, didn't they adopt it onto the IPhone despite lightning being an inferior standard in basically every way?

What's the advantage of using USB-C? Because it's a standard, right? A standard means wide support and it works with what you already have. Except Apple had effectively already established that with Lightning. It was in hundreds of millions of devices before USB-C became mainstream. Sure USB-C was nominally standard, but Lightning maintained the advantages for Apple's customers as a de facto standard. The switch to USB-C meant buying new cables, while Lightning meant using the cables you already had.

they could have contributed towards a combined connector with the usb-if

There was already one in the works but it was still years ago. They wanted to ditch the dock connector and didn't want to wait forever.

That’s like saying they made the lightning port as a protest to USB standards, nah they just want their proprietary shit.

They wanted a new, compact, durable, reversible plug for their mobile devices. There was no industry-standard option that met their requirements, so they made their own. If USB-C had existed at the time, they would have used it (though as a physical connector, Lightning is still just plain better).

OK, I finally read the original allegation and this is grossly irresponsible reporting. We can put our pitchforks down. The plaintiffs never even claim that the automakers can access your text messages in the first place. This is entirely about the car’s hardware locally caching the messages it displays, some of which could possibly then be read from the cache using specialized and not commonly available equipment.

Is it something to be aware of? Sure. Is something the average person should be concerned about? Not really.

I'm short of time so I haven't found the original complaint but according to the appeals court ruling, the plaintiffs never claimed any actual damages. The heading of the law in question is "Violating right of privacy—Civil action—Liability for damages."

Is this a privacy violation? Yes. Did these people suffer any actual damages under the law? Evidently not.

When called out on it, you’re doubling down.

I pointed out sloppy, inaccurate writing that hints that the writer maybe doesn't have a good grasp of the subject matter. There's nothing to "call out"; I was pretty clear from the start what I was criticizing.

it’s sent over carrier networks and the carriers decide whose infrastructure to use.

The carriers never bothered to implement RCS; they just outsourced the whole thing to Google.

RCS is an open standard

That nobody uses.

it is the industry standard for SMS.

It's meant as a replacement for SMS. It's not just some new version of SMS that Apple hasn't upgraded to, which is what you were basically saying earlier.

It’s literally why every other non iphone can send high quality pictures to each other.

It's a messaging service used exclusively by Android phones. iPhones all support iMessage; Androids (mostly) all support RCS. All of those iMessages go over Apple's servers; all of those RCS messages go over Google's servers.

For what it's worth, iPhones have supported sending full-quality pictures to everyone over a legitimately open protocol since launch day. It's called email.

Apple not adopting it is anti competitive.

Google's attempts to legally force Apple to adopt its proprietary platform is transparently anticompetitive.

You’re forgetting the most important thing it is to users: an app.

iMessage is not an app. It has never been an app. It is one of the ways a message can be sent/received in the Messages app. And yes, users of the Messages app are extremely aware of the distinction between sending an iMessage versus an SMS or MMS.

There is nothing to distinguish here. iMessage is the protocol and messaging platform. An iMessage sent remains as an iMessage when received. Android users are not sent and do not receive iMessages. They are sent SMS/MMS and they receive SMS/MMS. If all of the iMessage servers exploded right now, nothing at all would change in Apple to Android messaging because iMessage was never involved.

The user is using the Messages app, which launched with support for SMS and MMS. Years later, Apple added iMessage as a third protocol to the app for use when messaging other Apple devices if they both turn iMessage on. If you message with an Android user, it remains with the default SMS and MMS. Nothing is being translated or downgraded; it's just the original, default functionality of the app.

Basically Apple hasn’t adopted industry standard SMS improvements. There’s a whole campaign to try to get them to.

This is an advertising campaign to get Apple to adopt Google's proprietary version of RCS, which is not the SMS standard. It is, functionally, Google's own version of iMessage, running Google software on Google servers.

Again, protocols are core to the discussion, and from the user's perspective which protocol they are using is very obvious (which, again, is core to the discussion). This isn't some trivial detail to get wrong. If they author can't carefully distinguish themselves and educate their audience, why are they even writing about it in the first place?

Google's astroturf campaign for "RCS" promotes encrypted messages but RCS has no support for this. Google wants to force people to use its proprietary extension, which runs exclusively on Google's servers.

They’re not sent from iMessage. That is the point. If you write an article in a tech publication talking about messaging apps and protocols, you need to get the names right.