Bug fixes and other improvements We've created an updated version of Beeper Mini that fixes an issue that caused messages not to be sent or received. You can get the update directly from beeper.com/update on your phone. We are still doing some final testing before submitting the update to the Google Play Store for distribution to all users. If you encounter any issues, you may need to uninstall and reinstall the app.
I’m still unclear on why this whole thing is so important that it’s worth putting time and money into finding a solution for the color of word bubbles.
Edit: all this time I thought it was just an argument over bubble colors. But no, it’s also potato quality videos and pictures ruining every group message with both Apple and Android in the mix.
Its not just the word bubbles. Pictures and videos come through on Android like complete shit. I can’t even have my wife send me pictures of the kids cause I can’t see them on the other end. Nor can I watch family videos sent to me. Its much more than simple colors, but of course kids are getting bullied for that.
Now this makes sense, thank you. Garbage quality video and pictures are a so annoying. It seems to ruin an entire group chat if one of them is on an iPhone. I often have to wait until I see someone in person or have them send it through a different app for the video to work.
I have yet to get a group conversation to switch to Signal or something to avoid the potato quality videos
Apple could fix this by uploading the photos to iCloud and sending a link. But improving the experience of SMS chats is not profitable, so they instead actively downgrade the experience.
I always send an iCloud link for photos when I know that there’s someone who may not be using an iPhone. I’m not sure why others don’t. It’s especially useful when sending large numbers of pictures.
That’s what the Verizon messages app does, just with a Verizon website instead of iCloud. I found it very annoying and slow to use.
Yea, this is a USA problem. Elsewhere everyone just uses a messaging app of their network’s choice.
It’s not entirely true. In Scandinavia for example, iPhone is the majority market share, on average higher than that of United States.
Tell the wife to use telegram or another messaging client. There are plenty of perfectly good alternatives to imessages.
We use messenger, which I also don’t like. Its ridiculous. If these fucken tech giants aren’t going to right interoperability standards then someone needs to force them to. We made all this shit to make life better and somehow have forgotten that was the fucken goal.
For better or worse you happen to be using the one messaging app that is broadly agreed to be worse than iMessage.
Signal and Telegram are far superior, even putting aside the most glaring flaws of the other two.
Signal/Telegram are not very common where I’m at. I have Signal, nobody in my contacts does.
I’ve successfully converted a spouse, which I don’t think is out of the question w.r.t who I replied to.
I’ve also converted my main friend group, but appreciate that’s insurmountable for a lot of people - genuinely, people hate change after all. I’m lucky to have a lot of friends who work in tech and are receptive to trying new things.
Its convenience. Why have both of us download a new app strictly for pictures when she is already on Facebook, and I have a dusty one with no posts for a decade. Plus getting someone in the US to download a 3rd party messaging app is like asking them to respond to the Nigerian Prince for his offers.
Fair enough. It’s kind of an oxymoron to worry about the trust of a given 3rd party messaging app while using products from a known, wide scale, repeated privacy intruder like Meta, but you have what you need in terms of convenience so I won’t make a further case for an alternative.
Believe me, I know. I wouldn’t be using it if the people I need it for would switch. But people don’t give a shit here. I gave up trying to move apps. The rest of my shit is arch linux and de googled. This is the last hold out.
I’d say Telegram isn’t superior. It’s default encryption is nowhere near iMessage.
And if you step up the encryption, you lose group chats.
For it’s flaws, iMessage is a very good solution, one that Signal was emulating for a while.
I’m not criticising the UX of iMessage for Apple to Apple comms. It’s solid, and was leader-in-class for a very long time.
Why messenger of all things. That’s the worst one.
Why should they be forced to interop? That’ll just reduce it to the lowest commend denominator. What impetus would any of them have for investing in making a better system if everyone can use their work?
We have choices. We don’t have to use iMessage, or Beeper. We can use other messengers.
Forcing interop means all messengers will function the same… Again at the LCD level.
Plus different messengers have different capabilities, different use-cases.
Frankly I don’t even want to use SMS at all, and haven’t wanted to for 10 years. I want a messenger that’s independent of my mobile device that I can simply sign into just about anywhere. Kind of like instant messengers were in the late 90’s (which often used things like XMPP).
Ten+ years ago I was running instant messengers on Android. Pidgin, Trillian, etc, logging in to multiple messengers. That should’ve been the path forward, but people couldn’t be bothered because SMS was free, native, and “good enough” (in their minds).
And yet back then any conversations I had on any device showed up on all devices. With no dependence on my SIM or phone hardware ID.
interoperability is the capability of a product or system to interact and function with others. Why would that force them to all function the same? Why would that be bad for us as consumers? Why does it matter how many choices we have if those choices restrict us to using a specific one? Interoperability solves all of these and causes none of the problems you are stating. Of course they have no incentive for doing this as it doesn’t benefit a corporation, they’re only incentivized to entrap people in their ecosystems cause it makes them the most money. Different messaging standards is one of the ways they keep us locked in. This is a choice, too, one made by the tech giants for you with no choice in the matter. You can’t send a nice quality picture from iMessage to Google Messages, get fukt.
How else do you make them interop, other than by finding a common mapping?
Why would any company map their extended or unique elements, which they developed, to meet government regs?
They won’t, they’ll drop to the least effort required to get the regulators off their backs.
I have a choice. Apple users have a choice. There are plenty of other messenging systems out there.
MS Teams
Skype
Element
SimpleX
Signal
Telegram
Wire
Wiremin
Litewire
Discord
Conversations
Snikket
Briar
Zello
TwinMe
Tox
Keybase
Threema
Whatsapp
Jami
XMPP (which some listed use)
Just go to Wikipedia for a long list of different messengers and their capabilities.
Choice is nice, but my problem is the choices can’t communicate with each other correctly. Thats an issue. Its an issue when our communication devices are not effective at communicating what we want to. We are already seeing the bare ass minimum right now, which is just SMS. They’re doing that now, the bare minimum. If Apple was forced to fix their shitty conversion instead of it just picking the worst resolution possible, they would do it. It doesn’t matter what app I use because most people in the US use iMessage, and thats where I do most of my communicating.
That doesn’t solve the interoperability problem. You can’t guarantee who has what messaging app. You shouldn’t need a 3rd party app for basic functionality, anyway.
I like Signal better than my standard android SMS app. I can send more pictures at a time, video at high quality, and it does groups well.
Right, right.
Do you hear yourself?
I’m still unclear why this gets asked every post unless people keep ignoring the answers.
I’m not either. considering that over 70% of the world is on android, you’d think the compatibility problem would be laid on Apple and not 3rd party applications.
70% of the world is using Google and Apple is giving Google the middle finger.
😂
To be fair, I am using Google (via Android) and am also giving Google (Chrome) the middle finger.
iMessage lock in is almost exclusively a US problem (maybe EU, but i have no experience living there so i’m not sure). I’m from Malaysia and 99% of communication here is done through whatsapp and I know this is true for many other countries too. Line is frequently used in korea, Wechat in china, etc. It was only when I moved to the US that I used iMessage in any serious capacity
But Apple users don’t care enough to solve the issue. Partly they see it as an Android problem,if they see the problem at all.
In their defense, they have a messenger that works well, syncs to the desktop, sends high quality, etc, to other iOS users. So I can understand their not wanting to switch, or even seeing an issue.
oh I understand yeah. certainly. but surely it’s not difficult to explain it to most users.
them understanding or caring about the issue is another problem. brand loyalty is a thing. but then there’s users for whom brand loyalty isn’t really a choice, it’s just what they’re used to or they’re not skilled enough to understand what the difference is.
i feel that’s a much stronger problem here. that particular subset of people don’t understand the device they are using. they’re basically angry because the green people in their messages don’t look right or don’t load right. that makes it “bad” if you don’t understand why.
basic understanding of the technology you carry in your pocket is lacking for a huge user base. but apple… kind of relies on people not understanding. it makes it easier for apple to go “Green text bad! hate people with that!” and still keep it’s users that might not understand in the dark.
Group chat. You can’t have a properly working group chat if there’s an android in the mix.
Now that people bring up group chat, I realized that the opposite is also true. One apple in the mix will ruin all the videos in a group chat.
Most Android phones use RCS now but iPhone doesn’t, so with an iPhone in the chat it will also need to resort to sending SMS/MMS instead
This is by Apple’s design choice, not because Android.
Android can send as high a quality over SMS/MMS as the network will allow. iPhone can’t.
In Apple’s defense, you’d still lose all the iMessage features when SMS is involved, because what else are you going to do when one participant doesn’t have iMessage? You’ll fallback to the lowest common mechanism.
So anything that isn’t iOS/iMessage.
Whenever it has to fallback to SMS.
I mean there’s really no other realistic way to enable a single app to utilize two very different communication “protocols” (in quotes, because SMS is only nominally a protocol).
I’ve always though iMessage was the approach to getting away from crappy SMS.
So when Signal did the same, I was very optimistic. It removed a barrier to entry for users by supporting SMS plus an encrypted method for connections that had Signal. And you could enable it to add a signature saying something like “Sent from Signal, this could be an encrypted conversation if you download Signal” or something like that. That was a great idea.
(weird, not sure why these are two comments and it looks like I replied to myself)
The reason is that if they have a solution, people will pay for it, and thus they’ll make money.
Which is funny considering that apples current implementation is less secure because sending the non-imessage users from iMessage breaks the encryption, meaning everything sent to a non-imessage recipient is sent in plain text.
Seems like it’s designed to get Apple users to push away anyone who uses a non-apple device
$10 says they want Apple to buy them out.
They intend to work with lots of services, it’s just that imessage is getting the most focus right now.
If im not mistaken, they intend to eventually open source the code, so facebook/apple/google better buy quick.
OK. And?
It’s been posted many times around here.
https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=Why+are+iMessage+blue+bubbles+so+important