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Finally! I won't have to see the following:
"Jane laughed at the following message". ???
You will if you are still using an iPhone. This article says nothing about Apple handling reactions in group SMS messages (i.e.: green-bubble group chats)
 
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If anyone wonders how Android vs iOS previously rendered this sort of interaction, behold (from a chat with an Android using friend a few weeks back)…
 
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Actually the only ones losing in this equation are Apple users like you and I, who have to deal with substandard messaging experience when messaging Android users. I blame Apple and so should you.
Come off it mate, of all the many messaging services that exist, iMessage is the only one that has proprietary extensions that only work on a single platform. It is the only one that results in a substandard experience. And it most certainly is not the only one that has emojis. Stop blaming Android for something that Apple have deliberately done, and deliberately kept proprietary.

In case you haven't notice there are these things called public standards, and they exist exactly to prevent this sort of mess. For example HTML is a public standard that has been developed by the W3C and WHATWG, resulting in a standardised language for the web, and thus, we can all create and consume web pages no matter what platform we use. How wonderful is that? (Side note: MicroSoft tried to do what Apple has done with iMessage, and used its dominance to create proprietary standards for HTML, which created an absolute nightmare for web devs, as they had to put in all sorts of hooks to make their pages work on all browsers. Some devs did a poor job of this, and it created a big mess on the web. MS eventually got shut down by the courts around the world and pulled their head in. Some clever devs also built some open source javascript libraries that automatically fixed the mess for the devs, and also the brilliant HTML5 was released, problem solved). Same goes for so many technologies that you use every day. For example the power plugs in your home all comply to a public standard, and thus, they all work. Or you can buy a TV from many different manufacturers, and they all work because they all are built to receive and display video and audio signals that all comply to a public standard, and all the TV studios send their signals to comply with this standard, so it all "just works". The USB ports in your computer all comply to standards, and thus all the peripherals that plug into them work. There are many many other examples, just have a google for ISO standards and IEEE standards to see the incredible array of things that are covered by public standards. Without them, the world would be a complete mess, with nothing working properly without you having to work out what brand product works with what.

Apple are one of the very few companies that deliberately mess up such standards in order to try and gain a profitable advantage over the competition. In this case, they deliberately created proprietary extensions to the public text standard, in a vain attempt to entice Android users to buy iPhones so that they aren't left out of the iMessage elitist posers gang.

I have turned iMessage off on my iPhone, and mostly use the other messaging platforms rather than text anyway. And tbh, here in Australia, almost no one uses text/iMessage by preference anyway, everyone uses either FB Messenger, Insta, or Whatsapp. A handful use Signal or Telegram, and some even use Viber or WeChat. I have every single one of those on both my iPhone and my MBP, and don't care which I use (unless I truly have something private to send, in which case I reach for PGP via email by preference anyway). But the only one I don't use is iMessage, as it is the only one that is broken. And sadly, it is deliberately broken. By Apple, not by Android. I hope that helps ;)
 
Come off it mate, of all the many messaging services that exist, iMessage is the only one that has proprietary extensions that only work on a single platform. It is the only one that results in a substandard experience. And it most certainly is not the only one that has emojis. Stop blaming Android for something that Apple have deliberately done, and deliberately kept proprietary.

In case you haven't notice there are these things called public standards, and they exist exactly to prevent this sort of mess. For example HTML is a public standard that has been developed by the W3C and WHATWG, resulting in a standardised language for the web, and thus, we can all create and consume web pages no matter what platform we use. How wonderful is that? (Side note: MicroSoft tried to do what Apple has done with iMessage, and used its dominance to create proprietary standards for HTML, which created an absolute nightmare for web devs, as they had to put in all sorts of hooks to make their pages work on all browsers. Some devs did a poor job of this, and it created a big mess on the web. MS eventually got shut down by the courts around the world and pulled their head in. Some clever devs also built some open source javascript libraries that automatically fixed the mess for the devs, and also the brilliant HTML5 was released, problem solved). Same goes for so many technologies that you use every day. For example the power plugs in your home all comply to a public standard, and thus, they all work. Or you can buy a TV from many different manufacturers, and they all work because they all are built to receive and display video and audio signals that all comply to a public standard, and all the TV studios send their signals to comply with this standard, so it all "just works". The USB ports in your computer all comply to standards, and thus all the peripherals that plug into them work. There are many many other examples, just have a google for ISO standards and IEEE standards to see the incredible array of things that are covered by public standards. Without them, the world would be a complete mess, with nothing working properly without you having to work out what brand product works with what.

Apple are one of the very few companies that deliberately mess up such standards in order to try and gain a profitable advantage over the competition. In this case, they deliberately created proprietary extensions to the public text standard, in a vain attempt to entice Android users to buy iPhones so that they aren't left out of the iMessage elitist posers gang.

I have turned iMessage off on my iPhone, and mostly use the other messaging platforms rather than text anyway. And tbh, here in Australia, almost no one uses text/iMessage by preference anyway, everyone uses either FB Messenger, Insta, or Whatsapp. A handful use Signal or Telegram, and some even use Viber or WeChat. I have every single one of those on both my iPhone and my MBP, and don't care which I use (unless I truly have something private to send, in which case I reach for PGP via email by preference anyway). But the only one I don't use is iMessage, as it is the only one that is broken. And sadly, it is deliberately broken. By Apple, not by Android. I hope that helps ;)
Text (SMS/MMS) is cleartext. Signal, et al., did not exist when iMessage was implemented. It was arguably the first true easy to use E2E encrypted messaging available to all, and not reliant on a user being proficient with *BSD, Slackware or Kali Linux.

It’s true it is closed source. But it just works, like most things Apple does. It removes the need to RTFM, or open a shell script, or read the man pages, or all the other esoteric bull**** that went into using GPGP or PGP before.

Most users still cannot grok PGP. Yes, Signal and others have also simplified E2E encryption, but Apple popularized and spread it to the masses first. And more importantly, gave it free of charge, and frictionlessly (unlike most prior encryption technology).

So your argument may hold merit, but equally so does the fact that Apple brought this technology to the masses.
 
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> This is true of all of the iMessages reactions, Google turns them into text in a way that looks weird

Not really accurate. iPhones themselves send the "weird" text fallback when using SMS rather than iMessage, since the protocol doesn't support reactions. You'll see them in iMessage on older versions of iOS, too (presumably handled by Apple's server).
This is correct. Android phones are simply displaying the fallback message sent by iOS in the first place. Not sure why MacRumors is blame-shifting here.
 
It still baffles me there's no way to leave group MMS with those green people
A "group MMS" is a total hack. When you are in a group MMS session and send a message, your phone is actually sending N copies of the message, where N is the number of people in the group. This applies for everyone in the group MMS, so when anyone else messages you, it's really just an MMS from them. to everyone else.

Back in the days when you were billed per text message, you'd use up N messages every time you sent a group MMS. It's a total hack, and I really wish there were a better, cross platform default way to do this. Sure, you can use third party apps but then everyone has to be on that app. Text messages work with everyone.
 
A "group MMS" is a total hack. When you are in a group MMS session and send a message, your phone is actually sending N copies of the message, where N is the number of people in the group. This applies for everyone in the group MMS, so when anyone else messages you, it's really just an MMS from them. to everyone else.

Back in the days when you were billed per text message, you'd use up N messages every time you sent a group MMS. It's a total hack, and I really wish there were a better, cross platform default way to do this. Sure, you can use third party apps but then everyone has to be on that app. Text messages work with everyone.
The solution is RCS, which apple has no monetary incentive to support. But they really need to, sms/mms needs to be killed off.
 
This is better than the "haha" it shows now. It tends to make me look old and out of touch when I laugh at an image instead of lol. Because LOL makes you sound too excited.
 
Come off it mate, of all the many messaging services that exist, iMessage is the only one that has proprietary extensions that only work on a single platform. It is the only one that results in a substandard experience. And it most certainly is not the only one that has emojis. Stop blaming Android for something that Apple have deliberately done, and deliberately kept proprietary.

In case you haven't notice there are these things called public standards, and they exist exactly to prevent this sort of mess. For example HTML is a public standard that has been developed by the W3C and WHATWG, resulting in a standardised language for the web, and thus, we can all create and consume web pages no matter what platform we use. How wonderful is that? (Side note: MicroSoft tried to do what Apple has done with iMessage, and used its dominance to create proprietary standards for HTML, which created an absolute nightmare for web devs, as they had to put in all sorts of hooks to make their pages work on all browsers. Some devs did a poor job of this, and it created a big mess on the web. MS eventually got shut down by the courts around the world and pulled their head in. Some clever devs also built some open source javascript libraries that automatically fixed the mess for the devs, and also the brilliant HTML5 was released, problem solved). Same goes for so many technologies that you use every day. For example the power plugs in your home all comply to a public standard, and thus, they all work. Or you can buy a TV from many different manufacturers, and they all work because they all are built to receive and display video and audio signals that all comply to a public standard, and all the TV studios send their signals to comply with this standard, so it all "just works". The USB ports in your computer all comply to standards, and thus all the peripherals that plug into them work. There are many many other examples, just have a google for ISO standards and IEEE standards to see the incredible array of things that are covered by public standards. Without them, the world would be a complete mess, with nothing working properly without you having to work out what brand product works with what.

Apple are one of the very few companies that deliberately mess up such standards in order to try and gain a profitable advantage over the competition. In this case, they deliberately created proprietary extensions to the public text standard, in a vain attempt to entice Android users to buy iPhones so that they aren't left out of the iMessage elitist posers gang.

I have turned iMessage off on my iPhone, and mostly use the other messaging platforms rather than text anyway. And tbh, here in Australia, almost no one uses text/iMessage by preference anyway, everyone uses either FB Messenger, Insta, or Whatsapp. A handful use Signal or Telegram, and some even use Viber or WeChat. I have every single one of those on both my iPhone and my MBP, and don't care which I use (unless I truly have something private to send, in which case I reach for PGP via email by preference anyway). But the only one I don't use is iMessage, as it is the only one that is broken. And sadly, it is deliberately broken. By Apple, not by Android. I hope that helps ;)
Man, I re-enabled my account just to like this message. You're absolutely right. Just recently went back to android to get a Pixel 6 and traded-in my iPhone 12. Great little device but iOS has stayed so stagnant for so long that it bores me to death. Please let me move my icons whenever I want Apple! I also turn off iMessage, must of my family and friends use Whatsapp anyway, so...
 
Since Apple seems to be having a much less closed approach to its new services (Apple Music, Apple TV), they could use this occasion to revamp iMessage, and maybe implement it on non-Apple OSes.
 
Apple should ditch their unbelievably limited proprietary reactions and just use regular emojis anyways.

Disagree. I find reactions more useful than plain emoji, as it directly associates the emoji/reaction with the intended message, even several messages later.

I'm confused about the mention of Google and Android here. Wouldn't this apply to *any* pure-SMS client on any platform ... the reaction being sent as a parsable text message? Seems that Google plans to "recognize" these messages and convert them to an emoji before they are displayed in the message thread.
 
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Since Tim Cook told me I should get an Android if I wanted to sideload apps, I welcome this change on my new Android. It should help me communicate with the legacy iPhone users who use propietary extensions on a public system.

:cool:

That would be funny if it was Tim Cook that said it, but it wasn't. It was Steve Jobs.
 
Since Tim Cook told me I should get an Android if I wanted to sideload apps, I welcome this change on my new Android. It should help me communicate with the legacy iPhone users who use propietary extensions on a public system.

:cool:
Is iMessage a public system ? Hmmm.
 
Apple should ditch their unbelievably limited proprietary reactions and just use regular emojis anyways.
Absolutely! Apple should just become like everyone else, a follower not a leader. Stop with the M1 b.s. and humbly return to Intel like the rest of the world. Make macOS look and feel like Windows. In fact, get rid of macOS and just install Windows as the default. Switch iOS to Android. It would make life much easier for everyone.
 
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