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Apple Plans to Allow Siri to Default to Frequently-Used Third-Party Messaging Apps Later This Year
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This seems like a response to recent antitrust pressure targeting tech companies, which is likely to intensify after a certain politician is out of office. There's no good reason for Apple to not go further and allow third-party default apps.
In addition to that social stigma, Apple makes it difficult to actually switch away from iMessage. You should stop yelling at the kids to get off your lawn and take a moment to consider the situation objectively. The Supreme Court, which isn't full of millennials, ruled that Apple can be sued for monopolistic behavior with regard to the App Store. The unregulated behavior of the tech industry has become a genuine concern to society.
I wish that I could just have Siri send a message without having to confirm. Just put a small text under the message that says (Siri Dictation) or something along those lines that let the receiver know that it was Siri in case there was a mistake. 90% of the time it get it perfect. And when Siri gets it wrong, I usually just send it anyway and let the receiver figure it out.
Sort of, but this still requires you to say “on Spotify” after your Siri request, which is different from what I was requesting.
Ah. Not that much harder to say "On Spotify" though. At least we're getting Siri support.
Right? The green bubble thing is absolutely the most absurd thing I've ever heard. I've seen other people write about it too. Any person that is shallow enough to judge me or anyone else based on their cellular device is not someone I'd want to befriend anyway. Shall we start judging each other on our cars of choice, too?
Kids are welcome on my lawn, as long as their hurt widdle feelies over an offensive color green don’t make them try to force me to plant different grass.
And let’s move away from the App Store back to the actual topic: iMessage supposedly illegal because it’s not on all platforms. Apple implements an end to end encrypted messaging service to the benefit of its customers, and they’re castigated by people who are insecure about the color of their bubbles. Should we also haul before a judge every developer who doesn’t code for all possible platforms? Is this the most ridiculous idea ever suggested in the tech world? Is this because notch-bashing didn’t work?
Enjoy your safe spaces.
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Please just kill Siri and put us all out of our collective misery. Apple is clearly out of its league here.
Good to see Apple FINALLY open up with Siri, with it having an ability to control Spotify and others, now this story. Keep it up Apple.
While agreed, FINALLY some decent Siri improvement news since the whole staff being reshuffled under the new executive from Google. It’s almost been a full year!
It’s good that Apple is introducing this sort of flexibility—true “ease of use” should come with simple defaults but deeper, more complex options for pro or power-users. The vast majority of people in the US will continue to use the built in Messages app, but these new options will satisfy a vocal and important minority.
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I think Nilay is wrong if he calls Messages anti-competitive, but he’s absolutely right that green bubbles are lower status amongst power-Messages users, and ruin the party when one person in a group text isn’t using iOS, rendering the whole conversation in green bubbles and affording limited functionality. It’s no doubt a first world problem, but green bubbles are definitely are a bummer.
That isn't always the proper decision. Say you use your phone for business and home and therefore use Messages for work because of the security but Messenger for your family. After a weekend or a family vacation you don't want Siri changing your business communications to Messenger because you use that a lot on your time off. No algorithm for selecting which app to use will be perfect and, using voice direction between Messages and Messenger isn't likely to be perfect given how similar they sound. Even if Apple nails the selection 99% of the time there will be a flood of stories on how Apple failed at the job.
I agree. However, machine learning could close the gap on this issue 99% of time. For example, it's unlikely you message your significant other on more than 1 app, so Siri could learn this and associate the "correct" app to that contact, etc. Would it be perfect? Perhaps not, but as it learns, it virtually could become perfect.