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Craig Federighi and Greg Joswiak Discuss USB-C on iPhone, iMessage on Android, Lack of iPadOS Calculator App, Pace of Innovation, and More

james2538 said:
iMessage is one of the few things keeping me locked in Apple's ecosystem, like I'm sure it is for others.
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Serious question - I like iMessage but that isn’t a big reason I am in the apple ecosystem. Could you please elaborate if you have time. Maybe I am missing some features that could be really cool.

In all other countries WhatsApp is the main messaging app although I tried to move everyone to Signal and failed miserably.

Is iMessage better than WhatsApp and in what way? Of course it’s owned by Facebook but please skip that reason for now 😊.
 
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When it comes to younger/older family members, iMessage isn't what locks me in -- its the security behind the OS. I am all for openness and competiation but please don't allow blanket sideloading and fragmented markets and if you are forced to, give us the option of locking that out for our family that doesn't know better.
 
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kstotlani said:
Serious question - I like iMessage but that isn’t a big reason I am in the apple ecosystem. Could you please elaborate if you have time. Maybe I am missing some features that could be really cool.

In all other countries WhatsApp is the main messaging app although I tried to move everyone to Signal and failed miserably.

Is iMessage better than WhatsApp and in what way? Of course it’s owned by Facebook but please skip that reason for now 😊.
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Mostly because I know so many others that use iMessage, so simply an inertia thing. Group SMS with Android sucks. I also enjoy message sync across my devices (MacBook/iPad/iPhone).

I also use Telegram a lot, which syncs messages across devices as well (except my Apple Watch) and in many ways is vastly superior to iMessage. iMessage getting edit/delete functions this latest iOS is something I've been using in Telegram for more than 5 years. Not everyone is willing to switch messaging platforms though.

There's other stuff that keeps me in Apple's ecosystem too: Apple Pay, Apple Music, HomeKit, and all the apps I've bought over the years. Probably a lot more I'm forgetting. I could find alternatives for everything but migrating each service would take time; that adds up. Especially since I've been using Apple stuff since 2002.

Android still lacking in the tablet and smart watch categories doesn't help.
 
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erikkfi said:
I don’t even care if they put iMessage on Android but that Federighi answer is pretty close to nonsensical. How does someone so glaringly inarticulate get to become Everyone’s Favorite Apple Executive?
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That's and intentional "plausible" answer. Finely crafted words that dodge the more important reasons not to do it.

It's their choice - that's the bottom line I guess. Every company can do what they want I guess.

He's a great executive for being able to speak in such a convoluted manner, dodge the questions in a clever way.
 
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MacRumors said:
If we're going to enter a market and go down the road of building an application, we have to be in it in a way that's going to make a difference, that we'll have a lot of customers, and have a great experience," Federighi said.
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What a load of crap. Like iTunes is such a great experience on PC. And don't start me with iCloud and photos, it's purposely badly designed to push you towards a Mac.

I get that Apple wants to look better than Windows and Android, but we don't all have the luxury to decide what device we will have to use (work, school, budget, compatibility, specific apps used by colleagues or family, ... so many reasons). That makes it a customer hostile move and their answer is just tone deaf.

Apple doesn't work for free, ever. But even if you pay for a service, you're not garanteed to have it work unless you're also invested totally in their hardware.

I wish Apple would become a bit more open. Microsoft's approach is much more friendly, they could take a page from their book.
 
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Jessica Lares said:
There's lots of room for different calculator apps. Some people prefer the basic +-*/, others benefit from something like Soulver which is like a piece of scratch paper. PCalc is fully customizable to however you want it.

The problem with the Dark Sky API was that it was meant to be used alongside like a home automation app where things happened when it became these set of conditions, or like giving you the forecast in a todo app, but a lot of developers just made endless weather apps, which is why it made sense for Apple to just buy it out, discourage the third-party apps, and let it go back to being what it was designed for all along but still give people the weather app we wanted.
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With all the Billions of dollars, I think Apple could and should start a software skunkworks for stuff like "weather" apps.

I mean - Just today I can finally send an Email from "Mail" application on Mac with a future timed delivery. I'd love to have real features in the Mail application on Mac, Eudora from c1997 would be a good specification to match. Apple could just throw 20 Million on that and have all the goodness of the best Email application EVER as the next version of "Mail"
 
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Ghost31 said:
Ha! Yeah ok. by this logic, why the hell did they finally add a weather app when there’s so many weather apps on the App Store?
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IMHO not the same. The weather app has some user data, since it saves the locations you want to know the weather of. And this information is useful in Widges too. Ideally you'd want to only have to configure this once for all your devices.

Calculator doesn't really have anything like that. You can mix and match any calculator apps and don't really lose anything.
 
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james2538 said:
I mean just be honest, it's what you said in 2013:



iMessage is one of the few things keeping me locked in Apple's ecosystem, like I'm sure it is for others.



Honestly, Apple might be better served by taking the iPad, iPhone, and Watch off a yearly update cycle. The latest iPad Pros, iPhone 14 and Watch Series 8 just weren't that impressive.

At the very least it would be a lot better if iOS/iPad/Watch OS wasn't tied to their respective hardware releases. I feel like we'd see better quality feature updates that weren't quite as buggy. macOS for instance seemed a lot more stable back in the Leopard, Snow Leopard and Lion days when the releases were years apart from each other.
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I'm at the point where I hate updating my Phone or computer, all it means is a year with bugs until its stable to what I had a year ago.
 
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tomsop said:
I got the 11 and saw no real need to upgrade for 3 years until Iphone 14.
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I'm curious what drove the need to upgrade now? My 11 Pro is just as fast as the day I got it, still does everything I need. I honestly can't think of one new feature in the newer models that would change anything about my day to day experience. I can barely recall what the new features are. At this rate I'm not sure when I'll upgrade - unless something actually compelling comes along, this thing could last 5, 6, maybe even 7 years.

The last phone that truly gave me new capabilities that didn't exist before was my iPhone 6. Touch ID (biometric authentication) and Apple Pay, things that couldn't be done with previous hardware. Even the upgrade to the 11 Pro was mostly about speed - the 6 became painfully slow after 3 years, and somehow I stuck it out another 2. Pretty much everything was still an incremental improvement of the same basic functionality - much faster, better camera, better screen, different biometrics, etc. Nothing in the 11 Pro fundamentally changed the way I use my phone like the 6 did.

I wonder when the next iPhone will come out that will be a game changer like the 6 was for me. I see nothing like that in the current lineup - just a little more, a little better. But ultimately the same old experience.

senttoschool said:
They camped out in line for the iPhone 6. What was so innovative about the iPhone 6 except a bigger screen?
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Apple Pay. The 5s had Touch ID, but the 6 introduced Apple Pay which was a brand new capability for the iPhone.
 
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kstotlani said:
Serious question - I like iMessage but that isn’t a big reason I am in the apple ecosystem. Could you please elaborate if you have time. Maybe I am missing some features that could be really cool.

In all other countries WhatsApp is the main messaging app although I tried to move everyone to Signal and failed miserably.

Is iMessage better than WhatsApp and in what way? Of course it’s owned by Facebook but please skip that reason for now 😊.
Click to expand...

With new version of Signal I think you are nearly or absolutely FORCED to give access to your full contacts list. Signal did something funny - maybe to avoid going broke. Snowden still recommends Signal as of Oct 2022? I doubt it.

Find out what Edward Snowden recommends and use that. Signal is out!

I believe WhatsApp does that "contacts" data mining on you as well. Facebook can use your data for whatever I guess. WhatsApp touts "end to end encryption", but they are still mining you for your data.

I believe that any and all data about ourselves should be automatically forbidden for use by any company unless we consent to it.


I'd pay 1/10th of a penny for every message if it was truly secure. It would be a great competitor to iMessage and WhatsApp and whatever. Private messaging is a bit of a holy grail, but if it's too private and too secure, the government won't allow it to exist. Just look at Signal again and try to figure out what they have done.
 
tomsop said:
Remember in the first few years of Iphone every IOS release felt like you were getting a new Iphone? Miss that feeling.
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There are still so many little surprise and delight things that could be done with the standard apps too.

For instance in contacts, if I put the zip code in, why doesn’t town and state populate? This info is relatively static and a feedback button could alert team should it change.

Or if I highlight an address in safari or a book or elsewhere why is there no menu button “open in maps”?
 
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Jessica Lares said:
There's lots of room for different calculator apps. Some people prefer the basic +-*/, others benefit from something like Soulver which is like a piece of scratch paper. PCalc is fully customizable to however you want it.

The problem with the Dark Sky API was that it was meant to be used alongside like a home automation app where things happened when it became these set of conditions, or like giving you the forecast in a todo app, but a lot of developers just made endless weather apps, which is why it made sense for Apple to just buy it out, discourage the third-party apps, and let it go back to being what it was designed for all along but still give people the weather app we wanted.
Click to expand...
ok then why does the iPhone, Watch and Mac have a native app then?

Why make a calender, mail app then? y'know
 
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Try using iMessage over a wired ethernet connection on iPad and you’ll quickly realize just how incompetent Apple really are once you scratch below the surface sheen. I highly doubt they could even make it work on Android. Don’t make the mistake of thinking they know what they’re doing.
 
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No big story here.
* USB-C ? I prefer Lightning but I will live with USB-C without thinking about it once I buy the right cables.
* iPad Calc ? Its absence is difficult to understand, but indeed I found better alternatives. What I find really missing is a successor to MacDraw (yes, the old MacIntosh software was very good for that purpose and I miss it, all modern alteratives are poor or excessively expensive)
 
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Tofupunch said:
I already liked Joanna Stern but this made me respect her even more. She asks the tough questions - even when the apple execs are there in person. Kudos!
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She does a lot of smart stuff, but question about why doesn’t Apple make this or why doesn’t Apple make that are stupid questions. Apple doesn’t make them because they’re low or no priority and there are good alternatives available.

Want a calculator? The app store is full of them. Android users wanting iMessage? F*ck’em! Let them toss their POS and buy an iPhone.

The number of times even smart people confuse Apple with a wishing well or Santa Claus…
 
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"If we just shipped an app that really didn't get critical mass on other platforms, what it would have accompanied is it would have held us back in innovating in all the ways we want to innovate in messages for our customers and wouldn't have accomplished much at all in any other way," Federighi explained. iMessage on Android seemed like a "throwaway" that "was not going to serve the world," he concluded.

This is hypocrisy at its best. Not that it stopped Apple releasing Apple Music for Android, which was not exactly a world-changing experience either.
 
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