Why is it so limiting?

[rdstoll]

So got my iPhone 6 Friday after 3 years on Android. Love the smoothness of the OS and find the app experience way better than the same apps on Android but am a bit puzzled about some of the iOS limitations beyond obvious things like widgets on home screen, etc.

1) No third party text messaging apps? iMessage is boring and the only way to change color schemes appears to be to download some poorly-rated third party apps. There are exactly zero third party SMS apps that one can use in place of iMessage.

2) Setting an alarm without vibrate? You can't do that on the stock Clock app. Not a choice. How about downloading a third party alarm? Well, sure, you can do that but if you don't remember to open the app before you go to bed it won't work. And the app won't work in the background if you set to silent or enable Do Not Disturb, which is logical to use when you want to sleep!

3) Change SSID on personal Hotspot? You can't do that. The default is xxxx's iPhone and the only way to change is if you change the whole name of your phone. This is a very basic option on Android.

These are just three things I've noticed and I'm somewhat surprised that in 2014 we still have Apple limiting flexibility lime this. These things should be as normal for a mobile OS as the sky is blue but guess not.

 

[MacDawg]

IMO (no hard data) the vast majority of typical iPhone users don't care about any of those items

 

[AndyK]

In all my time owning iPhones since the first model was released, this must be the first time I've heard of anyone caring about the lack of excitement they get from messages.app.

 

[richwoodrocket]

Actually, the alarm will go off on do not disturb and silent. I know because I have my iPhone on silent all the time and my alarm never fails to wake me up in the morning.

 

[Shuri]

2) Setting an alarm without vibrate? You can't do that on the stock Clock app. Not a choice. How about downloading a third party alarm? Well, sure, you can do that but if you don't remember to open the app before you go to bed it won't work. And the app won't work in the background if you set to silent or enable Do Not Disturb, which is logical to use when you want to sleep!

You don't have to open or close any app to do anything in background, iOS manages everything for you, based on your usage and your settings. Apps with alarm don't have any problem.

 

[EzDoesItSC]

Only thing I wish iMessage had was a way to schedule a message to be sent at another time. On my jail broken iPhone 5 I had byte sms and I used that feature quite a bit.

 

[Ntombi]

Actually, the alarm will go off on do not disturb and silent. I know because I have my iPhone on silent all the time and my alarm never fails to wake me up in the morning.

Right. And I mostly turn on DND when I go to sleep. The alarm works just fine in that mode.

 

[laudern]

So got my iPhone 6 Friday after 3 years on Android. Love the smoothness of the OS and find the app experience way better than the same apps on Android but am a bit puzzled about some of the iOS limitations beyond obvious things like widgets on home screen, etc.

1) No third party text messaging apps? iMessage is boring and the only way to change color schemes appears to be to download some poorly-rated third party apps. There are exactly zero third party SMS apps that one can use in place of iMessage.

2) Setting an alarm without vibrate? You can't do that on the stock Clock app. Not a choice. How about downloading a third party alarm? Well, sure, you can do that but if you don't remember to open the app before you go to bed it won't work. And the app won't work in the background if you set to silent or enable Do Not Disturb, which is logical to use when you want to sleep!

3) Change SSID on personal Hotspot? You can't do that. The default is xxxx's iPhone and the only way to change is if you change the whole name of your phone. This is a very basic option on Android.

These are just three things I've noticed and I'm somewhat surprised that in 2014 we still have Apple limiting flexibility lime this. These things should be as normal for a mobile OS as the sky is blue but guess not.

I don't think you're going to fit in around here.....

 

[GreyOS]

Actually, the alarm will go off on do not disturb and silent. I know because I have my iPhone on silent all the time and my alarm never fails to wake me up in the morning.

Third party alarms? (Which I'm pretty sure he was referring to?)

Their alarm notifications will be silent if DND is on, won't they?

Or is there an alarm API now?

 

[Stella]

IMO (no hard data) the vast majority of typical iPhone users don't care about any of those items

If those items aren't available on the iPhone and they've (probably) not used another smartphone then, yes, by default - they won't care about them - because they've never used them before to miss.

So got my iPhone 6 Friday after 3 years on Android. Love the smoothness of the OS and find the app experience way better than the same apps on Android but am a bit puzzled about some of the iOS limitations beyond obvious things like widgets on home screen, etc.
<snip>

Remember that Apple cater to the common denominator. It would be too complex for the majority of users to alter SSID - or even care why they should do any of this. Realistically, how many Android users actually take advantage of this feature?

 

[rdstoll]

I don't think you're going to fit in around here.....

Fitting into a crowd is the last thing I want to do, frankly.


As far as the alarms, from what I understand looking at third party alarms is that if you have DND or Silent enabled, they won't work unless you specifically open the app before going to bed. Seems risky.

 

[Nozuka]

yeah, the alarmclock thing has been like that for years, sadly.
forgot to open the app a few times and then finally just gave up and stayed with the stock app.

 

[white4s]

there's 3rd party apps for SMS, imessage is iphone only so there wouldn't be a replacement app, defeats the purpose. imessage is also encrypted

my alarm does not use vibrate, not sure what you're talking about here

 

[GreyOS]

pretty sure there aren' third party SMS apps. at best i think there might be some that let you draft one which then sends it to the messages app to send, but they don't receive SMS. could be wrong though.

 

[geoff5093]

If those items aren't available on the iPhone and they've (probably) not used another smartphone then, yes, by default - they won't care about them - because they've never used them before to miss.



Remember that Apple cater to the common denominator. It would be too complex for the majority of users to alter SSID - or even care why they should do any of this. Realistically, how many Android users actually take advantage of this feature?

I know many that do. Maybe someone doesn't want "Paul's iPhone" to be the name of the hotspot? I know I change mine to something I find more fitting. I also love being able to set the band/channel that gets used, if I want faster WiFi in congested areas I use the 5GHz band for my hotspot.

 

[gstevie]

I know many that do. Maybe someone doesn't want "Paul's iPhone" to be the name of the hotspot? I know I change mine to something I find more fitting. I also love being able to set the band/channel that gets used, if I want faster WiFi in congested areas I use the 5GHz band for my hotspot.

If SSID is an issue for the user, could they not go into General settings, about, name and make it what ever they like? They would have very little use for the name there for any other purpose really. Not the most ideal situation granted, but a solution to the problem none the less.

 

[Mtmspa]

The stock apps work for tens of millions of users. just sayin'...

 

[Stella]

Maybe someone doesn't want "Paul's iPhone" to be the name of the hotspot?

Thats a great reason there! Mind you, for that very reason, I rename my iPhone so its not called "xxxx's phone".

 

[Jr1985]

1) all the messaging apps I used on android were ugly.

2) set DND to switch off before your alarm goes off?

3) I'm surprised you can't change the name.

 

[akswun]

3rd party messaging apps?

Whats App
KiK
and if you're brave enough
BB Messenger

All have their issues even imessage.

 

[jclardy]

The problem with replacing Messages is this:

SMS
read your text messages (SMS or MMS)
send SMS messages
edit your text messages (SMS or MMS)
receive text messages (SMS)
receive text messages (MMS)

That is an excerpt from the permissions a user grants to an application on Android (HelloSMS) So basically iMessage's encryption would be useless because the app has access to plaintext in order to display it to the user.

Google gives you the option to compromise your data security, which I guess is nice in terms of openness, but Apple tends to err on the side of caution.

 

[Paradoxally]

Wait until iOS 8 jailbreak is released. iOS is much better with it, trust me.

 

[Italianblend]

1) No third party text messaging apps? iMessage is boring and the only way to change color schemes appears to be to download some poorly-rated third party apps. There are exactly zero third party SMS apps that one can use in place of iMessage.

Text colors have been my absolute major #1 gripe about ios. People will tell you that the majority of ios users don't care. That may well be, but still, there are some who do and it's not like it would tax the processor or anything.

I made a thread about it some time ago. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1655765/

 

[mikelegacy]

Fitting into a crowd is the last thing I want to do, frankly.


As far as the alarms, from what I understand looking at third party alarms is that if you have DND or Silent enabled, they won't work unless you specifically open the app before going to bed. Seems risky.

Oh look guys, a nonconformist.

----------

The problem with replacing Messages is this:

SMS
read your text messages (SMS or MMS)
send SMS messages
edit your text messages (SMS or MMS)
receive text messages (SMS)
receive text messages (MMS)

That is an excerpt from the permissions a user grants to an application on Android (HelloSMS) So basically iMessage's encryption would be useless because the app has access to plaintext in order to display it to the user.

Google gives you the option to compromise your data security, which I guess is nice in terms of openness, but Apple tends to err on the side of caution.

Exactly what people don't understand. iMessage is the greatest advancement in text message security yet. I don't want people snooping on my messages.

I have nothing to hide, but it's nice knowing that Apple is ONE company who refuses to give in to our government's demands to know everything about everybody.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

IMO (no hard data) the vast majority of typical iPhone users don't care about any of those items

In my experience (granted, n=1; my gf), it's not that the vast majority don't care, but rather they would rather have the "Apple Experience" with stores they can go to for help over Android's non-support. And they simply take the good with the bad.

At one point she (a very non-techie) even jailbroke her phone to turn it into a hello kitty machine It was disgusting (and she loved it!) but ended up resetting to factory defaults because it would crash too much.