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Iphone Apple Technology

Tim Cook Says 'Buy Your Mom an iPhone' If You Want To End Green Bubbles (theverge.com) 358

Apple CEO Tim Cook dismissed the idea of adopting RCS messaging to put an end to the green bubbles that surround messages when iPhone users text someone on an Android device. From a report: "I don't hear our users asking that we put a lot of energy in on that at this point," Cook said when asked how Apple founder Steve Jobs would feel about using the RCS standard in iMessage during Vox Media's Code 2022 event on Wednesday night. Instead, Cook said, "I would love to convert you to an iPhone."

But the person who asked the question, Vox Media's LiQuan Hunt, came back with a valid complaint, saying that his mother can't see the videos he sends her. It all comes down to a lack of interoperability between iMessage and RCS, both messaging systems that could allow higher-quality images and videos -- if they worked together. If you've tried to send a video from Android to iOS (or vice versa) using your regular text messaging app, then you know that your videos come out completely fuzzy on the other end. Cook's suggestion to fix this annoying issue? "Buy your mom an iPhone."

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Tim Cook Says 'Buy Your Mom an iPhone' If You Want To End Green Bubbles

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  • by nagora ( 177841 ) on Thursday September 08, 2022 @06:32AM (#62862301)

    Apple is a lousy company lead by louses.

    "It just works. More or less, depending on your definition of 'works'. Now send us money and shut up."

    • by FudRucker ( 866063 ) on Thursday September 08, 2022 @06:40AM (#62862313)
      i agree, these big IT corporations use file formats to hold communications & people's data hostage for ransom/profit and this method of doing business should be illegal
    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by nagora ( 177841 )

      Lice. The plural of louse is lice. Duh.

    • by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Thursday September 08, 2022 @08:13AM (#62862615)

      We have been so fixated on Open Source, that we have forgotten about Open Specification, and just kinda assumed that Open Source would just include open specification. But we were also so focused on the Evil Microsoft in the early 2000's that Apple was showing to be the savior, where the BSD based OS X, and a good portion of Darwin being open source, we just kinda flocked to Apple, at least in terms of wanting a popular consumer device (we had the Linux guys, pushing for Linux for the Desktop, but that never really went anywhere until Google, made Android off the Linux Kernel (and made everything else closed))

      We have allowed companies to be able to patent, copyright and trademark communication methods And a company will do whatever they can do to make money, despite the morality of any particular individual within the org (even the CEO) So for a company like like Apple that has no problems selling a product with their own private protocols, they are going to provide more locked down protocols, because it is easier for them to develop for, and something they could sell to someone else for the right price. While a less popular company, will probably want to follow the more accepted standards, because that will make sure their product is more universally used. Like the early 2000's Apple, who was fighting to get out of near bankruptcy, who did a lot of effort to make sure that the early Apple computers will play nicely with Windows, Linux and Unix systems because they were not big enough to control the standards.

       

    • by memory_register ( 6248354 ) on Thursday September 08, 2022 @09:37AM (#62862945)
      iPhones really do just work. It is the reason we moved my parents to the Apple ecosystem. Say what you will about standards and what is technically better, all I care about is that my family can use it without me being their constant tech support.
      • by RedEars ( 1622495 ) on Thursday September 08, 2022 @11:22AM (#62863407)
        This horseshit has got to go. You know what else "just works"? Every Android I've had for the last 10 years, including my father's, my mother's, my kids. Better features, great apps, MUCH better pricepoint for what I've needed.
        • by trawg ( 308495 )

          Every Android I've had for the last 10 years, including my father's, my mother's, my kids.

          Cool, but like the comment about Apple, this is just anecdata. I've just bought the new Pixel 6a and while it is generally fine, it has a crashing bug in my media player (DoubleTwist) which will reboot the phone. Sometimes it will boot back up to the bootloader with an error message. This is from playing any locally stored mp3, a behaviour that worked fine on my previous Pixel 3.

          My boss just returned his Pixel 6 Pro after it would continually drop the connection in the middle of calls. This seems to be a s

      • by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Thursday September 08, 2022 @01:35PM (#62864049)

        iPhones really do just work.

        Just works is relative. As far as my mother is concerned iPhones don't work at all. Not in an actual sense (and in that sense it's not like alternatives don't work), but rather in a user concept sense.

        She simply cannot figure out how to navigate apps without a back button (the idea of looking in the top left is beyond her). As a result she absolutely hated her iPhone and believes Android "works" much better.

        That said my father uses an iPhone. My point is that you can't speak for others. What works, what is best, what is use friendly and ideal is a deeply personal opinion.

  • Alternatively (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Thursday September 08, 2022 @06:45AM (#62862323)

    Ditch the iPhone and get an Android phone.

    • Re:Alternatively (Score:4, Interesting)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Thursday September 08, 2022 @07:20AM (#62862423) Homepage Journal

      That's what is happening here. My wife has an iPad and an iPhone, but they are both a pain in the arse. She doesn't like the iPhone camera either, since Apple removed the beauty filter.

      I don't want to pay for iCloud storage either. I already have Jottacloud and Google. Apple seems to have crippled them on iOS, because only their iCloud backup app can run in the background and remembering to keep the other ones open long enough to sync is obviously going to lead to disaster.

      Her next device will be Android.

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        It's kind of sad that her reason for not liking the toy is the removal of a vanity feature designed to allow her to at best misrepresent herself to others, and at worst feed into the constant bombardment of "be beautiful or be shunned" that all that social media, marketers and phone manufacturers are pushing. If anything the removal of that filter is a plus in my book.

        You should prolly tell her you love her more often or something.

        • It's kind of sad that her reason for not liking the toy is the removal of a vanity feature designed to allow her to at best misrepresent herself to others, and at worst feed into the constant bombardment of "be beautiful or be shunned"

          That's literally what Apple is about, so it should surprise nobody.

        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          It's the HD effect. Everyone looked good on SD TV broadcasts because the low video resolution smoothed out their features.

          Then HD came along and suddenly you could see every pore, every dangling nose hair, the glue holding fake eyelashes in. Make-up often made it worse.

          Google's camera app has a beauty filter, but it's very subtle. The photos still look like you, just not in such exquisite detail that every tiny imperfection is visible. Professional photographers would use lighting or a bit of light make-up

  • by suss ( 158993 ) on Thursday September 08, 2022 @06:51AM (#62862325)

    Tim's "Let them eat cake!"-moment.

    • Don't you guys have phones?

      • In defense of that braindead moment, Blizzard is now making fuck-you amounts of money with the product that started that meme.

        • Fair, Tim's just comment rang the same bells, brain-fart/tone-deaf PR moment from a company with a Scrooge McDuck style money tower.

  • Encryption is more important to me that being able to send pics or videos to Android users. The wiki says that encryption is something Google extended to the version they use, does that mean I will have an encrypted conversation with an Android phone?

  • by stud9920 ( 236753 ) on Thursday September 08, 2022 @07:08AM (#62862371)

    In Europe nobody uses iMessage. I don't own an iPhone, but I would receive way more fallback SMSes if my friends did. Only my luddite dad sends me SMSes and it's from a feature phone.
    We have WhatsApp and Telegram. Have a wider set of features I ever would imagine compared to iMessage, and then again I don't have to imagine a lot because most of the features are more of 50% of your audience had Android

  • by C. Mattix ( 32747 ) <cmattix.gmail@com> on Thursday September 08, 2022 @07:14AM (#62862403) Homepage

    RCS is just not the right solution. Weeks ago Google tried to AstroTurf Apple into making this change with a rather deceptive marketing push. You can always tell a tech product is not a leader when they resort to marketing jargon and emotional arguments, rather than the product's actual features/benefits.

    Too bad if you are on Verizon. You can use RCS, but only to other Verizon network users.
    https://www.verizon.com/suppor... [verizon.com]
    "Verizon's Advanced Messaging is currently not compatible with other carriers. Advanced Messaging messages that are sent to another carrier will fall back to SMS / MMS format."

    Oh.. and what about the built in advertising the RCS has?
    https://techcrunch.com/2022/06... [techcrunch.com]

    What is Google's track record with messaging again?
    https://arstechnica.com/gadget... [arstechnica.com]

    • by Merk42 ( 1906718 )
      Is that a problem with RCS, or Late State Capitalism where every company wants its own piece of the pie?
      I've often said that Email would not be invented nowadays. It's not proprietary enough.
  • Use Signal (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 08, 2022 @07:19AM (#62862421)

    Well. You can always use Signal or another more secure third party messaging app. Signal is not integrated with SMS but it can share videos, pictures texts etc. without giving the data to Facebook, Google or Apple.

  • by MailtoDelete ( 863627 ) on Thursday September 08, 2022 @07:24AM (#62862439)
    Switch to Signal for messaging and be done with it. We had this issue in my family until I introduced all the iPhone users to a REAL interoperable and secure messaging app, and we have never looked back.
    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Thursday September 08, 2022 @08:12AM (#62862607) Homepage Journal

      I don't trust Signal, the company or the app. The protocol is fine, but the app is bloated crap which means a massive attack surface as it tries to take over every vaguely messaging related function of your phone. It's got a bloody cryptocurrency wallet in it now.

      Signal the corporation won't interoperate with other clients, so you have to use their crapware.

      Telegram with an unofficial client that defaults to maximum security might be a decent replacement. The EFF gave it top marks, the same as Signal. Telegram has some advantages, like support for DIY IoT devices if you are into that.

    • by radoni ( 267396 )

      Yes, Signal is good enough for now. If you can get past the "app fatigue" most people have with their smartphones then they do warm up to Signal when people they love are also using it. The ongoing problem is just that an outdated version of Signal has inter-op issues with a fresh updated install. Lots of people never update the apps on their phone or start the app after a power loss event so it's not as reliable in the sense that messages can sometimes go /dev/null for 6-8 months.

      Matrix protocol is the rea

  • by Lohrno ( 670867 ) on Thursday September 08, 2022 @07:25AM (#62862445)

    Some models even have better technology like SD card readers, and 3.55mm audio jacks.

    • by Gonoff ( 88518 )

      The last couple of mine had USB-C as well.

      An added benefit for me is that my phone didn't get to be so because of a legal department and other questionable business practices!

  • Who needs to use the basic inbuilt messenger app? I never ever do. Signal is my first priority and WhatsApp the second. Between those two, I have everyone worth sending a message to. Apples walled garden can take a hike as can Google's messages app.
    • I use SMS/MMS, with large attachments via email. This combo does everything I need to do, and it interoperates with everyone. If there's anything it doesn't do, I don't need to do it.

  • My mother can never use iphone as she does not speak any language iOS supports. Android does support Estonian language.
  • Time to hit them with the anti-trust club and make them be interoperable or else...

  • by Gription ( 1006467 ) on Thursday September 08, 2022 @07:55AM (#62862563)
    And then Tim Cook demonstrates "C level" stupidity . . .

    If you want to take over a market setting up a 'walled garden' is a great path to failure.

    Just make your product work seamlessly so the users don't ever notice and then you have a chance to dominate a market.

  • but ended up asking me for an iPhone because they wanted to be able to message their friends without using an interface from 1995. iMessage is the single greatest vendor lock-in tool Apple has. It absolutely works. It's a defacto social network among young people.
  • "I don't hear our users asking that we put a lot of energy in on that at this point,"

    Small wonder, 'his' users don't see them.

  • by plazman30 ( 531348 ) on Thursday September 08, 2022 @11:40AM (#62863485) Homepage
    Well, why the hell is still using iMessages? He and his mon can both get telegram or Signal accounts and send stuff that way, RCS is a horrible solution because it's still tied to the carrier. You want something that's totally carrier independent. Signal, WhatsApp, Telegram, just to name a few are all good options.

In the long run, every program becomes rococco, and then rubble. -- Alan Perlis

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