Apple vows to squash iMessage SMS-KILLER Apple has 'fessed up to an iMessage problem that occasionally clobbers iPhone-toting fanbois if they use non-iOS mobes and vowed to fix it. The long-standing iMessage issue means that people who change to using another device which doesn't have iMessage – such as one running OS Android – may not receive all of their text …
WhatsApp? Don't Facebook know enough personal info? I really don't want to be reliant on a propriety messaging system as a replacement for SMS.
What's needed is a widely adopted internet based text messaging platform that supports public key encryption. Keys could easily be shared these days using QR codes or by NFC. Then a private message could be exactly that - private.
I had this for a while (switched from iThing to a Nexus for a while, then discovered half my incoming messages were getting delivered to my iPad instead). Quite irritating really.
Then I found MightyText on Android, which was very nice (get your SMSs relayed to their server for web access, send replies through the web site which your phone relays out again) - nice, but of course not available for iOS, so I lost that when moving back. (Until later this year, when I move to a mobile network which routes all the SMS traffic through my own server, which could be nice...)
I turned off iMessage because it was buggy.
I had no data plan at the time and, if I was off wifi, I would get the text via SMS in iMessage.
Once I got to a hotspot, I would get the text again. Complete with new message notifications.
Kept on thinking it was a glitch in one of the iOS updates, but it never went away with any refresh, so I took it out. Besides, I was on unlimited texts anyway.
Turns out doing that was fortuitous, given that I got a Nexus 5* later.
Other iMesses?
- losing all my MP3s due to an iTunes change and user error on my end.
- getting locked out of all my photos due to iPhoto version incompatibilities. & user error. Picasa can get them out, but what a mess.
Warning:
Apple's iProggies have the tendency to "database away" files instead of leaving them where they belong, on the file system. This is probably one of the more dangerous risks of Apple lock-in and I will be much more careful about relying on them henceforth.
*Not so much sworn off Apple as I wanted to walk on the grass on the other side of the fence for a while to check it out. Both have their pros and cons.
"Cupertino's problems were compounded when it experienced a server glitch which prevented Apple users from reliably disabling iMessage from their hardware before exchanging it for another device from outside Apple's walled garden."
.......nothing to see here, move along now.*
*Yes, if you think that I am being satirical you'd be right.
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