Senator Warren calls out Apple for shutting down Beeper’s ‘iMessage to Android’ solution::U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is throwing her weight behind Beeper, the app that allowed Android users to message iPhone users via iMessage,

  • thejml@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    I’ve got both. iOS for work, android for personal use. I’m in DevSecOps and therefore tend to see everything from this sort of mindset. Apple didn’t make a deal with them, they don’t have an open standard. It’s proprietary, it’s locked down. Why would any company with that sort of a product allow another company to interface with their offerings without paying for it? Even if it’s nice and secure, this will add load to the iMessage servers that people aren’t paying Apple for. It could introduce errors/issues they never tested for because they have a closed ecosystem and only have to test with their own devices, a known quantity. It could even increase potential attack vectors.

    If you offered wifi to your friends via a guest network and then someone figured out how to connect their whole neighborhood to it, would you be fine with that?

    • LilPappyWigwam@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Good points. But, and using your LAN comparison: if my wifi’s guest network used some custom method (let’s also consider it a proprietary method for the sake of comparison) to, A) impose an arbitrary limit of uploading files no larger than 100KB (and/or have the files heavily compressed to meet said limit) while B) offering no clear method of communication to the non-guest users why this limitation is occuring (or even exists)… I can imagine both guests and non-guests would quickly become irritated and start bickering among themselves as to whose fault this arbitrarily-imposed “local network file sharing problem” should be blamed on.

      I don’t think it’s the guests fault for being arbitrarily limited. And I wish the non-guests could be told why the limitations are imposed.

      Because no one behind a trillion dollar company should (in good faith, at least) concern themselves with restricting non-Apple, shareable files to be seen as “just slightly, technically accessible to Apple devices”.

      These constraints are clearly imposed on Apple users (by no one but Apple) to alienate “non-privileged, non-Apple customers” (them) from the “privileged Apple customers” (us).

      And Apple’s goal on “finding common ground” seems to be: do not negotiate with any proposed solutions as the division we are creating is intentional.