I find it constantly disappointing the repeated lie of "just works".
Apple offers a UC system that is easier to install and configure than other UC systems. That's what "just works" means. It doesn't mean that if you turn a UC system on, don't bother to turn it off that it will magically know you don't want it anymore which is what the Android people suppose it should do. This would be like an article being critical of gmail for not disabling email when you sell your computer.
Personally I think this kind of bullshit is driving customers (like the one in the lawsuit) to android.
There is data on conversions. It has been pretty consistent that the flow is almost entirely in the other direction.
Apple peaked last year with market share
Actually not it hasn't. Among phones $500 and up its marketshare continues to grow and they are gaining in the $400-500 category. They have no share in $400 on down because they don't make devices at the price points where the growth is.
As for "remaining cool".... that seems like the standard "I hate Apple" babble you tend to promote like your speculation about their drops in computer sales from last year.
She (probably) never explicitly agreed to use iMessage
Of course she did. This isn't a magic configuration. When she started her phone it asked her if she wanted iCloud with integrated messaging and she proceeded to fill out forms to get it.
Neither she nor the others disabled SMS fallback, so they definitely want SMS to be used if necessary
SMS fallback is for the sender having a failure not for recipients. The sender's iPhone can't tell whether the recipient's data radio has good connection or not.
The phone that was use to enable iMessages (and whose number was linked to iMessage) has not fetched them in days/weeks/months and thus obviously is not receiving any of them
That is Apple's behavior. After 45 days it severs the link.
Particularly 6) is fairly damning. And a usability issue even for iPhone users that are just for some time in a place with no internet connection but normal phone service (yes, that can happen).
I know it can happen. It happens to me. The sender sees that their messages aren't getting delivered and goes out SMS or voice if it is important or let's it wait if it isn't.
iMessage users they can switch to a video call with facetime or use facetime audio all from within the messaging application. No, no, no... we aren't playing this game that users weren't told many many times what the difference is. My technically illiterate father understands that SMS (green) goes out a reliable voice radio available most anywhere while iMessage goes out a different radio that he only gets on major highways and population centers. Over and over and over again Apple made the difference explicit to these users. They requested Appel do something and are now complaining that Apple is doing what they requested. That's like saying people getting off a plane to Florida are suffering because the airline took them to Florida, and how were they supposed to know to look at their ticket.
And of course they are able to solve this. First off many of them have iPads or Macs so they are likely still getting the messages. So they know where they are going, they can literally see them going there. And if they don't have other devices, they have friends who do and went through this. But even if the iPhone was their only device, and they don't ask anyone all they have to do is think for 10 seconds. "Hmm... my friends are sending me messages and they are still going to my device. But when I look at my friend's screens it shows the messages they meant to send me are going out iMessage. Which means Apple still thinks my device is active. Wow better tell Apple it isn't...." Come on. We expect this level of competency in every other area of life. In 2014 we expect people to understand the concept of computer accounts and the distinction between the web and their local computer.
Many will find their friends sending them texts and them not receiving them, they won't immediately (if ever) realise the root cause and may will think it's a problem with their new handset, rather than related to their old.
Dude you are on/. This isn't a problem with either handset. I can associate n-numbers with a handset or m-handsets with a number. It has nothing to do with handsets. If handset X has number Y and I can associate number Z from another handset with it and not associate Y. Frankly were it not for Apple's security feature to prevent you from hijacking phone numbers I could associate numbers I don't even own with my iMessage account.
should Apple be being more proactive about a general fix which people don't have to think about, Yes
I'm still unclear how the system is broken. If I lose my Apple handset I still want my iMessages to get to my computer or iPad. The default is exactly the behavior I want. I want Apple to work to try and get messages to me as aggressively as possible. That's the setup we are talking about. If I didn't want that I'd choose a different configuration.
Certainly a page on Apple's website explaining this would be useful. But really the only people who know that number X switched from an iPhone to an Android are the carriers. If there is going to a fix the obvious fix is they let Apple know and Apple sends an email to the end user with instructions. But still everyone is going to say how people don't read emails from companies....
Their iCloud account isn't gone. It is still active and fully functional. That's like saying gmail is gone from the user's POV when they sell their computer. Apple's infrastructure for managing devices (i.e. websites like support.apple.com) aren't gone. The only role the phone plays in all this is they told Apple to associate a physical device with a phone number with their iCloud account and never bothered to tell them to not do that. Why shouldn't they have to switch stuff off? How are Apple's servers supposed to know they got rid of their phone if they don't tell them? Magic? If the carriers notified handset manufacturers when there was a provisioning change on their devices then OK Apple could be held responsible but until then I'm not sure what people expect here.
It is a computer. It does what you tell it to do. The settings are clear. Apple's messaging on this has been unequivocal that the services exists to establish connections between multiple devices for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... The people complaining have consistently said stuff that indicates they don't actually understand even the most basic concepts about Apple's low-end free Universal Communication system.
Finally there are all sorts of indications for the sender about what's going on. The senders are in fact notified. So the idea this is quietly failing for them is not just poorly researched but fiction.
I think Business Insider wrote a shocking BS piece of journalism. For one thing they didn't explain what iMessage is and how it works. For example it is not an alternative to SMS but rather a free low end Universal Communication system. In terms of disassociating it from a phone number both findmyphone and support.apple.com have ways to do that easily.
The fact that the Business Insider article was this poorly researched and thought through shows that they are sucky journalists. A good article would have more than a paraphrase from a support technician but rather on the record comments from Apple. Especially when they are already all over the internet. And on the developer site in excruciating detail.
So in some sense this is what Business Insider is saying, and I'm saying the on the record sources are far better. Business Insider did a terrible job with this article.
Their are indications of sent, delivered and read for the sender. They are color coded as to whether it went out iMessage or SMS. So yes there are indications.
As for not turning on setting related to iMessage you remember: http://www.apple.com/icloud/se... Pretty much the very first thing you did.
That person is an AC and claims from ACs about stuff with no explanation at all aren't worth responding to.
The fact is iMessage isn't magic. The way it works is rather clear. There are obvious visual signals for the sender about what's happening. There are no magic settings in it. Associating and disassociating devices can at a minimum be done via: a) The device b) findmyphone c) support.apple.com d) or via. Apple's phone support
It was on the iPhone you got rid of. Now you have to go to support.apple.com and let Apple know you no longer want your old phone / number associated with your iCloud account. That takes about 30 seconds.
The people sending you texts though have the right to whatever behavior they want.
The original IE did not come bundled with the OS, it was a free add-on. There was a version for Windows and a version for Mac at this point.
IE 1 wasn't free it was bundled with Microsoft Plus! which was a bunch of pay add-ons. IE 2 came with OSes for free. At the time people saw it as a much worse starter browser used for people who rarely if ever used the web. Remember the internet was more diverse back then, it was quite easy to want to be on the internet but not on the web or to have web access via. an ISP but mainly use the ISP's other services.
Apple doesn't make it hard. She just didn't follow instructions prior to selling her device and she hasn't followed instructions after selling her device to fix it. The hard part is pure fiction.
1) She at the time she bought her iPhone specifically setup an iCloud account and asked Apple to tie the messaging on a specific phone number to Apple's servers / her iCloud account. 2) She never notified Apple that she wanted them to stop doing that for her phone number. 3) She never went to the support site and disassociated the device she is no longer using from her account.
So in other words she told a computer to do something until she told it to stop, and never told it to stop. In what possible world will a court rule that "unfair competition?" This is a total BS lawsuit. Quite literally she could log onto support.apple.com and fix the problem in under 30 seconds.
Certainly CPUs are somewhat more efficient. But raw speed matters. If CPUs were 15ghz today plus all the other improvements software would be a lot different. And that's what the 15 years before these were like.
I don't think CPUs are plenty fast at all. The stagnation in CPU speeds for the last 15 years has been dreadful for PC applications and the industry. Prices of computers have fallen, and software isn't much more capable than it was in 2000. If we had growth in CPUs like 1985-2000 for the 2000-2015 period... it would be awe inspiring how terrific our machines would be today.
I haven't played around with Object Database and CORBA. But at least on first glance the two seem to be pulling in opposite directions. An Object Database at its best is an extension of memory for a family of applications all sharing a common object library. Essentially one big application. CORBA is moving in the idea of relational, but even further, trying to separate data from the underlying application. It seems to me that's an either / or choice.
I'm talking about intermediate calculations. Just to pick a stupid example say you had a 3 row database and one of the columns was a 2*2 matrix. You wanted to take the product.
a*b*c != b*a*c so row order matters but a*(b*c) = (a*b)*c so order of computation does not.
Because it seems to be that for each iMessage account, Apple stores a phone number for the cell phone, and then a set of email addresses
No that's totally wrong. Let's try this coming from a different angle.
There are iCloud accounts. iCloud accounts can be associated with an unlimited number of: a) iPhones b) iPads c) iPods d) Apple user accounts on Macs
(a), (b) and (c) are done using device IDs because those devices are single user. Devices of type (a) also have a phone number. Apple maintains a map of phone numbers to device IDs. If you want to sever the link between a phone number and a device ID you need to:
i) Register a new device with the same phone number ii) Break the link explicitly on the device iii) Go to Apple's web portal and break that link.
Because Apple maintains a mapping of phone numbers to devices on an Apple device providing the sender has enabled iMessage when you send to a phone via. a phone number associated with an iCloud account if the recipient has opted to receive iMessages then instead of SMSing the device will send to the associated iCloud account.
(d) is more complicated and is done as a user service login because the same user might have multiple macs they access and the same device may have multiple users with different iCloud accounts. So here cloud service and device management features are potentially split even for the same physical devices, a mixed setup.
___
The phone number is just an alternative user identifier. If you haven't severed the link and he hasn't established a new link the phone number is still one of the numbers associated with you iCloud account, it is in some sense still your number. Even though because it is also a phone number the sender probably doesn't think of it that way. You do make a good point that the sender is potentially getting a very unexpected behavior where he's sending to a phone number and the message is going to someone else's computer or iPad.
I guess in the situation where A is an iPhone user who decides to no longer have a phone at all and then gives up his number to B who has a non-iPhone that is pretty bad behavior from the sender's perspective.
The ability to buy services and goods to meet your needs is what our society's economic structure is based on. The idea that Apple shouldn't offer people a service they ask for because you don't like it isn't remotely similar to someone being killed.
They mindlessly agree to whatever pops up so they can continue and when they send a text message they expect to send a text message not send a text message that the phone will then lookup the number on its own system and if it finds it send it via a completely different message to 'a device' that person has used, regardless if it has a sim card or not, thereby completely hijacking their message.
You are being a bit unfair here IMHO. The sender asked Apple to default to iMessage if possible and to deliver to whatever device the recipient wanted delivery on. The recipient asked Apple to deliver to a list of devices. Moreover they had to actively type in password and account names to make this happen. This wasn't some EULA. As far as your wife's problem go to support.apple.com and disassociate the old iPad from her account or use findmyphone and do it from there.
The original ipods and first gen iphones were so shit though that there was no decent reason for someone to get one over the competition. My confusion is how they got so popular before they got good.
I suspect because you are scrambling the "when". The core of the iPhone (2007) was: a) capacitive touchscreen as the primary or sole means of input b) animation based interaction c) high speed web rendering
No other device in 2007 had that combination to build their interface. It was so revolutionary that Google instantly did a 180 and shifted their Android product towards using it. RIM moved in that direction.... That wasn't "so shit" it was vastly more advanced than the competition. Now in 2010 it certainly was the case you could get better hardware than Apple but by that point Apple had a huge advantage in application quantity and quality. Apple has consistently had pretty good hardware advantages even in 2010-1 in terms of overall design though various Android phones beat it in various respects.
As far as the iPod I think Apple's advantage was 1) Going with hard drive and firewire and the touch wheel interface 2) iTunes integration
Most of the.mp3 players were selling just hardware. The total experience was pretty bad. What iTunes integration was a seamless music experience. Person bought their.mp3 player. They stuck a CD in their harddrive, default was to autorip that music to iTunes so it was always available. Next time they plugged in their.mp3 player to charge, default was to autosync so the music was on their.mp3 player. If they liked singles rather than albums then with a couple clicks they could find and buy a single for $.99 that would just be on their.mp3 player.
Going back to the first year 2001 hardware is what made the difference. Going small hard drive was a big deal. CD player = $5 / song Flash player = $10 / song MP3 CD = $1 / song Hard drive = $.30 / song
Loading 1000 songs onto an harddrive mp3 player over USB was 5 hours. On Apple's firewire interface 10 minutes As for the interface, the interface was what allowed the mp3 player to be easy to use, small and 6.5oz. Yes those were real advantages even then.
Yes. You definitely should stay clear of computers that follow your instructions and don't compensate when you fail to inform them that you no longer want them to perform services you told them they should perform until otherwise notified. Definitely don't buy those sorts of computers ever.
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Apple offers a UC system that is easier to install and configure than other UC systems. That's what "just works" means. It doesn't mean that if you turn a UC system on, don't bother to turn it off that it will magically know you don't want it anymore which is what the Android people suppose it should do. This would be like an article being critical of gmail for not disabling email when you sell your computer.
There is data on conversions. It has been pretty consistent that the flow is almost entirely in the other direction.
Actually not it hasn't. Among phones $500 and up its marketshare continues to grow and they are gaining in the $400-500 category. They have no share in $400 on down because they don't make devices at the price points where the growth is.
As for "remaining cool".... that seems like the standard "I hate Apple" babble you tend to promote like your speculation about their drops in computer sales from last year.
That's a triple in 6 years. There were times in 6 years we were looking at 16x performance improvement or better.
Of course she did. This isn't a magic configuration. When she started her phone it asked her if she wanted iCloud with integrated messaging and she proceeded to fill out forms to get it.
SMS fallback is for the sender having a failure not for recipients. The sender's iPhone can't tell whether the recipient's data radio has good connection or not.
That is Apple's behavior. After 45 days it severs the link.
I know it can happen. It happens to me. The sender sees that their messages aren't getting delivered and goes out SMS or voice if it is important or let's it wait if it isn't.
If they are on an iPhone:
SMS is green
iMessage is light Blue
iMessage users they can switch to a video call with facetime or use facetime audio all from within the messaging application. No, no, no... we aren't playing this game that users weren't told many many times what the difference is. My technically illiterate father understands that SMS (green) goes out a reliable voice radio available most anywhere while iMessage goes out a different radio that he only gets on major highways and population centers. Over and over and over again Apple made the difference explicit to these users. They requested Appel do something and are now complaining that Apple is doing what they requested. That's like saying people getting off a plane to Florida are suffering because the airline took them to Florida, and how were they supposed to know to look at their ticket.
And of course they are able to solve this. First off many of them have iPads or Macs so they are likely still getting the messages. So they know where they are going, they can literally see them going there. And if they don't have other devices, they have friends who do and went through this. But even if the iPhone was their only device, and they don't ask anyone all they have to do is think for 10 seconds. "Hmm... my friends are sending me messages and they are still going to my device. But when I look at my friend's screens it shows the messages they meant to send me are going out iMessage. Which means Apple still thinks my device is active. Wow better tell Apple it isn't...." Come on. We expect this level of competency in every other area of life. In 2014 we expect people to understand the concept of computer accounts and the distinction between the web and their local computer.
Dude you are on /. This isn't a problem with either handset. I can associate n-numbers with a handset or m-handsets with a number. It has nothing to do with handsets. If handset X has number Y and I can associate number Z from another handset with it and not associate Y. Frankly were it not for Apple's security feature to prevent you from hijacking phone numbers I could associate numbers I don't even own with my iMessage account.
I'm still unclear how the system is broken. If I lose my Apple handset I still want my iMessages to get to my computer or iPad. The default is exactly the behavior I want. I want Apple to work to try and get messages to me as aggressively as possible. That's the setup we are talking about. If I didn't want that I'd choose a different configuration.
Certainly a page on Apple's website explaining this would be useful. But really the only people who know that number X switched from an iPhone to an Android are the carriers. If there is going to a fix the obvious fix is they let Apple know and Apple sends an email to the end user with instructions. But still everyone is going to say how people don't read emails from companies....
Their iCloud account isn't gone. It is still active and fully functional. That's like saying gmail is gone from the user's POV when they sell their computer. Apple's infrastructure for managing devices (i.e. websites like support.apple.com) aren't gone. The only role the phone plays in all this is they told Apple to associate a physical device with a phone number with their iCloud account and never bothered to tell them to not do that. Why shouldn't they have to switch stuff off? How are Apple's servers supposed to know they got rid of their phone if they don't tell them? Magic? If the carriers notified handset manufacturers when there was a provisioning change on their devices then OK Apple could be held responsible but until then I'm not sure what people expect here.
It is a computer. It does what you tell it to do. The settings are clear. Apple's messaging on this has been unequivocal that the services exists to establish connections between multiple devices for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... The people complaining have consistently said stuff that indicates they don't actually understand even the most basic concepts about Apple's low-end free Universal Communication system.
Finally there are all sorts of indications for the sender about what's going on. The senders are in fact notified. So the idea this is quietly failing for them is not just poorly researched but fiction.
I think Business Insider wrote a shocking BS piece of journalism. For one thing they didn't explain what iMessage is and how it works. For example it is not an alternative to SMS but rather a free low end Universal Communication system. In terms of disassociating it from a phone number both findmyphone and support.apple.com have ways to do that easily.
The fact that the Business Insider article was this poorly researched and thought through shows that they are sucky journalists. A good article would have more than a paraphrase from a support technician but rather on the record comments from Apple. Especially when they are already all over the internet. And on the developer site in excruciating detail.
So in some sense this is what Business Insider is saying, and I'm saying the on the record sources are far better. Business Insider did a terrible job with this article.
What year did you get on the web? Maybe your employer was paying for it and you didn't realize. I'm not sure what to tell you.
Their are indications of sent, delivered and read for the sender. They are color coded as to whether it went out iMessage or SMS. So yes there are indications.
As for not turning on setting related to iMessage you remember: http://www.apple.com/icloud/se...
Pretty much the very first thing you did.
That person is an AC and claims from ACs about stuff with no explanation at all aren't worth responding to.
The fact is iMessage isn't magic. The way it works is rather clear. There are obvious visual signals for the sender about what's happening. There are no magic settings in it. Associating and disassociating devices can at a minimum be done via:
a) The device
b) findmyphone
c) support.apple.com
d) or via. Apple's phone support
This whole controversy is BS.
It was on the iPhone you got rid of. Now you have to go to support.apple.com and let Apple know you no longer want your old phone / number associated with your iCloud account. That takes about 30 seconds.
The people sending you texts though have the right to whatever behavior they want.
Most of your comment is right.
IE 1 wasn't free it was bundled with Microsoft Plus! which was a bunch of pay add-ons.
IE 2 came with OSes for free. At the time people saw it as a much worse starter browser used for people who rarely if ever used the web. Remember the internet was more diverse back then, it was quite easy to want to be on the internet but not on the web or to have web access via. an ISP but mainly use the ISP's other services.
No it wasn't. Netscape Communicator was a commercial package that cost. The charged for both the browser and the server.
Microsoft got slammed not for making it free but for claiming it was so integrated into the operating system that it could not be removed.
Apple doesn't make it hard. She just didn't follow instructions prior to selling her device and she hasn't followed instructions after selling her device to fix it. The hard part is pure fiction.
Let's see the evidence that Apple has
1) She at the time she bought her iPhone specifically setup an iCloud account and asked Apple to tie the messaging on a specific phone number to Apple's servers / her iCloud account.
2) She never notified Apple that she wanted them to stop doing that for her phone number.
3) She never went to the support site and disassociated the device she is no longer using from her account.
So in other words she told a computer to do something until she told it to stop, and never told it to stop. In what possible world will a court rule that "unfair competition?" This is a total BS lawsuit. Quite literally she could log onto support.apple.com and fix the problem in under 30 seconds.
Certainly CPUs are somewhat more efficient. But raw speed matters. If CPUs were 15ghz today plus all the other improvements software would be a lot different. And that's what the 15 years before these were like.
I don't think CPUs are plenty fast at all. The stagnation in CPU speeds for the last 15 years has been dreadful for PC applications and the industry. Prices of computers have fallen, and software isn't much more capable than it was in 2000. If we had growth in CPUs like 1985-2000 for the 2000-2015 period ... it would be awe inspiring how terrific our machines would be today.
There are dozens of articles in mac magazines and websites. Just ask Siri or google directly.
I haven't played around with Object Database and CORBA. But at least on first glance the two seem to be pulling in opposite directions. An Object Database at its best is an extension of memory for a family of applications all sharing a common object library. Essentially one big application. CORBA is moving in the idea of relational, but even further, trying to separate data from the underlying application. It seems to me that's an either / or choice.
How do you know that? What's your evidence?
I'm talking about intermediate calculations. Just to pick a stupid example say you had a 3 row database and one of the columns was a 2*2 matrix. You wanted to take the product.
a*b*c != b*a*c so row order matters but
a*(b*c) = (a*b)*c so order of computation does not.
No that's totally wrong. Let's try this coming from a different angle.
There are iCloud accounts. iCloud accounts can be associated with an unlimited number of:
a) iPhones
b) iPads
c) iPods
d) Apple user accounts on Macs
(a), (b) and (c) are done using device IDs because those devices are single user. Devices of type (a) also have a phone number. Apple maintains a map of phone numbers to device IDs. If you want to sever the link between a phone number and a device ID you need to:
i) Register a new device with the same phone number
ii) Break the link explicitly on the device
iii) Go to Apple's web portal and break that link.
Because Apple maintains a mapping of phone numbers to devices on an Apple device providing the sender has enabled iMessage when you send to a phone via. a phone number associated with an iCloud account if the recipient has opted to receive iMessages then instead of SMSing the device will send to the associated iCloud account.
(d) is more complicated and is done as a user service login because the same user might have multiple macs they access and the same device may have multiple users with different iCloud accounts. So here cloud service and device management features are potentially split even for the same physical devices, a mixed setup.
___
The phone number is just an alternative user identifier. If you haven't severed the link and he hasn't established a new link the phone number is still one of the numbers associated with you iCloud account, it is in some sense still your number. Even though because it is also a phone number the sender probably doesn't think of it that way. You do make a good point that the sender is potentially getting a very unexpected behavior where he's sending to a phone number and the message is going to someone else's computer or iPad.
I guess in the situation where A is an iPhone user who decides to no longer have a phone at all and then gives up his number to B who has a non-iPhone that is pretty bad behavior from the sender's perspective.
The ability to buy services and goods to meet your needs is what our society's economic structure is based on. The idea that Apple shouldn't offer people a service they ask for because you don't like it isn't remotely similar to someone being killed.
You are being a bit unfair here IMHO. The sender asked Apple to default to iMessage if possible and to deliver to whatever device the recipient wanted delivery on. The recipient asked Apple to deliver to a list of devices. Moreover they had to actively type in password and account names to make this happen. This wasn't some EULA. As far as your wife's problem go to support.apple.com and disassociate the old iPad from her account or use findmyphone and do it from there.
I suspect because you are scrambling the "when". The core of the iPhone (2007) was:
a) capacitive touchscreen as the primary or sole means of input
b) animation based interaction
c) high speed web rendering
No other device in 2007 had that combination to build their interface. It was so revolutionary that Google instantly did a 180 and shifted their Android product towards using it. RIM moved in that direction.... That wasn't "so shit" it was vastly more advanced than the competition. Now in 2010 it certainly was the case you could get better hardware than Apple but by that point Apple had a huge advantage in application quantity and quality. Apple has consistently had pretty good hardware advantages even in 2010-1 in terms of overall design though various Android phones beat it in various respects.
As far as the iPod I think Apple's advantage was
1) Going with hard drive and firewire and the touch wheel interface
2) iTunes integration
Most of the .mp3 players were selling just hardware. The total experience was pretty bad. What iTunes integration was a seamless music experience. Person bought their .mp3 player. They stuck a CD in their harddrive, default was to autorip that music to iTunes so it was always available. Next time they plugged in their .mp3 player to charge, default was to autosync so the music was on their .mp3 player. If they liked singles rather than albums then with a couple clicks they could find and buy a single for $.99 that would just be on their .mp3 player.
Going back to the first year 2001 hardware is what made the difference. Going small hard drive was a big deal.
CD player = $5 / song
Flash player = $10 / song
MP3 CD = $1 / song
Hard drive = $.30 / song
Loading 1000 songs onto an harddrive mp3 player over USB was 5 hours. On Apple's firewire interface 10 minutes As for the interface, the interface was what allowed the mp3 player to be easy to use, small and 6.5oz. Yes those were real advantages even then.
Yes. You definitely should stay clear of computers that follow your instructions and don't compensate when you fail to inform them that you no longer want them to perform services you told them they should perform until otherwise notified. Definitely don't buy those sorts of computers ever.