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Comment by mindgam3 | Hacker News Reader

This is a huge move. Apple striking at the core of Facebook's play to own your identity, which they had with Facebook Connect but have completely fudged out with countless breaches of user privacy and trust. I used to be the biggest fanboy of facebook connect, but now I have to say: Go Apple.

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Apple ID as SSO, iMessage Profile, Memoji, and Apple Pay. Apple is near FB Messenger parity, now that it functions as an account for external services. It's an extremely strong move on Apple's part, especially considering how close to it they have been for a while. They sure like taking their time sometimes.

True. Apple definitely playing the long game here, effectively. When iMessage came out I totally didn't see it ever becoming a viable identity play. But with all these privacy concerns, now it feels like the one to beat.

How can I access iMessage from my Linux laptop?

Not sure if that's possible. iMessage is a mobile first product, so presumably you need an iPhone to start using it. Then a Mac computer. It's definitely a closed system that works great if you buy into Apple's family of products, less great otherwise.

I know it's impossible. Since I don't have any Apple phones iMessage is useless for me. The vast majority of people in the world are similar to me.

Apple's products are not a play for anything. Their services are built for people with more money than sense.

There is an app you can use on a jailbroken ios device that turns it in to a relay/web server which allows you to use imessage on any device. I guess if you really wanted to use it you could just buy an ancient iphone and leave it always plugged in.

They're close to parity with a giant exception that it's not available to the overwhelming majority of Facebook users.

Fb and G screwed themselves by: forcing users to submit real cell phone numbers (no forwarding numbers allowed) and real names. I’m laughing all the way to the apple oauth signup. So tired of G and Fb abusing users

From a privacy standpoint, yes, but from a Signal:Noise ratio, this is what made Fb usable for so long.

Apple now requires 2FA for new accounts created on an iPhone and for 2FA they require a phone number.

Hmmm that’s annoying then.

but you can just go to icloud.com, sign up, and then type that into your phone. a pretty easy workaround.

Feature parity for most people, not userbase parity.

The ability to run on my phone seems like an important feature.

Are you their customer? Do you buy their products? If not, then no you're not important. Their business model is to serve their paying customers.

Many people use devices from several ecosystems.

I have an android and iphone but realistically how many people have one of each phone?

People don't use Windows and iPhone at the same time?

Or Mac and Android?

or Android and iPad?

The conversation was "The ability to run on my phone seems like an important feature."

Either you have an iPhone or you dont. Sure they might have an ipad and imac and an android phone. I suppose thats possible. But at that point, you are the exact kind of customer this business model is designed to get to switch over to the full ecosystem.

Are we really arguing if the "Sign in with apple" button will work on websites from chrome on windows? If apple wants to be an identity provider, their web sso will work everywhere. Or are we talking about iMessage, the flagship iPhone app, not working on android phones? Apple will lose more customers to Android, who only want an iPhone for iMessage, than they will gain.

We're talking at different levels. You keep repeating obvious facts everyone already knows as if they're novel, and I keep pointing about that all those facts clearly imply that Apple wants to make money off of you through abusive lock-in practices.

(I really doubt the sign in with Apple button is going to be available in Android apps. If you create an account with the button, it becomes ever so harder to switch to Android. How convenient for Apple.)

I don't think continuing this discussion is helpful. Have a nice day.

I agree, after making an account with the button, you are stuck with Apple forever. If the sign in id buttons are not cross platform, thats abusive lock-in.

The create account button might not be available on android apps, but hopefully the sign in sso buttons works. Maybe identity portability will become law someday, like cell number portability and being able to change your address at the post office.

I own several Apple products. My 2015 MBP is my primary computing device outside of work. I am a paying customer, and this service is useless to me unless I replace every device I own with an Apple device. I couldn't do that even if I actually wanted to.

True, but Facebook’s overwhelming majority of users is completely irrelevant now that their brand is irreparably tarnished. People will still use Facebook for a long time, but nobody other than a few diehards and people who work there want FB to own their identity. I believe that particular grand vision is dead for FB despite their user base.

No one is gonna buy an iPhone to "sign in with apple".

No one is gonna make a group chat on iMessage where half the people aren't able to join anyway.

Apple should release iMessage for Android.

people buy iphones to use imessage. an imessage group with non imessage people just turns into mms.

You can create/have an Apple account without any Apple devices, I believe.

I've been anti-Apple since I was a high school kid in the 90's. Those big colourful Mac's looked dumb. They're close to winning me over and I'm probably buying a new laptop within 12 months

I highly recommend buying a 2015 Macbook Pro, if you can find someone willing to part with theirs. Apple laptop hardware started going off the rails after they shipped that one with touch bar + keyboard shenanigans.

Ok, thanks. I know nothing at all about Apple hardware. It's still a very daunting decision to make. I like the ability to buy my own hardware, for desktops, and to build what I like at a cheaper price. Apple charges a premium but now I have more of an idea of what that premium will get me.

It would be a huge migration for me. Everything I own is tied to one of a few Gmail accounts. My photo history, my uni work in GDrive, my contact lists, my email history, everything about my entire online identity. I'm just increasingly fed up with how Google approaches privacy.

You can use everything gmail on Apple products. But, as he said, Macbooks 2015 were the top of their art, and it’s all going downhill now. Since 2014 they start to have kernel panics, since 2016 they have a failure-prone keyboard with no hardware “Esc” key. And it now costs 150$ for an external keyboard. Prices up, quality down, emojis in.

At my office every single one of the new macbooks (since about 3-4 years ago) has had the keyboard fail. Some of them have had the keyboard fail repeatedly after getting apple to fix it.

The ifixit tear down shows that the 2019 model has done nothing to fix the issue. I highly recommend the Dell XPS over a macbook pro. The form factor is very similar but the hardware is much more reliable and fixing it is way way easier as most parts can be replaced separately.

I own a 2016 Macbook Pro and 2018 Macbook Pro and I have to agree with the others in this thread: don't buy a modern Mac laptop. I really regret purchasing the 2018, my next laptop will probably a Linux based machine.

I recently switched to iPhone after using Android devices for many years to get away from Google and that was actually a purchase I can recommend. The Macbook Pro, not so much.

Moving to Apple/Mac has been amazing. The interface is just so much smoother. The UX is thought out with much more care than anything Google/Microsoft offer. And I don't feel like I'm selling my soul when I'm using an Apple product - a huge plus.

I have the previous generation hardware design as my personal laptop and a late-2019 macbook pro for work and I really don't hate the new one. I know some people have had some issues with keys getting stuck and what not, but I've actually had a pretty good experience with mine. I touch-type and I can type just fine on the newer keyboards. I would have liked to have a physical escape key, but besides that it's fine. I'm happy with the thinner and lighter design. The options of core i9 + 32GB of ram alone is worth getting one of the newer ones over a 2015 model.

Same, I own a 2014 15" and have a 2018 15" from work. I haven't had any keys break on the 2018 (yet...) and actually prefer the key travel on it to the 2014. The smaller size is an improvement and the dongle situation isn't a problem for my use cases. Not a fan of the keyboard layout and TouchBar, though.

If Apple let me spec a physical ESC key, inverted-T arrow keys, and native 1920x1200 point screen size @2x on the existing form factor I'd be VERY happy. Assuming, of course, the keyboard is actually reliable.

Ditto situation here. My work MacBook has been working great as well - the inability to charge my iPhone without a dongle has been frustrating but hopefully Apple switches out of lightning soon.

As for the ESC key, I rebound my Caps Lock key to Esc & Ctrl. Works great!

I have a Early 2015 MacBook Pro. I would not recommend it as a new laptop unless you're getting a significant discount on it, since it's starting to get old.

I agree it's not a perfect solution, and mine is starting to get old as well, but so far it's things that are replaceable (i.e. battery). And I still vastly prefer it to a 2018 MBP I had for a while and then sold at a heavy discount due to keyboard/touchbar/no Esc key/USB-C dongle hell. But if you don't care about any of that and just want the fastest CPU, it's not the best choice.

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