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Comment by seanparsons | Hacker News Reader

Surely helping prop up iMessage is a terrible idea? Especially if it still has that "feature" where if you switch from an iPhone to an Android phone the messages aren't sent to your phone for a while?

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I think characterizing this as having any effect of “propping up” iMessage is laughable. To call it a “terrible idea” is unfair to the project creators. They’re solving a problem people have, they’re not the cause of it.

But the problem stems from their use of iMessage and Apple not doing an Android app.

> if you switch from an iPhone to an Android phone the messages aren't sent to your phone for a while?

Apple set up a page years ago that lets you manually disable iMessage to avoid this issue.

And yeah, I personally dislike iMessage as a concept. But I use it a lot every day and it’s simply better than SMS. So I don’t blame the creators for doing what they’re doing.

> Apple set up a page years ago that lets you manually disable iMessage to avoid this issue.

Exactly, why is a page needed in the first place? I'd bet more than 99% of users don't even have a clue that exists or even know about the underlying problem.

The page is needed because Apple has no way of knowing whether you have turned your iPhone off for a couple of days or whether you’ve switched away permanently. It isn’t necessary if you do a factory reset of the phone, which also covers a lot of bases.

Because of the way iMessage is designed though, it just happens to benefit them by making any other platform look broken if you don't do these steps. They worked with the mobile companies to get visual voicemail support, why not for this?

How many regular users do neither of these things and just shove their old phone in a drawer or let their kid watch YouTube on it?

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