Unfortunately, the writer does not use iOS devices, iCloud, FaceTime, unlikely to be using iMessage (although not explicitly stated), so this is great if you're hooked in macOS only, and not with iDevices & iCloud services as well.
But FaceTime and iMessage? There are plenty of alternatives. More importantly the alternatives have bigger user bases. What is making you feel locked into iMessage?
Interoperability between apple devices and services is good, but any individual service is not actually great. They are only good if you commit everything to apple.
So if you actually wanted to break free, switching from iMessage and FaceTime would be the easiest. Reduce your dependencies of stuff in the walled garden, then leaving that garden get easier.
Apple knows that switching from MacOS/iOS is hard if you use their services that only work on their devices. The solution is don't use their services even if you use their devices.
When the not-tech savvy grandmother uses iMessage and FaceTime, it's hard to encourage her to switch to What'sApp or Discord.
If an entire family feels compelled to use apple products because the family users apple products things start feeling more like a religion then a technical choice for a product.
The fact that the software choices of other people are forcing your hardware choices here is horrible.
Whatsapp/facebook is definitely a market leader in the chat world, but they can be disrupted. You can use theirs or other products on your iPhone, Android, PC, Mac, or Linux.
With the hardware vendor, iMessage isn't used because it's necessarily better but because it is a forced automatic sign up when you use their phone.
iMessage IS the sms application. And you cannot install alternative SMS apps. You are quite literally forced to use it if you want to communicate with people with other phones.
Apple does not care about iMessage as a platform. They only care that it is difficult to leave it.
It's why switching to another device causes problems for most. People who were communicating with you over iMessage will still send their messages there. If you have to very manually and very unintuitively de-enroll your number from iMessage.
For the non-technical this makes it appear that other devices do not work at all. They are trapped in the apple ecosystem even if they don't like it.
Agree to disagree I guess. It is "forced automatic sign up" to use GooglePlayServices when you use android. Using microG is significantly more complicated than unenrolling from iMessage, and you can go to Settings>Messages>iMessage to switch it to just plain SMS, if thats really your prerogative(I've done this when traveling overseas).
To me iMessage is unequivocally better because I'm not the product the way I am on most(all?) trivial to use free services(spinning up a Matrix/IRC/etc server is not trivial). I pay for hardware that has an ability, in this case to use iMessage and Facetime, and in return I'm given some level of assurance that my actions on those platforms aren't going to be monetized through advertisement and leaking of PII. Being able to receive high quality photos from my family through an easy to use interface when I'm not at home without some surveillance corp knowing my location is a good deal to me. My Apple devices last a long time and require minimal upkeep.
>Apple does not care about iMessage as a platform. They only care that it is difficult to leave it. I agree, they could offer iMessage on Android for a monthly/yearly fee like they do Apple Music. I would heavily support this and I'm sure they would lose some market share. To play devils advocate, I'm not savvy to the calculus on developing such an app and API scheme to prevent users from using an alternate client, and they would have no control over, say, an android keyboard keylogging/screen reading their user's messages, I guess they could implement their own secure Apple keyboard for the App, I think password managers do this? But this is starting to seem like a pretty significant engineering burden, that would probably make the service unrealistically expensive. idk. Security is part of the implicit marketing of iMessage, it's pay to use not use to be used. That said, I have no doubt that the driving reason for not opening up iMessage is because it keeps people, especially in the US, locked in to iPhones. Trying to keep customers locked in is pretty standard business practice though. So you can hang your hat on me and others with a similar point of view being okay with abusive business practices if you like.
That said, I do think that
> you have to very manually and very unintuitively de-enroll your number from iMessage.
Is scummy. No bones about it, if you wipe your iPhone it should ask you right then and there if you want to unenroll your number from iMessage, and they should monitor delivery and email you if they suspect that you no longer have an iPhone asking if you want to unenroll from iMessage delivery(e.g. you broke your iPhone and replaced it with another product). Writing the email would be very difficult though, many naive users would probably be alarmed that Apple can tell if they receive messages. But it should be easy not hard, the current experience is terrible indeed.
And while I'm at it, you should be able to have a first class Apple experience without an iPhone. Specifically I should be able to pair my Apple Watch with an iPad or iPod.
Just because unreasonable walls exist else where does not justify unreasonable walls everywhere.
BTW Whatsapp also has audio and video calls.
Also, what should 90% of the world population that can't afford an iPhone do?
I understand it's ubiquitous, but I don't personally use it, and can't imagine joining it. Nobody I know uses it, but I will absolutely allow as how that probably has to do with demographics -- my network of friends, family, and coworkers is overwhelmingly on iOS.
I use Linux but that happily keep an iPad for certain things (mail, calendar, video meetings etc).
It’s hard because you have a whole family and/or friends on iMessage, and you need to get everyone to switch. That can be tricky. It’s doable, but it’s definitely harder than, e.g, copying your photos somewhere else. I can do that by myself, but I need to get everyone else on board to switch away from iMessage.
I use other apps too, but somehow straight up SMS messages from non iPhone users seem to get routed to iMessage on my phone. The messages also seem to get forwarded to a computer if your logged in.
That's a bit extreme. I would say that it's only inconvenient if you need/want to switch - everyone can make a guess about the probability that they will want to switch in the future, what effort it would take and whether that's worth it for the value they will get in the meantime.
she either calls or messages, which from the lock-in standpoint is just better and perfectly adequate - it means much less spurious messaging
At home I use VLC for videos, or Chrome/Firefox for Netflix (and other streaming services). I also picked up a Chromebook tablet for various media consumption needs. I can't really think of the last time I needed a non-Linux system for anything.
Attack it piece by piece.
I have some experience de-siloing myself, and I have some insight on this. The first and most important thing is that you should (for the most part) not use anything that's a free hosted cloud service.
Find a cross platform equivalent to those services and start switching to them. Standards based hosted services are much easier to set up than self-hosting, and makes it MUCH easier to switch out later.
The first thing I'd recommend you do is get Signal installed. Figure out which of your friends are on there already, and just start sending them messages from that.
Next, register a domain. Your name is a good start, since you'll need it for email (and for, if the privacy landscape in the US continues on its trajectory, self-hosting)
Here are some good (non exhaustive) cross-platform alternatives that I use or have used:
- icloud photos: Google Drive, Smugmug (my fav), Flickr
- icloud mail/contacts/calendars: Fastmail (mail + card/caldav syncing)
- imessage/facetime: signal (im aware there's other chat clients but signal is me and my friends' go to. Discord, whatsapp, telegram, etc also exist)
- safari: Firefox with account set up
I pay less than $150 a year, and I get phone or email support with a real person for all of the services I use. I use an iphone, apple watch, with windows 10 on a laptop, and desktop linux. It all works together pretty well, and it really wasn't that hard to establish.
It’s insanely useful, and such a drag when I don’t have it. (Eg when working from my Linux workstation)
The GNOME client is GSConnect: https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/1319/gsconnect/
But I cant even use it in Firefox on my Mac.
I haven’t connected my iPhone to a PC is 6 years. iTunes is the worst piece of software ever made. Thankfully it hasn’t been needed or even useful for half a decade.
I still have a few people on Messages, but they contact me through my iPhone, so I'm not losing anything. It baffles me why anyone on this site would use services that are not available across all major platofrms.