Mountain Lion: How to get the most out of iMessage | Hacker News Reader

Mountain Lion: How to get the most out of iMessage

blog.joelesler.net

16 pointsjoelesler13 comments

The article is wrong, there's still a huge part missing from the so-called "unified" messaging and Apple needs to step up their game ASAP.

No matter how you configure the "caller ID" option, if a friend iMessages you (i.e. they initiate the convo) to your cell phone number and not email (most common, as if they were texting but it silently switched to iMessage), the message will only be received on your phone.

Apple needs to add an option to allow you to authenticate/verify your phone number as a valid receive address for the desktop ASAP.

I agree. This makes iMessage so frustrating, as I've got two threads with a lot of people - one associated with my phone number (started on my phone) and another associated with my email (started on my iPad).

Coming with iOS 6.

No. That's coming for the iPad, not for the desktop. There is no iOS6 for the desktop (and it's not in Mountain Lion :)

Here's what Scott Forstall said:

“We’re unifying your phone number and your Apple ID,” said iOS guru Scott Forstall at WWDC today. “So if someone calls you on your phone number with a FaceTime call, you can answer the call on your iPad or even your Mac. And we’re doing the exact same thing with iMessage.”

I think you need iOS 6 to set it up, but clearly it will work on OS X afterwards.

Thanks for that. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Not to mention that with a phone number you have text message as a fall back. I have lots of iMessages sent as text messages when I have bad service.

Also, if you send someone a text and they have an iPhone, it will use your email. Some of my friends have iPhones, but not my email, and are confused.

This is surprisingly difficult to set up on both the iPhone and on OSX.

Apple seriously needs to put some UX talent working on this.

IIRC the initial setup process of an iOS device walks you through this step by step. I don't remember doing any of these steps when I signed into Messages on OSX. This article seems to be more for the people who skipped associating an e-mail address with their iMessages settings the first time around?

I don't understand the use case for a platform-specific messenger. When your whole company uses Blackberries, BBM makes sense. Otherwise, why not use something that everyone you know can use? Behind text messaging, Facebook Chat has the largest user base in my social circles.

I've assumed that most iMessage use thus far has been as a transparent transport for SMS over a data connection. Is this correct?

Apple is positioning it (IMO) as a replacement for text messaging on iOS. The fact that it works across devices is the killer feature.

Thanks a lot for this tutorial. I am really amazed that Apple has not thought this through properly. Really disappointing. Creating a vibrant set of iOS messaging and sharing channels would really increase their barrier-to-entry.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com