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Different bubbles are a visual indicator whether the messages are encrypted.

Apple is a good faith participant in that they support a fallback to the texting standard supported by every mobile vendor.

It’s not bad faith on my part when you brought up WhatsApp. Sure they don’t have blue but bubbles, but that’s because they don’t support an open standard at all, they don’t have an inclusive mode at all, they only support their own users on their own proprietary protocol.

Most importantly I don’t see how it’s Apple’s responsibility to push mobile vendors to modernize. Blame them if vendors were modernizing and they pushed back, however, no, there was no progress. It’s irrelevant if the standard is evolving but no one supports it and this whole thing on,y works if mobile vendors support it

Well, my old company sure made a ridiculous profit selling them. You may be looking at the cost per fob hardware, but not including the management cost. They are much more expensive than an authentication app, plus authentication apps are mostly managed by someone else, and you don’t have distribution overhead

Plus the even simpler: apps are like browser “toolbars” because they’re just a veneer to collect more data, add more tracking, appear to be useful without actually benefitting the user over a simple web page

Presumably they’re expensive and someone needs to manage them.

My company’s approach is “we’ll pay your phone bill if you use an Authenticator app on your phone.” Cheaper for them, plus they don’t need to buy company phones or fobs, and who’s going to complain about their phone bill getting paid?

A previous company tried similar but required putting your phone under enterprise management. A lot of us disagreed with that

SMS is default texting for all phones of all types all providers in the US. Its main advantage is ubiquity and it is the only ubiquitous text protocol. SMS was always owned by cell providers.

While I also am disappointed that ubiquitous text protocol owned by cell providers never progressed, can’t blame Apple for that. They could have used their influence to push harder but bottom line is the change needed to be at cell providers. They may also have seen that even Google with all its influence wasn’t able to make it happen (without taking it proprietary, owning it, centralizing it).

But let me ask this: what other texting provider includes a fallback to incorporate texters outside their network? At all? Does WhatsApp include users of iMessage? SMS? RCS?

Bullshit, this is the exact opposite of what you’re intending to say. UK government demanded a backdoor to secretly invade your privacy. They had no choice. However instead of implementing the back door into your data while leaving you with an illusion of privacy, they publicly announced you have no expectation of privacy in the U.K, they kept their privacy implementation secure and no longer use it in the UK

Short of leaving the market entirely, what better response could you hope for.? Save your anger for the U.K. government

I do always wonder if this is part of it. I want my phone to just work, but I have more appropriate tools for playing with stuff. My servers are Linux, my laptop is windows, and my work is Mac - appropriate tools for my uses. My kids can spend all day tweaking their gaming computers, but want their phones to just work also

While I’m atypical in how many different computers I have, are we just more used to multiple devices in the us?

I’m sure this is part of it. All my phones before iPhone sucked. All but one person I know with Android, their phones suck(the downside of cheap phones being available). While I didn’t try every model, and I’m sure they’ve gotten better, why would I abandon something that has worked well, for something where my only experience is negative.

Definitely a huge problem that you never really know, but is it any less valid to take their word for it than to just assume the worst. Taken at face value, Apple is much better at privacy and is a clear winner. Taken at face value, Googles basic operating model itself is exploiting my privacy, why would I accept that?

I also tend to be skeptical about corporate actions matching their promises, given all the evidence of recent history, but it doesn’t change the fact that you’re judging them on your skepticism, your worst fears, with no evidence. You can’t know they’re doing the right thing but you also dint know they’re doing the wrong thing. I’ll stick with evidence, and Apple has a long history of privacy-based choices, I’ll start with their promises, but yes we need to hold them to it

I still find this hard to believe. It’s just a visual indicator whether the conversation is encrypted or not, but who would actually judge partners with this.

When I checked with my kids, since we know teenagers can be very shallow bullies, they said there is some light teasing but it was really started by online crap like this. Not even teenagers care. I mean, they don’t usually use iMessages anyway, so many probably never noticed.

“Blue texts” is a fake issue. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was started as a prank, or by Google, and no one cared until it was all over the internet

when you cant even have an app without a corporation’s approval

Apple has successfully positioned themselves as “the good guy”.

• Apple broke the monopoly of phone provider locks, and still prohibits phone provider bloatware.
• Apple seems like the only provider with any care for privacy, and many of their features and policies are privacy focussed
• Apple puts more effort than most software providers into usability
• you might think Apples constraints on the App Store blocks legitimate opensource and personal projects, but it mostly blocks commercial exploitation. It blocks behaviors that abuse customers or their privacy, that will give users a bad experience. I’ve read the requirement for a fee with a real credit card is actually the most effective strategy against malware
• every major app is available in the App Store
• its just a phone. My phone needs to just work, unlike my computer which needs to do whatever I want it to.

So maybe the root cause is lack of consumer protection in the US, but my experience with iPhone is much better than with Android phones. I’m not blind to corporate shenanigans but I do feel better protected in the Apple ecosystem. I do have freedom to choose almost any legitimate app, and I’m not particularly interested n futzing around with my phone anyway

Plus, where is that co2 coming from?

• in the case of the human body, you’re releasing carbon that was already actively available, you’re not adding to the problem, just moving it around
• in the case of the lawnmower, it’s releasing carbon that had been sequestered for hundreds of millions of years. It’s adding carbon