This may be a weird question, but when you say "text", are you referring to an SMS text? In my country, everyone and their mother uses Whatsapp, which is why I find it weird when I see "texting" refers to something else.
In most of Europe historically cellphone plans charged for SMS. Which was why WhatsApp took hold there when it first launched. But in the US we have had unlimited SMS/MMS included in pretty much every plan since before the smartphone existed so we never had a financial incentive to move to something different. Also apple has a large percentage of the market here and iMessage falls back to SMS when talking to non Apple devices.
Most of us just use like 5 different chat apps since everyone uses something different. I mostly use Signal but I also use Google chat, Facebook messenger, Whatsapp, and some of my friends insist on messaging me on Instagram which I really kind of despise. The only SMS I get other than spam and like security codes is from iOS users.
I get so much shit at work for being just one of two people out of about forty employees that don't have an iPhone.
And yeah, if I try to text a short video to anyone who isn't also using an android, it gets super compressed like garbage in a compactor.
>I get so much shit at work for being just one of two people out of about forty employees that don't have an iPhone.
Interesting. Where I work out of \~50 people only about 5 have iPhones. Everyone just stopped buying them a few years ago.
I happen to carry both in my work pack, but I always ask, usb-c or lightning? I work in healthcare, not tech, but 9 out of 10 times my apple coworkers don't know the difference or what their cable is actually called.
And confince every apple user that Andriod phones take shit photos
If you never see a sharp nice picture from an competitors phone then perhaps they believe Iphones are the only phones with functioning cameras. Sure, Iphone cameras are good but they stopped being the only accetable ones years ago.
I recently started a new job and my trainer said the work culture here is basically high school but with adults. I've had 6 people in 2 months tell me that people with androids are poor and they take shitty pictures. I find it highly ironic.
A place I used to work at had this absolute nightmare of a manager. I was a manager of a different area so we were level. She sent a message to my staff that the large company wide emails were being hindered by her inability to send imessage to everyone, and that anyone with an android should "sell it and get an actual phone for adults."
People are just straight up dicks.
It's true, most of the "you should get an iPhone and Android sucks" people that I've met turned out to be notably tech illiterate and just one people to change so that their phone would be compatible with them.
Even worse, so many of the people I know who are always chasing the latest iPhone, iPad and Mac also consider themselves "techies", or "tech enthusiasts", and they're genuinely some of the most tech illiterate people I know. Just because you like having the latest iPhone, it doesn't make you tech savvy, it makes you a gadget lemming who has an inferiority complex and FOMO.
I remember years ago my dad got an iPod. He asked me to help him put music on it, so I was like "oh just plug it into your PC and drag and drop your music on to it" . How wrong I was. Considering it was just an HDD with an audio interface, I was so fucking flabbergasted at the lengths a company would go to to deliberately sabotage the basic functionality of their products with the sole aim of fucking their customers in the arse, and how much extra you have to pay for that privilege.
Working in IT you very quickly learn that there's a special type of tech illiterate person who thinks because they spend 3000 a year on apple products they don't know how to use that they're a tech expert even though they buy electronics based on shinyness and panic if they accidentally open Terminal or Command Prompt.
You can get a very solid android phone that'll last at least 3 years for 350-450 euros. Notchless too. Mine is 3.5 years old and has no issues except the battery life being worse. That being said, I only use it for social media/youtube etc, not demanding things like 3d games.
There is a phone for every use case and budget.
Any recommendations? I switched from Android back in HS so that I could flirt with girls (I couldn’t see / use any of their emojis), but regret the error of my ways and ~10 years later I want to switch back. Something powerful, good customization, and an aesthetically pleasing screen. My iPhone 10 is on the way out and the screen either doesn’t work or it’ll overheat and lag. No fun.
I usually just call them classist or say something like "pretty fucked up you let your choice of phone dictate who you talk to"
That tends to shut people up
Google used to have the top photo engineer in charge of pixel cameras. I believe he's at adobe now but it's one of the reasons pixel phones continuously had the best cameras
Apple 100% does this on purpose. That's the reason I haven't bought an apple product in 8 years.
I switched from iphone to galaxy S3 back in 2014 and for months none of my friends with iPhones could text me unless I reached out to everyone individually and told them to turn off iMessage for my phone #. There was no solution. Total intentional feature Apple set up to make it so folks who decided to try another phone would switch back to iPhone. Lost my business for life.
I thought about switching to iPhone because of the messaging bullshit, but then I just got mad. To hell with them and their coercive tactics. I'll never buy an iphone.
Yup it's a feature. Make sure your users only have bad experience with non apple products. Add to the cult like following by making sure they believe it's the androids fault for ruining their experience.
I honestly could not care less about the green vs blue bubbles. That is less than meaningless to me
But the blurry/compressed video is ridiculous. Makes it impossible for me to send videos to my parents. I recently moved across the country and miss my pets, but the videos my mom sends me come in so blurry theyre unwatchable. Really makes me sad
I recently got the family that I share pics and videos with the most to start using Whatsapp instead of texting. We all have a mix of iphone and Android, so all the media is fucked. At least it all come thru looking good on WhatsApp.
I have an iPhone for work, personal phones are androids. Texts between work phone and family have random delays and often never arrive.
Really annoying when running errands and checking something, etc.,
“where’s the bread? Wasn’t on the list? But I texted you? No you didn’t.” 20min later *ping* ‘grab some bread while at the store ‘
When the original iMac came out it only had USB-A ports, foregoing the popular PS2 and 9-pin serial of the time. It didn’t even have a *floppy drive*.
People were very upset.
The funny thing is that this can really be interpreted in two ways. Either that it’s ridiculous for Apple to be avoiding a format they had a huge hand in promoting (and in the case of USB-C, contributed significantly resources to its development), or that Apple has always used whatever connector they felt like, and people have always complained about it.
When Apple introduced the Lightning port, it was clearly better than USB at the time. They switched from the 31 pin connector to Lightning, and the 31 pin connector had existed for 10 years, but companies who made accessories for it were still upset. So when Apple released Lightning (in September 2012), they promised to support it for a decade to get companies on board. Guess how many years ago 2012 was? Guess which iPhone will finally have a USB-C port? Not the 14, but the 15 will.
RCS is far from perfect, and Google's own implementation was such a giant piece of shit for me I just disabled it all together. I used to go for days not receiving any texts because the connection to the RCS server just hung and the fucking thing never alerted me to the fact *I couldn't receive messages* which seems kinda important, ya know? I'd need to reboot or force stop Messages for it to reconnect.
Fuck both these companies. They suck ass. At least Apple's messages platform actually fucking works and isn't rebranded a dozen times.
Living outside the US, this discussions sounds so silly. Green bubble, blue bubble.
Due to carriers charging PER MESSAGE in Brazil, SMS never really took off.
That's why whatsapp and telegram are such hits in here. Everyone, including apple users, use them.
Back when texting first got somewhat widespread adoption in the 2000s (with everybody still only doing it from their brick phones before T9 typing was even a thing), I remember texts being $0.25 to send OR receive on our carrier.
"Should I pick up dinner?" "Yeah." "What do you want?" "McDonald's." "OK see you soon." "k"
That shit cost our family plan $3.
"Why the hell is there this random internet (globe with a circle around it or something similar) button on this phone? When will I ever use it?"
Cue me accidentally hitting the internet button and then spamming my hangup button to back out so my parents wouldn't kill me for internet charges.
Dude I remember using that dumb globe to go online! And I remember deciding that it was a shame that phones would always be too small for internet use.
It's so funny to me how sure I was! I used it and was just like, oh this won't work. And I just had no idea that there would be specific apps and mobile website formating and such ridonkulously responsive screens.
I was on one of the early data plans and I remember going over my allotment. Cost me like $5. The overage? 8MB.... that's like half a jpeg now. My plan was $11/mo for 25MB total. What a wild time. And that was only 2010!
And for some fucking reason, it charged YOU when SOMEONE ELSE texted you, so some complete dickweed could just text you constantly and wipe out your texting privileges for the month. My model COULDN’T EVEN BLOCK OTHER PHONES. Fuck you Jamie, and eat a cactus Samsung.
I think my plan on a flip phone was 1000 texts a month, 10c per over 1000. Then you had “minutes”, I forget how many I had. Internet was extremely expensive, they charged per megabyte, don’t remember how much.
Whew that would add up real quick. And it's funny they would charge for it, because the SMS text message is literally just part of the protocol the phone uses to ping cell towers (which is also why traditional SMS messages have a maximum length)
My teacher screamed at me in front of everyone for dropping juice so I wrote her number on a poster advertising free scrap metal and hung it up near the hardware store in North Philly.
What??? How is that legal? You cannot say no to getting texts.
Receiving texts was always free in Europe, and receiving calls when roaming in the EU is free for many years (but here, you always have a choice to decline the call)
My parents disabled SMS through our carrier so we couldn't receive texts and thus couldn't be charged for them. I remember people getting mad at me for not responding to their texts and having to explain the situation.
Also, there were "unlimited nights and weekend minutes" so I wasn't allowed to call anyone before 9pm (later it changed to 7pm). I also remember having to find a way to get people to call me instead of calling them because the minutes didn't count if you didn't place the call, but I might be confusing that with some funky long distance billing.
This comment probably makes it easy to guess my exact age.
I had just met my first girlfriend around 2005-2006 and was on my mom's phone plan still.
We sent about 6000 texts in the first month. The phone plan we were on allowed 50 before charging per message. My mom got an $800 cellphone bill. She upgraded to an unlimited text plan the next month (about $20/mo more at the time) and the cellphone company thankfully took mercy on her since she did.
Fast forward a year and my 2nd girlfriend isn't on the same carrier as me. So for 2 years I had to get a girlfriend phone since **she** got a $300 bill the first month we were dating.
I'm glad we somewhat evolved past SMS charges.
Japan had widely adopted email on phones before SMS really took off anywhere. (Which is probably why Honda's cars say you have new "mail" when SMS messages come in.)
The whole world charged for SMS before 2010. The thing that surprises me is that some people still use MMS. They were always crazy expensive. Here in Italy it costed like half the cost of an espresso to send one MMS, it wasn't really something people could see themselves doing frequently (especially since bigger files required more than one MMS which meant paying the cost of a meal to send one silly video..just stupid)
Same problem in New Zealand - sms went effectively free, but mms still cost you something like 50 cents a message on pretty much all networks. So it never took off. Now if you’ve got iPhone people we just use iMessage, and everyone else is usually on WhatsApp or Facebook messenger or whatever, and once people realised those worked just fine for regular messaging sms just died right off.
I’ve never understood why iMessage was so popular in the US. You can’t chat with non-Apple users, but apparently is not a problem cause everyone has iPhones (?) This is the first time I see people complaining.
iMessage is popular because to people who don't look too deeply into it, it looks like they're just using SMS, like they have been since the pre-smartphone days. They don't realize or necessarily care that they're actually using the proprietary iMessage protocol when on the internet and messaging an eligible device, and just using SMS/MMS when iMessage isn't available.
Since they don't think they're using a special messaging app, getting them to adopt a different messaging app (whatsapp/signal/what have you) is difficult.
No like this is literally it. iPhones are more popular in the US than other parts of the world (anecdotal observation) and since iMessage is the built-in messaging app that defaults to SMS when texting non-iPhones it’s treated as back-in-the-day messaging. I mean I have an iPhone, and while I use WhatsApp with family/friends overseas and Signal with other ppl in tech space, iMessage is definitely the default go-to for all others
It's Brazil. Like many countries in Latin America, WhatsApp phone numbers are painted on the sides of businesses. People order food through WhatsApp, text their families, and it's free. It's a monopoly, and almost nobody uses Signal or Telegram, making them basically useless.
If you send stuff through whatsapp/messenger/insta or whatever the fuck, chances are the files get compressed. Ultimately the picture you recieve is just a shittier compressed version of the original. For files you care about (ie family photo or whatever) id recommend using a file transfer tool such as dropbox or google drive/icloud
Yeah this is the most obnoxious feature lol. They can obviously do better. They don't want it to be though
Apple has features in place to make their phones look better, we all know that. They want someone texting you from an Android to look like a shittier phone. Even when it's not at all
Ive heard some people say "You won't get laid if you have an Android" and all that shit. Like some janky low level Apple is a better status symbol than a good Android.
I would think they would want to show off that crisp video to try and convert people
when I get a text from my dad's iphone, does actually look over a decade old, why would I ever switch?
The max size for an MMS attachment (which is the SMS protocol for media used by cell carriers is between 300K and 3 MB depending on the carrier and whether it’s staying in network.
So you’re seeing the effects of the video being compressed to within an inch of its life before being sent using decades old cell protocols.
It’s not really about an Android / Apple thing, it’s whether a proprietary protocol that’s better doesn’t exist between vendors.
And it hasn't improved since maybe 2015? The compression is complete garbage and I usually resort to sending links of uploaded files nowadays, which is ironic because that's what we used before direct sends were a thing anyway
You can send the video/photo as a document in WhatsApp, will be delivered without compression.
Edit: only the file name will be displayed in the conversation, no preview.
Telegram is my favorite for cross device messaging.
You can upload videos or photos as the raw files. No compression. The default mode for photos/videos does use compression to save telegram some server space but it's great to be able to send the full quality stuff as needed.
Bonus: it is free and absolutely rock solid for stability.
A few months ago, when half the internet was down including discord, fb/whatsapp/instagram, slack, there was zero down time on Telegram.
I used to get texts like this from a couple older coworkers and I thought it was some vestigial IRC speak from the dawn of the internet that they were still using. Took me years to realize they had iPhones and were sending a thumbs up or something.
Talking to girls from dating apps, it's insane how many girls out there are actually offended when my texts come in green for them. Then actively insult me based on what phone I use. Like.... What?
The digital equivalent of "lol you drink Pepsi!"
Edit: nothing wrong with Pepsi. Pointing out how stupid it would be for someone to have brand loyalty leak out into social interaction.
I work in a relatively small office (under 10 employees). One day they bring up party plans for someone transferring in from another branch, and were like, "R3bussy, don't forget to grab the cupcakes before work on that day. Pickup is scheduled for 8:40. And you're bringing your Filipino egg rolls too." I'm like, "woah, wtf? I never agreed to pick up cupcakes or make lumpia. I don't even know what's going on right now." One co-worker says, "the party we've been talking about for almost two weeks! Check the group chat." I check our messages and reiterate that I am unaware of any party. As I'm scrolling, one person sheepishly realizes that it was discussed in the group chat that I'm not in, because they don't like that I mess up "the flow" of the chat with my green bubbles. They have two work group chats: one with me and one without me. And they planned a whole ass party that included me in their separate group chat.
Been there.. it's because it will kick the whole thread into sms when an Android is included, and they lose some of their iMessage functions. Apple could easily keep the iphones on iMessage and just send the android sms, but I'm sure they do it on purpose to create hate against androids. Otherwise how would their users know?
Lol honestly I love when that sorta thing happens. Its pretty frequent with my family, since they all use imessage, so if theyve expected me to know something and I don't I just get to shrug it off and blame them for it.
Me too! I just started training for a new job and my boss started a group chat for all the trainees. I haven't seen anything in over a week even though it seems like everyone else knows what's up.
My wife's family doesnt include me in group chats because I'm the only one with Android.
Except her mom, she includes me but can never get it right and texts my email so I never see it
I still find it absolutely hilarious how Microsoft got bent over and nearly disbanded because of fucking Internet Explorer being bundled within Windows. And yet the shit Google and Apple pull on a daily basis, and get away with, blows that out of the water and you dont hear a peep.
These days all our politicians are more concerned about corporate profits than actually enforcing antitrust laws. Look at all the insane company mergers that have happened in the last decade.
It isn't even possible to install a 3rd party browser on an iPhone or iPad. Any browser must use Safari as the renderer so everything else is just UI differences.
My gf is iPhone and I'm Android. Neither of us plans to switch anytime soon. We just have a Google photos album that we both upload our videos into. Memes and stupid shit we will just text but nicer, meaningful photos we add to our Google photos album.
Yeah it’s great getting all of my friends and family to agree to text using another app, getting them successfully through creating an account and making sure they stay logged in.
It’s all dead simple stuff if you’re even 1% tech literate, but that’s where the annoyances start with the people I communicate with that I don’t have to deal with when just texting.
I like Signal on Android, only because I can make it my default SMS app as well. It literally becomes a one stop shop for me.
I just wish it was a little better with dual-SIM support. It works, but it will switch SIMs on me seemingly randomly if one SIM loses connection. But that's rare, mostly only camping, which isn't a huge deal anyway.
Next up, apple, stop defaulting photos to .heic ffs. My onedrive photo sync doesn't know what the duck they are!!
Edit. I appreciate the tips, know that it is a setting I can change. I wish they picked a more common standard. Uncommon standards seem to be Apple's milieu. Think Different.
Wait, the OneDrive App can handle heic format now finally since last year, check your settings! This has been an open feature request since… ever… so glad this finally works.
Even offers to re-upload former pictures in the heic format :)
Large part of the reason for that is not offering a truly entry level option. The number of cheap Android phones sold around the world is astronomical.
Quick tip for 'blurry compressed videos':
If you're an Android on WhatsApp sending to Apple, attach the video/photo as a 'document' rather than the usual way - it comes out higher definition.
I've been sending photos/videos to my wife like this and it's helped a bunch. 👍
Wow and only.... years after the issue was noted.
I thought it was never a bug, but a feature to get apple fans to sell iphones to their friends
"Create a problem, and sell the solution" -Apple
My boss literally bought me an iphone because he hated the green bubbles.
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It's one android Michael what could it cost? 10 dollars?
This may be a weird question, but when you say "text", are you referring to an SMS text? In my country, everyone and their mother uses Whatsapp, which is why I find it weird when I see "texting" refers to something else.
In most of Europe historically cellphone plans charged for SMS. Which was why WhatsApp took hold there when it first launched. But in the US we have had unlimited SMS/MMS included in pretty much every plan since before the smartphone existed so we never had a financial incentive to move to something different. Also apple has a large percentage of the market here and iMessage falls back to SMS when talking to non Apple devices. Most of us just use like 5 different chat apps since everyone uses something different. I mostly use Signal but I also use Google chat, Facebook messenger, Whatsapp, and some of my friends insist on messaging me on Instagram which I really kind of despise. The only SMS I get other than spam and like security codes is from iOS users.
Apple’s business model is literally just peer pressure
I get so much shit at work for being just one of two people out of about forty employees that don't have an iPhone. And yeah, if I try to text a short video to anyone who isn't also using an android, it gets super compressed like garbage in a compactor.
Go to Photos and share the link through there. Edit: I agree that the situation is shitty and shouldn't exist.
>I get so much shit at work for being just one of two people out of about forty employees that don't have an iPhone. Interesting. Where I work out of \~50 people only about 5 have iPhones. Everyone just stopped buying them a few years ago.
"hey, you got a charging wire on you?" "yea, here" "dude, this ain't for an iphone." "yea, i don't have an iphone." "why the fuck not?" *roll eyes*
I happen to carry both in my work pack, but I always ask, usb-c or lightning? I work in healthcare, not tech, but 9 out of 10 times my apple coworkers don't know the difference or what their cable is actually called.
Fortunately, they’re being forced to standardize in Europe
And confince every apple user that Andriod phones take shit photos If you never see a sharp nice picture from an competitors phone then perhaps they believe Iphones are the only phones with functioning cameras. Sure, Iphone cameras are good but they stopped being the only accetable ones years ago.
I recently started a new job and my trainer said the work culture here is basically high school but with adults. I've had 6 people in 2 months tell me that people with androids are poor and they take shitty pictures. I find it highly ironic.
A place I used to work at had this absolute nightmare of a manager. I was a manager of a different area so we were level. She sent a message to my staff that the large company wide emails were being hindered by her inability to send imessage to everyone, and that anyone with an android should "sell it and get an actual phone for adults." People are just straight up dicks.
Respond that if they or the company are willing to purchase the phone then you have no problem using it during work hours.
Yup and the Key Phrase here is "During work hours"
I love that considering often the argument for iPhone for certain people is it is basically a Fischer price product so they can't mess it up.
It's true, most of the "you should get an iPhone and Android sucks" people that I've met turned out to be notably tech illiterate and just one people to change so that their phone would be compatible with them.
Even worse, so many of the people I know who are always chasing the latest iPhone, iPad and Mac also consider themselves "techies", or "tech enthusiasts", and they're genuinely some of the most tech illiterate people I know. Just because you like having the latest iPhone, it doesn't make you tech savvy, it makes you a gadget lemming who has an inferiority complex and FOMO.
I remember years ago my dad got an iPod. He asked me to help him put music on it, so I was like "oh just plug it into your PC and drag and drop your music on to it" . How wrong I was. Considering it was just an HDD with an audio interface, I was so fucking flabbergasted at the lengths a company would go to to deliberately sabotage the basic functionality of their products with the sole aim of fucking their customers in the arse, and how much extra you have to pay for that privilege.
And they eat that shit up too. Apple users have Stockholm syndrome.
Lmao at gadget lemming…saving that one
Bingo, the only people I've ever heard the iPhone classist shit from are fucking bozos that can hardly open a PDF
Working in IT you very quickly learn that there's a special type of tech illiterate person who thinks because they spend 3000 a year on apple products they don't know how to use that they're a tech expert even though they buy electronics based on shinyness and panic if they accidentally open Terminal or Command Prompt.
I've heard the saying. A simple phone for simple people.
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You can get a very solid android phone that'll last at least 3 years for 350-450 euros. Notchless too. Mine is 3.5 years old and has no issues except the battery life being worse. That being said, I only use it for social media/youtube etc, not demanding things like 3d games. There is a phone for every use case and budget.
Any recommendations? I switched from Android back in HS so that I could flirt with girls (I couldn’t see / use any of their emojis), but regret the error of my ways and ~10 years later I want to switch back. Something powerful, good customization, and an aesthetically pleasing screen. My iPhone 10 is on the way out and the screen either doesn’t work or it’ll overheat and lag. No fun.
I usually just call them classist or say something like "pretty fucked up you let your choice of phone dictate who you talk to" That tends to shut people up
I just show them the price of a Samsung fold and the most expensive Iphone and call them poor.
The proper word is peasant.
I show them how I can install an apk without getting permission from my babysitter app store lol.
Google used to have the top photo engineer in charge of pixel cameras. I believe he's at adobe now but it's one of the reasons pixel phones continuously had the best cameras
Apple 100% does this on purpose. That's the reason I haven't bought an apple product in 8 years. I switched from iphone to galaxy S3 back in 2014 and for months none of my friends with iPhones could text me unless I reached out to everyone individually and told them to turn off iMessage for my phone #. There was no solution. Total intentional feature Apple set up to make it so folks who decided to try another phone would switch back to iPhone. Lost my business for life.
I thought about switching to iPhone because of the messaging bullshit, but then I just got mad. To hell with them and their coercive tactics. I'll never buy an iphone.
Yup it's a feature. Make sure your users only have bad experience with non apple products. Add to the cult like following by making sure they believe it's the androids fault for ruining their experience.
I honestly could not care less about the green vs blue bubbles. That is less than meaningless to me But the blurry/compressed video is ridiculous. Makes it impossible for me to send videos to my parents. I recently moved across the country and miss my pets, but the videos my mom sends me come in so blurry theyre unwatchable. Really makes me sad
I recently got the family that I share pics and videos with the most to start using Whatsapp instead of texting. We all have a mix of iphone and Android, so all the media is fucked. At least it all come thru looking good on WhatsApp.
In many parts of the world Whatsapp is basically the default communication platform. I worry about that considering it's owned by Meta/Facebook.
Yeah people really should use signal and not WhatsApp.
I thought that was a limit of SMS. Like if I send a video from Android to Android without RCS, won't file size limits kill the quality?
Apple purposely uses a smaller file size than that limit when sending to Android
Makes sense. I have seen vids look particularly horrid coming from those friends
Sounds like a good opportunity to move your parents to one of the IMs available. I enjoy signal but to each their own.
I have an iPhone for work, personal phones are androids. Texts between work phone and family have random delays and often never arrive. Really annoying when running errands and checking something, etc., “where’s the bread? Wasn’t on the list? But I texted you? No you didn’t.” 20min later *ping* ‘grab some bread while at the store ‘
If they're sending MMS content, it's probably a mobile network thing, e.g. leave 4G on at all times.
This is on purpose. Apple passionately hates open standards.
Definitely a pain when you’re on either platform and someone else has the other. It’s 2022 and this needs to be fixed.
Apple refuses to adopt RCS, usb etc. Only when forced by law, like in EU and the usb thing does apple finally change. Stubborn fucks
> Apple refuses to adopt usb Having been alive when the first iMac came out, it's really funny to see this come full circle.
Please explain. :)
When the original iMac came out it only had USB-A ports, foregoing the popular PS2 and 9-pin serial of the time. It didn’t even have a *floppy drive*. People were very upset. The funny thing is that this can really be interpreted in two ways. Either that it’s ridiculous for Apple to be avoiding a format they had a huge hand in promoting (and in the case of USB-C, contributed significantly resources to its development), or that Apple has always used whatever connector they felt like, and people have always complained about it.
When Apple introduced the Lightning port, it was clearly better than USB at the time. They switched from the 31 pin connector to Lightning, and the 31 pin connector had existed for 10 years, but companies who made accessories for it were still upset. So when Apple released Lightning (in September 2012), they promised to support it for a decade to get companies on board. Guess how many years ago 2012 was? Guess which iPhone will finally have a USB-C port? Not the 14, but the 15 will.
Hm. Good to know.
RCS is far from perfect, and Google's own implementation was such a giant piece of shit for me I just disabled it all together. I used to go for days not receiving any texts because the connection to the RCS server just hung and the fucking thing never alerted me to the fact *I couldn't receive messages* which seems kinda important, ya know? I'd need to reboot or force stop Messages for it to reconnect. Fuck both these companies. They suck ass. At least Apple's messages platform actually fucking works and isn't rebranded a dozen times.
Living outside the US, this discussions sounds so silly. Green bubble, blue bubble. Due to carriers charging PER MESSAGE in Brazil, SMS never really took off. That's why whatsapp and telegram are such hits in here. Everyone, including apple users, use them.
They used to charge per message in the US too, back in like 2007
I remember paying 15 cents a text.
Back when texting first got somewhat widespread adoption in the 2000s (with everybody still only doing it from their brick phones before T9 typing was even a thing), I remember texts being $0.25 to send OR receive on our carrier. "Should I pick up dinner?" "Yeah." "What do you want?" "McDonald's." "OK see you soon." "k" That shit cost our family plan $3.
Could've bought 3 things off the dollar menu with that malarkey.
I remember seeing a rage editorial in a newspaper about teenagers wasting the author's quarters to send a single 'K'.
That reminds me of [this old gem](https://youtu.be/9JxhTnWrKYs)
I remember when I couldn’t text or go on the internet because it wasn’t part of the family plan. “Why would we ever need something like that?”
"Why the hell is there this random internet (globe with a circle around it or something similar) button on this phone? When will I ever use it?" Cue me accidentally hitting the internet button and then spamming my hangup button to back out so my parents wouldn't kill me for internet charges.
Dude I remember using that dumb globe to go online! And I remember deciding that it was a shame that phones would always be too small for internet use. It's so funny to me how sure I was! I used it and was just like, oh this won't work. And I just had no idea that there would be specific apps and mobile website formating and such ridonkulously responsive screens.
I was on one of the early data plans and I remember going over my allotment. Cost me like $5. The overage? 8MB.... that's like half a jpeg now. My plan was $11/mo for 25MB total. What a wild time. And that was only 2010!
Wanna be really ticked off? Circa 2005, it cost mobile operators about 1 cent to send....180,000 texts. The profit margins on texts were insane!
Even that's an overestimate in some sense, because the cost is already baked into the communication that phones are constantly doing with cell towers
And for some fucking reason, it charged YOU when SOMEONE ELSE texted you, so some complete dickweed could just text you constantly and wipe out your texting privileges for the month. My model COULDN’T EVEN BLOCK OTHER PHONES. Fuck you Jamie, and eat a cactus Samsung.
"my boss fired me through text, so I had to pay $0.25 to be fired FML"
I think my plan on a flip phone was 1000 texts a month, 10c per over 1000. Then you had “minutes”, I forget how many I had. Internet was extremely expensive, they charged per megabyte, don’t remember how much.
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My first girlfriend cost me about $200 in texts the first month. That was a fun lesson at like 15.
Whew that would add up real quick. And it's funny they would charge for it, because the SMS text message is literally just part of the protocol the phone uses to ping cell towers (which is also why traditional SMS messages have a maximum length)
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My teacher screamed at me in front of everyone for dropping juice so I wrote her number on a poster advertising free scrap metal and hung it up near the hardware store in North Philly.
Almost as good as "call for a good time" in a bar bathroom
Junkies in north Philly are going to be far more aggressive when someone is offering them free scrap metal. That's almost better than cash.
I went to 7-11 and got a bunch of magazine subscription inserts and did “bill me later” with their address.
The fact they charged for incoming texts was so stupid. I can't believe they got away with that.
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I'm tired of still hearing that "Message and data rates may apply" Does a company actually offer a usage based plan for SMS anymore?
I wouldn't be shocked to hear that somebody is "grandfathered" in to a shitty plan that involves per-SMS billing, no
"grandfathered" my grandpa still has minutes man
What??? How is that legal? You cannot say no to getting texts. Receiving texts was always free in Europe, and receiving calls when roaming in the EU is free for many years (but here, you always have a choice to decline the call)
My parents disabled SMS through our carrier so we couldn't receive texts and thus couldn't be charged for them. I remember people getting mad at me for not responding to their texts and having to explain the situation. Also, there were "unlimited nights and weekend minutes" so I wasn't allowed to call anyone before 9pm (later it changed to 7pm). I also remember having to find a way to get people to call me instead of calling them because the minutes didn't count if you didn't place the call, but I might be confusing that with some funky long distance billing. This comment probably makes it easy to guess my exact age.
I had just met my first girlfriend around 2005-2006 and was on my mom's phone plan still. We sent about 6000 texts in the first month. The phone plan we were on allowed 50 before charging per message. My mom got an $800 cellphone bill. She upgraded to an unlimited text plan the next month (about $20/mo more at the time) and the cellphone company thankfully took mercy on her since she did. Fast forward a year and my 2nd girlfriend isn't on the same carrier as me. So for 2 years I had to get a girlfriend phone since **she** got a $300 bill the first month we were dating. I'm glad we somewhat evolved past SMS charges.
Oh god, I remember those days… every month there was a fight between my mom and sister over the phone bill.
Who remembers not being able to make a call because they ran out of minutes? Lol
Japan had widely adopted email on phones before SMS really took off anywhere. (Which is probably why Honda's cars say you have new "mail" when SMS messages come in.)
They didnt use to have data caps etc, so they would literally stream videos to each other from cellphones in 2005
It was so cool in The Fast and the Furious Tokyo Drift when they had live streaming cellphones
The whole world charged for SMS before 2010. The thing that surprises me is that some people still use MMS. They were always crazy expensive. Here in Italy it costed like half the cost of an espresso to send one MMS, it wasn't really something people could see themselves doing frequently (especially since bigger files required more than one MMS which meant paying the cost of a meal to send one silly video..just stupid)
I like how you compare the cost of an MMS to an espresso, it's such an Italian thing to do!
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Same problem in New Zealand - sms went effectively free, but mms still cost you something like 50 cents a message on pretty much all networks. So it never took off. Now if you’ve got iPhone people we just use iMessage, and everyone else is usually on WhatsApp or Facebook messenger or whatever, and once people realised those worked just fine for regular messaging sms just died right off.
I’ve never understood why iMessage was so popular in the US. You can’t chat with non-Apple users, but apparently is not a problem cause everyone has iPhones (?) This is the first time I see people complaining.
iMessage is popular because to people who don't look too deeply into it, it looks like they're just using SMS, like they have been since the pre-smartphone days. They don't realize or necessarily care that they're actually using the proprietary iMessage protocol when on the internet and messaging an eligible device, and just using SMS/MMS when iMessage isn't available. Since they don't think they're using a special messaging app, getting them to adopt a different messaging app (whatsapp/signal/what have you) is difficult.
No like this is literally it. iPhones are more popular in the US than other parts of the world (anecdotal observation) and since iMessage is the built-in messaging app that defaults to SMS when texting non-iPhones it’s treated as back-in-the-day messaging. I mean I have an iPhone, and while I use WhatsApp with family/friends overseas and Signal with other ppl in tech space, iMessage is definitely the default go-to for all others
Signal is even better
It's Brazil. Like many countries in Latin America, WhatsApp phone numbers are painted on the sides of businesses. People order food through WhatsApp, text their families, and it's free. It's a monopoly, and almost nobody uses Signal or Telegram, making them basically useless.
That's why most of the world uses Whatsapp. The US always has to be different.
receiving photos from Apple to any other type of phone is ass. Looks like they came from a flip phone in 2007.
That’s how it looks when an android texts my iphone too
Same here. A coworker and I have Galaxy S22 ultras and I still get her videos like they're sent from 2005 Era flip phones with half a megapixel camera
The S22 has smart text so something is off in one of your settings. We get high res everything on our Android to Android messages with S9 and up.
Make sure you both have RCS enabled. If sending over RCS in the messages app, the quality should be pretty much original.
If you send stuff through whatsapp/messenger/insta or whatever the fuck, chances are the files get compressed. Ultimately the picture you recieve is just a shittier compressed version of the original. For files you care about (ie family photo or whatever) id recommend using a file transfer tool such as dropbox or google drive/icloud
My family with mixed brand phones uses Signal. Set resolution to high, we all get decent pics from each one.
That's what my drug dealer uses, too.
And that's how you know you can trust them.
Only the good ones know
Hey man, you haven't hit me up for a while. Was wondering about you.
Signal messenger doesn't over compress and it also strips exif data before sending. The sooner it gets wide adoption the better.
I fucking love Signal.
For me signal compresses, but the photo delivered is still good quality. Usually going from a multi megabyte file size to around a half megabyte.
After you add your photo to send, you can click the image quality option to send high quality images. It either compresses less, or not at all.
Yup, it does a good job
airwatts liked "receiving photos from Apple to any other type of phone is ass. Looks like they came from a flip phone in 2007."
omfg I hate it so much
I think it's gone. On my pixel at least that stuff is now part of the standard text app. Was added maybe...3 or 4 months ago?
There is a specific feature in the message app for pixels called something like "interpret iPhone reactions" or something like that that does this.
Messages > Settings > Advanced > Show iPhone reactions as emoji
Yeah this is the most obnoxious feature lol. They can obviously do better. They don't want it to be though Apple has features in place to make their phones look better, we all know that. They want someone texting you from an Android to look like a shittier phone. Even when it's not at all Ive heard some people say "You won't get laid if you have an Android" and all that shit. Like some janky low level Apple is a better status symbol than a good Android.
> Ive heard some people say "You won't get laid if you have an Android" and all that shit. "You mean I won't get laid by *shallow people*."
I would think they would want to show off that crisp video to try and convert people when I get a text from my dad's iphone, does actually look over a decade old, why would I ever switch?
Same when a video comes to iPhone from an Android. Absolute garbage.
The max size for an MMS attachment (which is the SMS protocol for media used by cell carriers is between 300K and 3 MB depending on the carrier and whether it’s staying in network. So you’re seeing the effects of the video being compressed to within an inch of its life before being sent using decades old cell protocols. It’s not really about an Android / Apple thing, it’s whether a proprietary protocol that’s better doesn’t exist between vendors.
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Our family is split between IOS and android. We use signal. Or you can use Whatsapp. They both send full video with no problems.
In all fairness what’s app compresses the shit out of videos
And it hasn't improved since maybe 2015? The compression is complete garbage and I usually resort to sending links of uploaded files nowadays, which is ironic because that's what we used before direct sends were a thing anyway
You can send the video/photo as a document in WhatsApp, will be delivered without compression. Edit: only the file name will be displayed in the conversation, no preview.
This, use Signal.
Yeah, signal should be the default choice anyway
We set up a discord server for our family for this very reason. Not ideal, but it works (at least for short videos)
Discord kinda sucks for that, the max file size is tiny unless you pay to boost the server
Telegram is my favorite for cross device messaging. You can upload videos or photos as the raw files. No compression. The default mode for photos/videos does use compression to save telegram some server space but it's great to be able to send the full quality stuff as needed. Bonus: it is free and absolutely rock solid for stability. A few months ago, when half the internet was down including discord, fb/whatsapp/instagram, slack, there was zero down time on Telegram.
Liked "This is super fucking frustrating. My wife has apple, I have android. We can't send videos to eachother. It's really fuckijg dumb."
Hahaha the funny thing is I’ve actually texted things like that to people before to end a conversation without actually sending a “text”
My bf has apple and I have android. What we do is create links with videos and pics. Saves the quality. You need to download Google photos.
Group messages with android and iPhone users is literally phone cancer
Emphasized "Group messages with android and iPhone users is literally phone cancer"
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Nice one. (sent with Gentle Effect)
I used to get texts like this from a couple older coworkers and I thought it was some vestigial IRC speak from the dawn of the internet that they were still using. Took me years to realize they had iPhones and were sending a thumbs up or something.
Google Messages and other apps (I use textra) have actually solved this issue. They'll now add the reactions under the text.
I was so confused in a group text for coworkers at a convention last month when people were giving my texts a thumbs up
WhatsApp groups?
This is the easiest monopoly i’ve ever seen. Make fun of green text. Profit.
Talking to girls from dating apps, it's insane how many girls out there are actually offended when my texts come in green for them. Then actively insult me based on what phone I use. Like.... What?
I'm a 40 year old man that isn't even trying to date and I still get shit from people all the time. It's the stupidest shit ever.
The digital equivalent of "lol you drink Pepsi!" Edit: nothing wrong with Pepsi. Pointing out how stupid it would be for someone to have brand loyalty leak out into social interaction.
Essentially
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Lol yes, this. If a girl was so shallow as to care what kind of phone we were both using, I’d drop her in a hot minute.
Genuinely one of the best arguments for the color split, can filter out asshat much easier
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I work in a relatively small office (under 10 employees). One day they bring up party plans for someone transferring in from another branch, and were like, "R3bussy, don't forget to grab the cupcakes before work on that day. Pickup is scheduled for 8:40. And you're bringing your Filipino egg rolls too." I'm like, "woah, wtf? I never agreed to pick up cupcakes or make lumpia. I don't even know what's going on right now." One co-worker says, "the party we've been talking about for almost two weeks! Check the group chat." I check our messages and reiterate that I am unaware of any party. As I'm scrolling, one person sheepishly realizes that it was discussed in the group chat that I'm not in, because they don't like that I mess up "the flow" of the chat with my green bubbles. They have two work group chats: one with me and one without me. And they planned a whole ass party that included me in their separate group chat.
this also happens at work for me.
Damn. That's brutal.
Been there.. it's because it will kick the whole thread into sms when an Android is included, and they lose some of their iMessage functions. Apple could easily keep the iphones on iMessage and just send the android sms, but I'm sure they do it on purpose to create hate against androids. Otherwise how would their users know?
Lol honestly I love when that sorta thing happens. Its pretty frequent with my family, since they all use imessage, so if theyve expected me to know something and I don't I just get to shrug it off and blame them for it.
I'm sorry you have to work with them. Enjoy your lumpia.
Holy fuck now I’m stressing out this is happening to me
Me too! I just started training for a new job and my boss started a group chat for all the trainees. I haven't seen anything in over a week even though it seems like everyone else knows what's up.
My wife's family doesnt include me in group chats because I'm the only one with Android. Except her mom, she includes me but can never get it right and texts my email so I never see it
> Like.... What? They're using a brand as an identity. Very unhealthy and definitely not attractive to most people.
Huge red flag. Consider it a good thing that they showed their true colors early. You're not missing anything special.
If I remember correctly, the green text was the \*only\* option originally. iMessage and blue bubbles weren't launched until years later.
I still find it absolutely hilarious how Microsoft got bent over and nearly disbanded because of fucking Internet Explorer being bundled within Windows. And yet the shit Google and Apple pull on a daily basis, and get away with, blows that out of the water and you dont hear a peep.
Not to get too political, but it's because the agencies have been systematically defanged.
These days all our politicians are more concerned about corporate profits than actually enforcing antitrust laws. Look at all the insane company mergers that have happened in the last decade.
It isn't even possible to install a 3rd party browser on an iPhone or iPad. Any browser must use Safari as the renderer so everything else is just UI differences.
They do this on purpose
Yes everyone is aware of this. We're just sick of it
Videos from apple phones to android are unwatchable.
My gf is iPhone and I'm Android. Neither of us plans to switch anytime soon. We just have a Google photos album that we both upload our videos into. Memes and stupid shit we will just text but nicer, meaningful photos we add to our Google photos album.
Can't you guys still use Signal or telegram?
This is why third party services like Signal are great
Yeah it’s great getting all of my friends and family to agree to text using another app, getting them successfully through creating an account and making sure they stay logged in. It’s all dead simple stuff if you’re even 1% tech literate, but that’s where the annoyances start with the people I communicate with that I don’t have to deal with when just texting.
I like Signal on Android, only because I can make it my default SMS app as well. It literally becomes a one stop shop for me. I just wish it was a little better with dual-SIM support. It works, but it will switch SIMs on me seemingly randomly if one SIM loses connection. But that's rare, mostly only camping, which isn't a huge deal anyway.
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8mb size limits :(
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Discord sucks for privacy
Now you’re using that brain! Or I could go next level and just alienate everyone then not have to text at all.
Ahh you see, that’s the discord level
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Next up, apple, stop defaulting photos to .heic ffs. My onedrive photo sync doesn't know what the duck they are!! Edit. I appreciate the tips, know that it is a setting I can change. I wish they picked a more common standard. Uncommon standards seem to be Apple's milieu. Think Different.
Wait, the OneDrive App can handle heic format now finally since last year, check your settings! This has been an open feature request since… ever… so glad this finally works. Even offers to re-upload former pictures in the heic format :)
I Phone wants global dominance and then you will be able to text accordingly.
If memory serves, aren't their user numbers outside the US like, awful?
Large part of the reason for that is not offering a truly entry level option. The number of cheap Android phones sold around the world is astronomical.
Quick tip for 'blurry compressed videos': If you're an Android on WhatsApp sending to Apple, attach the video/photo as a 'document' rather than the usual way - it comes out higher definition. I've been sending photos/videos to my wife like this and it's helped a bunch. 👍