As someone who's been locked into the Apple ecosystem since 2010, I was extremely hopeful that this article would help me.
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.
I don't understand entirely. Apple has locked you into their walled garden.
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.
How did your not-tech savvy grandparent deal with grandkids who use don't use apple products?
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.
So you expect people who don't really even care about technology in the first place to rapidly adapt to your changing preferences? I don't have facebook, and I know that I could be better in touch with my extended family and many of my friends if I had one, it's my choice to die on that hill. I don't want facebook to invade my privacy, I could make a hardware choice and have a device or devices dedicated solely to their swill, to cordon off my private life from their information vacuum, but I choose not to do so.
How is switching off of one ecosystem (facebook ads monetization) any different than another (Apple hardware monetization).
I think the difference is that you can use other solutions on multiple of platforms.
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.
>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.
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.
So if you have friends who play on PS and friends who play on XBox, is it reasonable to choose one set over the other? Should I buy the same game twice?
Just because unreasonable walls exist else where does not justify unreasonable walls everywhere.
Discord I agree, but it should be easy to install and use Whatsapp. There are probably already millions of grandmas using it since Whatsapp is the dominant messaging app outside the US (even by iOS users).
Whatsapp isn't really Facebook and it is ubiquitious. I live in Europe and have lived in Africa, I only know of one person that doesn't have it and they're tinfoil hat level paranoid (following a privacy scare earlier this year).
Whatsapp really is Facebook. Facebook owns them, lock stock and barrel, so I'm not sure what you think the distinction is.
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.
Why would you set up grandma with apps that invade her privacy. She's the most impressionable person and will use it if given. I got my family and grandparents switched to Signal as the furthest compromise between usability and privacy I'd be willing to go
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.
iMessage is the SMS app as well, so that makes sense. Forwarding of SMS and phone calls to your Mac is part of continuity. https://www.apple.com/macos/continuity/
It's important not to start using a service which will be difficult to cease using. This is how lock in occurs. It's not truly convenient if you're stuck with it.
> It's not truly convenient if you're stuck with it.
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.
That works great if you're a nerd and only every communicate with other nerds. Once you try to talk to moms, your stuck using FB or messages. So, you can be definitely use the most secure stuff out there that gives you all the freedom to do exactly what you want, but you'll be on that island all by yourself. Enjoy
But that's a trade-off that most users are expected to have. I like how macOS can handle continuity of applications (iMessage, Apps, Fileshare) across multiple devices. I haven't seen any other OSs or ecosystem handle this as well as Apple's.
I've been using Linux as my primary desktop since the early 90's. I used to dual boot as needed, then switched to Windows in a VM, but now I will RDP into a Windows server at work if I need to run a business app. But for the most part everything I do is either a web app or is in a terminal window. Of course that is a function of my particular career (Unix/Linux systems/network engineer/developer).
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.
> iOS devices, iCloud, FaceTime, unlikely to be using iMessage
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
- 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.
The hard one is continuity’s copy paste. I can copy & paste images and text seamlessly between my laptop and phone. I can’t think of a way to set that up myself any other way - maybe a custom app with a content box?
It’s insanely useful, and such a drag when I don’t have it. (Eg when working from my Linux workstation)
Yes and yes (unless you are using iOS). KDE Connect can sync the clipboard between any combination of desktop and mobile devices on Android, Linux, macOS, and Windows. The macOS version is still in development, but there is a compatible port called Soduto that works perfectly on macOS:
https://prism-break.org/ offers a better list of alternatives. Moving from one proprietary service to another should be seen as a lateral move. If switching, may as well choose at least some options that don't spy on you.
The biggest one for me isn't anything you mention, It is iCloud Keychain. Due to all the security concern I have finally made the effort to use random password for almost everything now ( macOS even has a hidden password generator in KeyChain App if one of those site happen to have stupid password combination requirement )
Can't you migrate everything to a cross platform password manager like KeepassXC or Bitwarden? It seems quite clunky that the iCloud Keychain locks you to a particular browser and operating system platform.
I use a Linux exclusively for my regular computing needs, development work, office stuff etc., and have an iPhone and iPad. The iPhone market is so much larger than the Mac market that Apple has designed the devices to work just fine without a Mac to plug in to.
I do use Dropbox instead of iCloud for most files, but if I need to get a photo out of iCloud, the web interface works fine.
Huh? I use iOS devices and do not own a single macOS device. iPhone + iPad + Windows desktop. It’s great.
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 think there's a huge amount of value in bringing more of the Linux and UNIX experience to the Mac. That way I can still use my iPhone and I can still us Logic and Pages, but I can run a window manager that I can modify and customize. That's just one aspect. It would be nice to have some other *nix features like procfs/sysfs, BSD jails (or at least better chroot support), tmpfs, etc.
I’m in a similar situation. Once the core apps stop working as expected — iMessage, FaceTime, easy transfer of music to iPhone — I will be going back to Linux. I honestly can’t wait, but for now it’s not worth the time sink to get it installed on this 2010 MBP. Plus that would be an immediate loss of functionality for most of those applications without considerable research into FOSS alternatives.
Do what I did and switch to Signal wholesale. Or at least to Telegram. Both have really nice desktop clients on Linux. Move to Brave Search as well - it has its own index and it's easily on par with Google in my experience.
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.
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.