Why I hate iMessage on iPhone
Whether to enable or disable iMessage is sometimes a choice between the plague and cholera; group chatting can be tremendously irritating, and I personally never use the feature anyway. Why can I not turn off the SHIT?!
By. Jacob
Edited: 2023-10-15 12:56
Often the horrible irritating stupidity of things does not really occur to you until you have an actual problem with something. I just realized iMessage is a horrible, horrible piece of malware that should be avoided whenever possible. Don't get me wrong though, I love features like read receipts and encryption, but a specific feature that irritates the hell out of me is group messaging!
The problem with the group chat feature is that some people will keep adding you to group chats simply for the fun of seeing random people interact with each other in a group that is totally irrelevant to them. They might do it as a prank, or maybe they do it simply as a way of getting attention. Either way it is profoundly irritating. And there is no way of knowing who you are engaging with, because people not in your contacts will just show up as anonymous phone numbers and e-mail addresses – the feature is a train wreck!
iMessage is insecure
Of course, iMessage is fundamentally unnecessary and dangerous, because we already have numerous of other ways of texting via the internet that are more secure.
Old fashioned SMS/MMS messaging is too risky and insecure due to the fact that SMS texts can be intercepted and manipulated, and even spoofed, so I disslike the idea of disabling iMessage outright just to avoid group chat. But, the problem also is, if you accept SMS text messages instead, you could potentially open yourself up to smishing attacks, and that will happen when you communicate with Android users, because Apple is seemingly refusing to adopt the RCS standard!
Apple downgrades texts between iPhones and Android phones into SMS and MMS, outdated tech from the 90s and 00s. But Apple can adopt RCS–the modern industry standard–for those texts instead. Solving the problem without changing iPhone-to-iPhone conversations, and making messaging better for everyone.
Source: It’s time for Apple to fix texting. – android.com
Even for iPhone users, if someone has iMessage disabled, they may instead receive texts as old fashioned SMS/MMS messages, compromising not just their own security but that of their contacts as well.
Group chats on iMessage
Back to group chats. I can not even seem to turn it off!
I believe it is a chat feature specific to iMessage, so it would have been such a simple option to add, and for whatever reason it is just not there!
There really should be a way to disable such horrible unnecessary features. Apple cannot simply force people to use it if we do not want to! This is another reason not to rely on proprietary software for communication!
With open source, at least you can just disable the specific feature that annoys you.
It would be nice with a way to disable certain features for specific people. E.g. Block certain people from adding you to groups. Currently it is basically an "all or nothing" situation with no middleground; either we block the individual entirely from contacting us, or we will have to tolerate the irritating behaviour.
What I disslike about iMessage
iMessage is Apple's own proprietary messaging system, and it is not even supported on other devices although Apple could easily make an Android version. So if an android phone where to text an iPhone, the message would be sent as a insecure plain SMS message. Also, you cannot easily use iMessage in Windows or in Linux, although there is no technical reason why you should not be able to do it – it would be a very simple thing to allow, so the fact that you cannot must mean that it is Apple being malicious on purpose.
Free and open source communication systems exist, including IRC, Nextcloud, Mastodon, Element, and even traditional e-mail – we should probably just focus on improving those existing open technologies!
The lack of compatibility is probably conspicuously carried out by design in order to force people into buying iPhones. Meanwhile, Android phones can text securely among themselves, but apparently not engage securely with iPhones! That is another reason not to tolerate this proprietary bullshit.
Attention: It’s time for Apple to fix texting.
We should probably have some government ban on certain closed-source proprietary software that's used widely by the public. If we are all using it, then there is a strong argument to be made that the software should "belong" to all of us, and not just the company that developed it – perhaps even more so when we paid money for it!
Links
- It’s time for Apple to fix texting. - android.com
- Tim Cook revealed the real reason Apple won’t fix green bubbles - theverge.com
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