Apple To Loosen Reins on Outside Messaging, Phone Apps Via Siri (bloomberg.com) 29
Apple said it will ease some restrictions on developers of third-party apps, responding to news reports about the rise of in-house software that gets prized default status on iPhones and iPads. From a report: The Cupertino, California-based company plans to release a software update later this year that will help outside messaging applications work better with the Siri digital assistant. Right now, when iPhone users ask Siri to call or message a friend, the system defaults to Apple's Phone or iMessage apps. If you want to use WhatsApp or Skype, you have to specifically say that.
When the software refresh kicks in, Siri will default to the apps that people use frequently to communicate with their contacts. For example, if an iPhone user always messages another person via WhatsApp, Siri will automatically launch WhatsApp, rather than iMessage. It will decide which service to use based on interactions with specific contacts. Developers will need to enable the new Siri functionality in their apps. This will be expanded later to phone apps for calls as well.
When the software refresh kicks in, Siri will default to the apps that people use frequently to communicate with their contacts. For example, if an iPhone user always messages another person via WhatsApp, Siri will automatically launch WhatsApp, rather than iMessage. It will decide which service to use based on interactions with specific contacts. Developers will need to enable the new Siri functionality in their apps. This will be expanded later to phone apps for calls as well.
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So why did it take a full week for it to crash, that happens to seem to correlate towards manufacturing slowdown.
I am sure those investors are willing to burn millions of dollars because of those DARN DEMOCRATS! Vs. looking at trends of how companies are dealing with trade.
The Stock Market wasn't much affected when Clinton was going threw impeachment efforts.
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But is the x-platform video/photo quality fixed? (Score:1)
Any time an Apple user sends a video to my Android phone via MMS, it always looks like utter shit. Android to Android? Looks just fine.
Apple is still just a toy until it can do what all the big boys do.
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Apple to Apple video looks just fine, you are saying your system is better when it can't play even videos from both systems acceptably. Sad.
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If a text is destined for a non-Apple device, the iMessages server does the conversion to a standard text or MMS. I suspect this is where things are getting mucked up. The vast
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Apple runs all their text messages through their iMessages server. So when you're sending a text message to another iPhone user, you're not sending a SMS...If a text is destined for a non-Apple device, the iMessages server does the conversion...But Apple's iMessage server seems to abide by the ancient 300 kB size limit, and crushes the video down to fit inside 300 kB before forwarding it to non-Apple devices. So this one is all on Apple - they need to update their iMessage server to support the latest SMS and MMS standards....
I would mod you up if I had points. Don't hold your breath for any changes as long the brainwashed Apple users believe the problem is outside of Apple.
Apple using friend/family: "The video looked great when I sent it to my grandmother who also has an iPhone, it must be your cheap Android phone. Apple is so much better. It just works. You should switch."
Me: *rolls eyes*
On the other hand, if people are using Apple products for business and iMessage isn't cooperating with others that may be a powerful enough i
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You're the idiot using a device that forces non-Apple people to receive a 300kB maximum MMS, while the rest of us are capable of sending multi-meg messages around to other devices without fail.
Try again when you actually understand the issue, you fucktard shill.
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I get the same problem when I try to open an VT340 application on a VT100 terminal. It just isn't as good as those apps written for VT100 Terminals. Those VT340 seems to have off shading, while the VT100 uses crisp high contrast colors, as well some of the text just isn't aligned well. and those [M[ stuff everywhere is a real pain.
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What kind of non-toy use cases are there for video MMS? Even in this meme-addled age, blasting out 'look at this cute thing my cat just did' vids to all your friends isn't 'big boy' work.
Is it porn? It's porn, isn't it.
Re: But is the x-platform video/photo quality fixe (Score:2)
So...does a dead car battery look materially different from a working car battery?
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If it is swollen, cracked and leaking, or the terminals are corroded to shit, yes, very fucking much so. Do you even do your own car repairs and maintenance?
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Car work. Mining work. Remote electronics work (remember Google Helpouts? Yea, I used the phone's video capabilities a ton for that.)
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Any time an Apple user sends a video to my Android phone via MMS, it always looks like utter shit. Android to Android? Looks just fine.
Apple is still just a toy until it can do what all the big boys do.
Perhaps the real problem is on the Decode and Display side, not the Encode side, eh?
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Shows you know nothing. [slashdot.org]
Meaningless (Score:3)
Until I can set default apps, these measures are pointless and personally rather insulting. You still cant choose in the default email app what web browser to open links in. Shit like this is infuriating.
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Their intent is to better gather app usage metrics (and presumably pipe them to their on-device "ML co-processor"). If they simply enabled variable-usage-based default app settings, they would still lack the actual usage rate of the various apps within a given category -- which opens another door to categorizing apps which is he metadata used to catalog them in the first place... cuz I use Skype, Line, WhatsUp, FB Messenger, iMessage etc all the same, but usage rates are not consistent since the contacts on some apps don't use the other apps as frequently (if at all).
I might agree with you if it werent for the fact its been that way since before their machine learning and ML-coprocessor. Its just apple being dbags as usual.
wrong solution (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually the right fix, from the standpoint of the customer (but not that of Apple's ego) would be to allow the user to replace Siri with Google Assistant.
When I downgraded from a $150.00 Moto X Android phone to a $1000.00+ iPhone the first thing I noticed was how useless and stupid is Siri compared to the Google Assistant. Whenever I asked for a route back to my coworking space, which was in the U.S. midwest, from somewhere in town, it would always give me a route to some place in India. Apple, how stupid can you be not to constraint the set of answers to places someone would actually want to drive, or to favor proximate locations or frequent destinations when resolving ambiguities? I almost always got sensible answers from Google Assistant and now I usually get useless or absurd answers from Siri. Apple knows Siri sucks and has made a deliberate decision to screw the customer. Pretty sure that Steve Jobs would have thrown a tantrum and fired people until it Siri stopped sucking but Tim Cook just rolls with it.
Ya, I know, you can ask Siri to launch Google Assistant, but it's constant annoyance to have to do that.
Momentum, marketing, lock in to the Apple walled garden and the iWatch dependency on iPhone might be the only things keeping iPhone a viable commercial product.
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The thing is you are using the iPhone wrong. And no I am not trying to be Apple Fan Boying.
Android and iOS are very different approaches to a Mobile OS, there are sets of features where Android does better then the iPhone and vice versa.
It will be like saying you "upgraded" you hand drill to a drill press. They both drill holes. However that hand drill you can use anywhere, and not limited by the size of the item you are trying to drill. However that drill press can drill very precisely, and in difficul
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Apple is hardly alone there.
I used google maps for directions/distance between two California towns.
I noticed that the initial direction had to be wrong just because it headed the wrong direction . . . and then noticed the time and distance . . . which we're explained by the4 "swim the atlantic' from the Gulf of Mexico to France before apparently climbing dripping wet into a vehicle that would somehow be waiting and driving it to a town of the same name as the one in California . . . (high on the list of sc
Apple To Loosen Reins (Score:2)
What's with the horse carriage analogies, pops?
Thant's great (Score:3)
Now how about opening up iMessage to other clients and other operating systems, like you promised back in twenty-flippin-twelve?
Re: Thant's great (Score:2)
Oh fuck that.
A big part of the value proposition for iMessage, to me, is that not every motherfucker can send you one. You at least need an Apple device. By blocking all text messages, I can significant cut down on the pool of motherfuckers who can contact me via messaging. Open up iMessage to the entire set of motherfuckers and Iâ(TM)ll have to block all iMessages too.