Comment by cmikec | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cmikec | Hacker News Reader

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I'm really sorry that your initial experience with Magic last year wasn't ideal. We have come a long way since those initial days. Believe it or not, we actually did not plan that original launch -- rather, we released the website and number to a few people and it went viral practically overnight. We set up a waitlist as quickly as we could, but there definitely were some people in the beginning who did not have a good user experience. I hope that if you asked for a refund back then because you were dissatisfied, that you got one. If you didn't, please feel free to text in now and claim it.

Some of the themes you're bringing up here actually point to why we created Magic+ in the first place. Magic+ was developed as a response to the needs of the most active and demanding users of our standard Magic service. In particular, a common demand was to hold a very high bar for quality and seamlessness of experience.

Right now, some of these user-requested experiences are more expensive to deliver than the original Magic pricing model accounted for. Our plan is to offer Magic+ at this price now, because there is good demand for it at this price, and drop the price over time to reach a larger and larger market. $100 dollars an hour is a lot, but our most active users tell us that for this level of elite service, it's a bargain.

I just noticed something strange in the screenshot. It seems to imply that Magic will work over iMessage. As far as I know, there is no publicly available API for iMessage so I'd be curious to know how this works.

Setting up a Mac to programmatically send iMessages is trivial. I have a custom solution running that receives data over HTTPS and runs an AppleScript to send the specified text to the desired number or address via the Messages app using an iCloud account not tied to any mobile phone number.

It's an SMS, not specific to iMessage.

Then the messages would be green. I'm curious about this as well (unless they're just photoshopped).

When I was experimenting with Twilio that was the only aspect that was a little disappointing. I wanted blue messages. :)

Pretty sure they're just photoshopped and they don't use iMessage in reality. The font/kerning/size/alignment looks off from here.

the blue message bubble is iMessage specific.

It's evidently photoshopped, based on the message bubble padding. Definitely just an error.

Or on purpose since since the blue messages are meant to look better with the UI so that you prefer using iMessage when possible.

If they were using a regular phone number, they could achieve this by using the Messages app on iOS, and controlling it with AppleScript.

Hey it's no worries -- just sharing my experience and conclusion upon the product. Poor experiences aside, the product isn't for me because I think it's equally as easy to just use the specialized service (e.g., food delivery website for food delivery). Nevertheless, I can see a use-case for the wealthy and hope the best for you guys.

This looks really interesting. Just wondering, in your FAQ you have:

Q: Where is Magic+ available?

Anywhere you need it. Magic+ is there to make your every desire and need happen, wherever you are.

# Does this mean that we can actually use it in other countries like the UK? Do we need to use an area code?

Yes, you can use the service from other countries. Magic+ is actually really convenient when you're traveling. We have phone numbers that work internationally.

So maybe putting the number that we can text from outside the US networks on the website might help.

What about for people who don't live in the US?

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