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Comment by catlover76 | Hacker News Reader

I just got an iPhone for the first time, and it is a noticeably better device than my previous Android phones.

One downside is that I can't use iMessage on my Windows and Linux computers. Will look into pypush

Honestly, the iPhone is nudging me further to giving a Macbook/OSX a try one day, but the major blocker to me is the poor state of gaming on Macs.

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After my gaming computer started rebooting (probably needs a new power supply in order to hit peak power draw), I tried out my new M2 Pro for gaming again.

I've been using Codeweavers Crossover to play games that are Windows only, and it's been surprisingly fine. I never fixed my gaming PC (for gaming, at least) and converted it to an at home server. It's been a couple months now. I just lent a friend my GPU.

Epic Games doesn't seem to work, but you could always use Legendary for those titles -- I just don't have any titles on Epic that I want to play.

I'm hoping in one of the future updates that Crossover can activate macOS Sonoma's Game Mode for the games running within Wine, because I assume it'll improve performance even more. I'm also having a bit of buyers remorse -- I didn't plan to use this for gaming, and now I'm wondering how much better an M2 or M3 Max would be for more demanding titles.

Ehh yeah the prospect of using such patching software doesn't appeal, and I don't want to run the risk that games work poorly or not at all even with that kind of fiddling (which is something I abhor about Linux, so why would I want it on my expensive and supposedly superior Macbook).

Just want to throw out there that ~20 years ago I sometimes got better framerates in linux than windows on the same hardware for certain FPS games

Personally, the approach I took to this was just to game on consoles. In my personal experience, the upgrade cycle is far far better for me. I don't feel like I've missed anything as a result either.

But the internet keeps saying the iPhone is just marketing. /s

I’ve developed for and used both, and I’ve settled on iPhones for the last few generations. Though, I think flagship devices of either are fine nowadays. The ‘slab of glass’ phone is basically a solved problem at this point.

I think Google does a good job with the Pixel line. I believe it is likely they are the 2nd most secure consumer phones after iPhone due to their quick updates and Google's good security record. The fact that I can easily side load apps on Android make it a much better, ad free experience for me.

Personally, for communication I never use a device platform specific/locked app/service. Maybe you could keep using the app(s) whatever you were.

I’m curious, what do you use then?

There are lots of choices depending on your community and desired feature set: whatsapp, fb messenger, instagram messenger, telegram, signal, discord, or the direct messaging features of other programs like Slack.

imessage is an outlier in that it also has a bidirectional link with SMS. I just read today that FB messenger used to have this (who knew?) but no longer does. My reading of the EU's complaint is that if imessage didn't have this feature they would not be in trouble since they'd be no different from the other services in being a silo. Weird!

Unless I’m mistaken literally all of these services are locked down too, and few have E2E encryption… iMessage is indeed “Apple-only” but the rest is on “all” platforms only for purely economical reasons, as much as iMessage is on Apple platforms only for the same reason.

At least iMessage falls back to SMS (soon RCS) when available, which is much more ubiquitous than the rest tbh…

If you truly want to avoid a lock down you should host your own messaging solution.

I don't know why you're getting downvoted, but I'll throw my hat in this ring as well:

Some of those services require individual opt-in to turn on e2ee. Some of them don't support e2ee for group messaging. Of the services listed that do support e2ee, I have the most trust in Apple's (well, Signal's, but..) being "actually" [0] and "only" [1] end-to-end encrypted. The entire basis of that trust is the money they've spent positioning themselves in the market as a privacy-focused brand.

Meta runs three of the listed services (whatsapp, facebook messenger, instagram), and their positioning is not exactly "privacy-focused". I haven't looked into Telegram much, but I would want to at least understand how they generate revenue before trusting them. Neither Discord nor Slack are what I would call privacy-focused. Signal is probably better than iMessage in terms of how much I trust their company, their clients, and their protocol, but its adoption is so vanishingly small among my friends that I stopped asking people if they used it.

[0] I've seen services in the past [0a] that have tried to argue that as long as every link is encrypted from originating client through servers to destination client, or from originating client to destination server, then it's "end to end encrypted"

[0a] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21528437

[1] that is, not only are message contents (and as much metadata as is feasible) encrypted such that the same ciphertext passes all the way through the system and the recipient's client can decrypt the ciphertext, but also 1. the intermediary service doesn't have a copy of the recipient's secret key and 2. the plaintext wasn't encrypted also to a public key belonging to the intermediary service or some other party.

edit This other comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38537444 talked sense into me -- Apple doesn't seem to have designed iMessage to keep up with the times, crypto-wise. There's a huge, aging installed base that admittedly gets updates more often than any other competitor in their space, but that still means that iMessage has to be able to talk to them. I guess this is similar to the deprecation of SSL 0.9 and TLS 1.0; browser vendors collectively decided to kill them when a low enough proportion of servers were using them, but I don't know if Apple would be willing to cut off the older devices to make things better for owners of newer ones.

WhatsApp (this mostly - I live in India). SMS.

Telegram (2 groups). Discord (3 groups).

Signal (with 1 friend) and iMessage (with 2 friends) — these 2 apps are more of a hobby (a thing?), we four usually use WhatsApp.

I mean I could fight it or just fall line. I fought and lost :D

Notifications off for all.

> Maybe you could keep using the app(s) whatever you were.

I was using Android Messages, which has a web app. The experience was mediocre because the web app had trouble connecting to my phone all the damn time.

I text some people almost exclusively through Facebook Messenger, and I think the rest I will try to move from text to WhatsApp. Both Meta-owned, unfortunately, but those seem to be easy to use cross-device and almost everybody has them.

If you're already using Thunderbird as mail client, you can integrate Google Messages add-on [1] into Thunderbird app which I have been using happily for over a year without much trouble (sans the incoming texts notification feature). Seemingly this add-on has all features akin to the Google Messages Android app.

[1] https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-us/thunderbird/addon/googl...

I've never comprehended the use of separate email clients, personally lol

I am from India - WhatsApp is messaging here. Scratch that - WhatsApp is communication here. So that’s not really a choice. Maybe you’d have the app for your region unless you’re from USA where I’ve heard it’s iMessage.

In Australia it's iMessage and FB Messenger, mostly. But that's also dependent on where you or your family is from: I came here from NZ, so iMessage/Messenger is normal, but my Indian friends use WhatsApp as a matter of course!

Here in Japan, if you don't use LINE, you won't have any friends. Absolutely no one uses SMS messaging for anything personal.

I am not sure there is anything comparable in the US to the way WhatsApp is used in other parts of the world. People just default use SMS texting in the US and Canada. A lot of people do have WhatsApp here though

> the iPhone is nudging me further to giving a Macbook/OSX a try one day,

Gaming isn't great on Mac (depending on what games you play), but macbooks are great imo. A pro or an air with apple silicon is worth the money. I've never really appreciated the build quality of a mac before.

> I just got an iPhone for the first time, and it is a noticeably better device than my previous Android phones.

In what way? What Android phones did you use in the past?

My last phone was a Samsung Galaxy A50, and it was pretty good as far as the hardware went. But I felt that Android was bad; I couldn't help but notice that a number of the apps loaded very slowly and had other small glitchy issues. Nothing that would compel a person to switch phones, just a lot of mostly minor inconveniences, except for 2 that really stick out right now: the Android messages web app always had a hard time connecting to my phone even when the phone was clearly on, had the messages app open, and was connected to same wifi as my computer; and second, Chrome recently just started becoming unopenable (like it would open and then immediately close for some reason).

These are just a couple data points in a bag of info and anecdata that has made me question whether Google is a company whose products are worth investing in, gives a damn, etc.

As to what exactly about the iPhone seems so good in comparison, the things that really stand out are the crisp aesthetics (noticeably better "graphics" than my Samsung) and the speed of everything. It's also just pleasant to touch/interact with--I think part of that is Apple's craftsmanship, and part is simply the fact that the phone is new.

which iPhone model did you go for?

iPhone 15 (normal)

>the Android messages web app always had a hard time connecting to my phone even when the phone was clearly on, had the messages app open, and was connected to same wifi as my computer; and second, Chrome recently just started becoming unopenable (like it would open and then immediately close for some reason).

Those are definitely annoying and off putting. On my pixel 5 chrome always worked well (but I use other browsers), and messages app was trouble free...

Wonder if it was a problem with that model of phone you had.

But it's true, apples ecosystem is definitely a draw

Windows Phone Link does support iMessage now.

surprisedpikachu.gif

edit: just set it up and gave it a test--seems to work pretty well!

I don't believe they actually did any reverse engineering for Windows Phone Link. iOS makes SMS/iMessages available over Bluetooth as part of its support for the Message Access Profile [1], intended for sending messages using a car infotainment system. This requires a physical iOS device to be located in proximity of the Windows device.

[1]: https://support.apple.com/en-us/102842

It works... "ok" but doesn't handle group messages. I find sometimes it just doesn't connect. They do post frequent updates though so there's clearly an active team managing the app.

I love being able to easily send URLs and other copy+paste items to my iMessage contacts from Windows!

Windows 11 only for iPhones. Sigh.

Not sure if that will ever improve.

I don’t really use the Mac for gaming.

However, Apple Silicon may change the landscape

Look into Beeper for iMessage support on Linux and Windows!

A much more major issue with Macs is planned obsolescence. It’s the only reason I am not buying any Macs.

My late-2013 MacBook Pro recently gave up the ghost. I'd used it daily in the ten years it worked. Are there other PC manufacturers who make laptops that are still useable after ten years?

Both desktop and laptop computers have been perfectly serviceable for that long for a while now. Computers are "good enough" for tbe overwhelming majority of tasks most users (note, most regular users, not the HN crowd) would throw at them

Desktops, I'd agree. My experience with most Windows laptops, non-Thinkpad class, is that they physically haven't been able to survive that long. Like, people rag rightly on the butterfly keyboard era of Macbook Pros, but until recently you'd see pretty drastic hinge or keyboard or touchpad or case failures on even fairly expensive laptops. Especially as you get into more slimline/ultrabook form factors; I've seen some really bludgeoned Dells and HPs in particular. (Though I liked my Spectre x360 aside from the party where it fell apart in normal everyday use.)

I recently took a 2012 rMBP out of rotation (~five years dedicated use, the last five intermittently as a Logic Pro workstation) and now it's a Kubernetes homelab node. But I took it out because Thunderbolt 3 now means I can just slot my M1 Max into my workspace and don't need a dedicated box; the keyboard, touchpad, hinge, screen, and case are all pristine, I didn't remove it due to hardware expiry.

I mean if we're playing anecdata, my spouse has been through 4 mac laptops in the same period, which have given up the ghost in various different ways.

Apple hardware is mediocre at best. 2020 MacBook Air with i5 is unbearably slow. I have Samsung ATIV 700T with i5 from 2014 and it feels much faster than 2020 i5 MacBook. You can now say that it is the problem with Intel and that M1-2-3 are so much better but I have some Intel i7 laptops from 2016 and 2021 and they also blow Intel Mac away in speed and reliability and are comparable in speed with M2 that is sitting next to 2020 Mac. 2 other older MacBooks are falling apart (2009 and G4) wheres even older Dells and comparable HPs are still feeling robust...and are used more than decrepit Apple hardware.

> other PC manufacturers who make laptops that are still useable after ten years?

my Lenovo Thinkpads are working great after 12 yrs, with 16G ram and disk upgraded to 4TB SSD

And traditional PC makers have a problem with unplanned obsolescence. A lot of consumer hardware does not receive updates from the manufacturer after the device is off shelves.

My 2013 MacBook lasted 9 years (I'd still be using it if the battery connector wasn't shot.) In my experience Mac's last a lot longer than my equivalent PC's, although w/ an initial premium of course.

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