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Comment by dghlsakjg | Hacker News Reader

From an average consumer perspective (not a HN user perspective):

It just works. As soon as I log into my Apple account on any Apple device I can access all of my messages, and seamlessly carry on a conversation on whatever device is at hand. It works with SMS as well, and I just don't have to think about it.

I know that WhatsApp is similar, but their desktop app, especially authentication, kinda sucks (I need my phone to login, and it seemingly logs me out weekly). Whatsapp is also FILLED with weird porn spam, and scammers.

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> It works with SMS as well, and I just don't have to think about it.

I have a mac laptop and an android phone. My son has an iphone. Half of his responses to my text messages go to my phone, the other half go to my laptop and I miss them. This is a major problem, imessage shouldn't be greedy about grabbing messages, especially when replying to an SMS. I've missed picking him up from places because I didn't get the reply.

The fact that the iMessage team still can't figure out how Apple's own sync works is mind boggling.

Messages are always lost, or marked as read when they are not, or marked as unread even if I deleted them on other device, or...

Isn't this only a problem if one of your devices trying to access these messages is a non-apple device?

For a while I was switching between an iPhone and Android (I was deving on both platforms and so would switch them out regularly).

Then I found out the Apple would think I was still using the iPhone, and would therefore would send my messages via iMessage, and I'd have no idea I wasn't getting them.

But what incentive does Apple have to change this? And realistically, how many people does it impact.

Do most apple people know that iMessage isn't using SMS? I think they just look at it as an app that sends messages to everyone.

> Isn't this only a problem if one of your devices trying to access these messages is a non-apple device?

Funnily enough, no. iOS <-> MacOS sync has been broken for ages, and keeps being subtly broken in different ways with each new oOS release

That truly sucks.

I was speaking to my own experience. Across an iPhone, Watch, two laptops (one corporate managed), and an iPad, it all 'just works' so to speak.

I've seen your issue before and it usually is because your non-iMessage phone number is associated with the same contact record as your iMessage computer account (probably your email). The iPhone will preference sending an iMessage over a text, so if your computer is on, you won't get a text. Sadly there is no 'force-sms' setting so the (admittedly awful) workaround is to create a second contact in your son's phone that is just your phone number.

It is indeed bullshit that it doesn't work for you.

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