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Comment by zerozerotwo | Hacker News Reader

how is it possible to build this whole thing and not know there is a very rich first party api that does the same thing and more in iMessage https://www.apple.com/ios/business-chat/

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iMessage for business has a very long and restrictive registration process, gray bubbles instead of blue bubbles, and is inbound only. We're democratizing iMessage for businesses that have good intentions on helping their customers more but can't afford to go through the long approval process.

Right gray bubbles and validated businesses for commercial and blue for people. Apple business chat is not inbound only. 100% of your features including the ability to redirect voice calls to iMessage are already offered by Apple via an api and its integrated into every major crm

Apple Messages for Business does have requirements for their partner program, and they strictly enforce it, but would you really expect otherwise? I've talked to a few of their "MSP" partners, and it is true the process isn't as simple as integrating with an API. They do want you to fully support the entire feature set, and you have to prove it. How long it takes depends on your resources and commitment. It also isn't "inbound only," and does have a lot of features that iMessage doesn't. It's branded, without users having to download a contact card. No rate limits. Lots of advantages it seems.

Saying you are "democratizing" iMessage is like saying you are "democratizing" bike lanes by selling car owners access to drive the bike lanes. That's not what it's for, you don't have the authority to do that, and it's going to get someone in trouble at some point.

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