iMessage

Apple just released its major macOS update with Big Sur. While downloads are often slow with the large file and many users trying to get the software at the same time, it looks like download times are particularly slow this year and are failing in many cases. Meanwhile, it seems that Apple’s Developer website is down as is iMessage and we’re even seeing macOS Catalina performance impacted.

During the US House Judiciary antitrust hearing looking into Apple, Amazon, Google, and Facebook, the latter’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg attempted to downplay the service’s market dominance by pointing to areas it’s behind its competitors. Notably, Zuckerberg called out Apple in a surprise deflection.

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After WhatsApp and Telegram promised that they will not, for now, hand over any user data to local authorities, Apple has said that it is assessing its own Hong Kong policy.

The Cupertino company said that it already has one protection in place …

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9to5Mac exclusively reported some of the details and new features of the upcoming iOS 14, which will be officially announced by Apple next month. Now we have found evidence that Apple is working to completely replace the Messages app on macOS with a Catalyst version, based on iOS 14 code.

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iMessage has come a long way since its introduction in 2011, but Apple’s messaging service is still behind competitors like WhatsApp and Telegram in some aspects. But now the company might be working on exciting new features for iMessage, as a new patent from Apple reveals an option to edit messages after they’ve been sent.

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Less than a month after Apple paid $440M to settle one FaceTime patent infringement claim, it is now faced with another.

Apple fought a claim from VirnetX for almost a decade before finally deciding to settle the case last month in order to end the drawn-out battle …

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Apple @ Work is brought to you by Spike, the world’s first conversational email app that helps professionals and teams spend less time on email, and more on getting things done.

One of the common things I hear about Mobile Device Management solutions from my technology-focused friends is they hate when their company IT departments “suck” their devices into the management system the organization chooses. For those that love to tinker, set up, and manage their own devices, having them “managed” may seem like big brother is watching. Thankfully, Apple has clear APIs for how their devices interact with MDMs, so end users can rest assured their IT department doesn’t have access to everything on their devices. If you’re wondering if your IT department can read your iMessages, you’ve come to the right place.
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iMessage is a rich messenger platform with its own App Store and features like end-to-end encryption. However, advanced features like scheduled iMessages could make it an even more robust service. Recently an Apple user reached out to Craig Federighi about this feature request and got a detailed response about how the company is considering it.

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Apple @ Work is brought to you by Spike, the world’s first conversational email app that helps professionals and teams spend less time on email, and more on getting things done.

I still remember when iMessage first launched with iOS 5 in 2011 and OS X Mountain Lion in 2012. In my office, we had (and still have) terrible cell service. Since iMessage worked on Wi-Fi, I could finally send and receive “text messages” with ease. I don’t think we’ve given Apple enough credit for creating such a popular service across their ecosystem. By 2016, Apple announced that 200,000 messages were being sent every second. iMessage, despite its faults, is an excellent service. It provides fast communication to other iOS users and syncs across all of your devices. Over time, I’ve ended up in more group texts than I would have ever imagined. These aren’t just friends who are sending GIFs back and forth. These group messages are various subgroups at my office, where people are communicating about work. The problem with this situation is that iMessage was not built for internal business communications, but Apple could evolve its features to help with this use case in the future. 
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Telegram this weekend added a ‘silent message’ option to the latest version of its app. I thought this was a really handy feature and is something I’d like to see Apple add to Messages.

There are three main scenarios where the audible alert you get with incoming Messages may be unwelcome, and the iPhone currently offers solutions for only two of them…

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The Trump administration is considering the possibility of banning end-to-end encryption, as used by services like Apple’s Messages and FaceTime, as well as competing platforms like WhatsApp and Signal.

The topic was reportedly the main topic of a previously-unreported meeting of a National Security Council meeting on Wednesday …

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Apple, Google, Microsoft and 44 other organisations and security experts have signed an open letter condemning a proposal to secretly add law enforcement organizations to encrypted chats and calls.

The proposal by GCHQ – Britain’s equivalent of the NSA – seeks to provide an encryption workaround that would breach privacy and security in apps like Messages, FaceTime, WhatsApp and Signal …

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Update: Facebook has confirmed to us that it is testing ways to improve the messaging experience but has no further details to share at this stage.

Facebook has taken the next step in its plans to unify its Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram messaging apps into a single, unified messaging service. The result would be something likely to rival iMessage as an ultra-convenient one-stop messaging option …

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Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) – the UK equivalent of the NSA – is calling on Apple and other tech companies to secretly add law enforcement agents to Messages chats, FaceTime calls and other forms of encrypted chat on demand.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has said this would be like the recently-discovered FaceTime bug, only worse …

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One of the best parts of iMessage is its seamless integration with SMS. One of the worst parts about iMessage is its reliance on looking like SMS in an app. I still remember when iMessage originally launched in iOS 5. With an 80+ year-old office building, getting text messages was nearly impossible for me. When Apple launched iMessage, I was able to use Wi-Fi, it was a game changer for me. Over six years later, iMessage is mostly the same. It’s still heavily tied to the same app that uses SMS. While it’s added iMessage “apps”, it’s still largely the same app and service that Apple launched years ago. I’ve realized that out of my major frustrations with iMessage, how it handles notifications is at the top of the list.
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