Laptop of the magi: an annoyed iMessage antitrust anecdote

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Apple’s iMessage design is drawing criticism for silently hijacking SMS-style conversations, especially when users move between iPhone, Android, and Mac devices. Commenters describe cases where messages to a phone number are invisibly routed to an unreachable iMessage endpoint (often an email or a Mac), causing missed texts and confusion for non‑technical users. Many argue Apple should be required to make opting out and deregistering numbers and emails simple and transparent, while others note that outside North America most people avoid this problem by using cross‑platform apps like WhatsApp or Signal instead of SMS.

iMessage routing & deregistration problems

  • Core issue: when a Mac is set up with an Apple ID, that email can become an iMessage endpoint; contacts may then default to sending iMessages to the email instead of SMS to the Android phone number.
  • Several commenters report similar problems when moving from iPhone to Android or dumb phones, or when adding a Mac later: texts silently go to an Apple device or email rather than the intended phone.
  • Many emphasize that ordinary users don’t grasp that iMessage is not SMS; Messages “looks like texting,” so misrouting is hard to detect.

Workarounds and technical details

  • You can deregister a phone number from iMessage via Apple’s web form; some say this now works reasonably well, others report errors or that it’s hard to discover.
  • Email addresses are harder: you cannot remove the last reachable address from iMessage, and you often must change the Apple ID email entirely or add a “sacrificial” email to keep your real one off iMessage.
  • On Macs, you can uncheck email addresses under “You can be reached at” in Messages, but you can’t force SMS if Apple thinks the recipient has iMessage.
  • Some argue the situation wouldn’t arise if the Mac were set up without iCloud, but others note the setup flow strongly nudges toward signing in and many features degrade without it.

User experience and design critiques

  • Many describe the UI as opaque: hard to see what identifier a conversation uses, easy to end up with multiple threads for the same person, and no clear warnings when messages target a device/app the recipient no longer uses.
  • Defenders argue that switching delivery paths is just a simple dropdown and that users opted into iMessage; critics counter that the opt-in consequences are non-obvious and blame the design, not users.

Antitrust, lock-in, and remedies

  • Some see this as anticompetitive lock‑in: Apple silently inserts a proprietary system under the guise of SMS, and off‑ramping is hidden and fragile.
  • Proposed remedies split:
    • Make disabling iMessage per‑account and per‑identifier much easier, possibly mandated by regulators.
    • Versus making iMessage cross‑platform (e.g., Android client), which others oppose as strengthening Apple’s position.

RCS and alternative messengers

  • RCS is discussed as a potential fix, but commenters note current implementations are fragmented, often lack standardized encryption, and have their own deregistration issues.
  • Non‑US commenters stress that in many regions people barely use SMS; WhatsApp, Line, WeChat, Telegram, Signal, etc., dominate and avoid the iMessage lock‑in pattern.

Regional and cultural aspects

  • Several say the “blue vs green bubble” drama is largely a US/North America phenomenon, tied to SMS being the de facto national messaging layer.
  • Others mention social dynamics: blue bubbles as subtle class markers, group chat friction when one member is on Android, and generational differences (teens often preferring third‑party apps).