[minerva23]

My devil's advocate for Apple is that iMessage is relatively free of spam because of the exclusive architecture tied to hardware.

The issue isn't so much Beeper as it is the open the door to anyone on the Internet. I.e. Apple probably cares little about Beeper itself, and more about the risk of 3rd party software accessing its services/users.

A good number of us have had to combat spam/abuse in our careers, and we're sympathetic to the plight.

[colanderman]

This argument I'm sympathetic to. But I think it would sit a lot better with me if Apple were to produce an Android client. That it's a closed ecosystem doesn't bother me as much as that it's tied to their specific phone hardware.

(I'd still prefer to see 3rd party clients as I appreciate the integration those can bring. But the hardware lock-in is particularly egregious.)

[wraptile]

iphones and imessages are incredibly easy to automate for spam. Today's free, grey and dark markets are often powered by real devices as it's easier to maintain than to reverse engineer and replicate. Usually real devices are mixed with automation code for best results (e.g. real devices generate fingerprints and sign stuff while code automates actions).

Creating barrier to entry for spam definitely reduces it but we know for a fact that's not a very effective spam fighting strategy.

I also think modern anti-spam tech is really good. My Samsung phone here is really good at blocking robo calls here in Thailand. In fact I handn't received one since my upgrade to S22. If Samsung can block robo calls and open protocols like federation and email can stop spam through simple tech and volunteer work then multibillion company with some of the best engineers surely can't find this that challenging right? So I find the spam argument for closing off iMessages not very convincing to say the least.

[turquoisevar]

> iphones and imessages are incredibly easy to automate for spam

You lost me here. iMessages in particular are not able to be automated because they always require user input before they’re sent.

There are very few OS processes that have an escalated privilege which allows sending iMessage without user input, but given the lack of widespread iMessage spam vs. SMS spam, it seems those processes aren’t actively being exploited.

Even iPhones in general are actually very hard to automate.

So honestly I have no clue what you’re talking about.

[pxmpxm]

I've yet to receive a single piece of spam coming from an iMessage account.

[YPPH]

Does that stop you getting spam SMS messages?