paintbucketholder

The numbers were reported by Hamas. The UN merely used those numbers.

Tell me why we should put blind faith into anything published by Hamas?

I can’t see a business reason why Apple would degrade image sending purposefully- it would drive its own users to get third party apps.

Depends on what the majority of people are using.

In markets where iPhone users are not in the majority, that's exactly what's happening: iPhone users are switching to third party apps.

If iPhones users are in the majority, though, then people will just default to iMessage, and non-Apple phones get associated with poor messaging quality. Which creates social pressure for non-iPhone users to buy an iPhone.

So it makes perfect business sense for Apple to degrade the messaging quality when a non-Apple phone joins the conversation.

Must eradicate it.

For the safety and security of our users!

Not all iMessage features can be mapped to RCS, so unless Apple brings iMessage to other platforms, non-Apple phones will always be associated with an inferior messaging experience.

Because the IDF reported those numbers, and if the IDF reports those numbers, that means you were right?

Is it intentionally hostile on Apple’s part to bar androids from joining? Yes. But the reactions from Apple users aren’t entirely unjustified

The reaction from Apple users is to blame Android users - which is entirely unjustified.

But of course, post purchase rationalization and brand loyalty play a big part in why people want to externalize blame rather than questioning their own decision or blaming their favorite company for providing a shitty cross-platform messaging experience.

You mean we should believe the numbers when the IDF is reporting them?

Beeper already deregistered the numbers, but it takes 24 to 36 hours for Apple servers to forget the deregistered numbers.

The two things go hand in hand, though.

Degraded messaging gets branded with green bubbles. Green bubbles - i.e. non-Apple phones - get associated with degraded messaging. Non-Apple phones get pidgeon-holed as crappy phones for messaging. People get bullied into buying iPhones.

Because I don't think Hamas are democratically chosen in Gaza.

That's true for the majority of nations in the region, though, isn't it?

Nobody elected the House of Saud to rule Saudi Arabia. Nobody democratically chose the House of Al Thani to rule Qatar. Nobody voted on having the House of Maktoum rule Dubai.

Gaza is not a country. It's an open air prison created by Israel.

Israel withdrew its troops from Gaza, it evacuated Jewish settlers, it tore down illegal Jewish settlements, it handed over Israeli assets to the Palestinians, it effectively completely handed over control.

It didn't open its borders to Gaza, just like Egypt didn't open its borders to Gaza.

If Gaza is an open air prison, isn't Egypt to blame, too?

People there lack basic freedom.

People there primarily lack basic freedom because they're being ruled by an Islamist terrorist organization that claims for itself to be the official government of Gaza.

But how is that different from other nations like Saudi Arabia or Dubai or Qatar or Bahrain or Abu Dhabi - other than the fact that those totalitarian regimes are swimming in money, and Palestinians aren't (ignoring the fact that Hamas leadership managed to squirrel away $11 billion for itself)?

I should have also been more specific, my problems are not the government of Gaza, but the militant side of it.

I find it hard to draw a line, since the official government of Gaza often just echoes the exact same language used by its terrorist wing.

But let's say it were possible to draw a strict line: would you then be willing to do the same for Israel as well? Are you explicitly drawing a distinction between Likud and e.g. Shas or Labor or Hadash-Ta'al? Or between militant settlers building illegal settlements in the West Bank, and people practicing communal socialism in a kibbutz in Israel proper? Or between people who have been demonstrating for months against the Netanyahu government, and people voting for and supporting Netanyahu?

Or do you just not care, and you'll simply condemn all and anything under the label of Israel?

So again, I want to ask, do you condemn Israel SPECIFICALLY?

That's REALLY kind of predicated upon your answer to how you would define Israel or draw distinctions between groups within Israel.

But let me ask you: why do you appear to be so unhappy with a position that condemns any and all violence against innocent civilians? Given how many different sides and factions are committing so many different atrocities, isn't that a reasonable position?

It's probably just a definition thing.

To me, constructive criticism means that the criticism doesn't just point out failure, but that it then also shows how to correct that failure.

By itself, "you're doing it wrong" is just destructive: it takes something apart, it destroys it. Without a subsequent "and here's how you would do it right," it doesn't become constructive, it doesn't help in putting things back together in the correct way.

Sure, as a first step, "you're doing it wrong" is completely justified when something is actually wrong.

But without the second step - the constructive part - it just doesn't constitute constructive criticism. By itself, it's just criticism.

Is saying "you're doing it wrong" really constructive?