Hey guys it’s Greg with Apple Explained,
and today we’re going to explore how iMessage has evolved since its release in 2011 and
how it contributed to Apple being in a sticky situation with the US government. This topic won last week’s voting poll and
if you didn’t get to vote, make sure you’re subscribed, that way the voting polls will
show up right in your activity feed and you can let me know which video you’d like to
see next. So, iMessage is essentially a replacement
for SMS that works between Apple devices. Like all great instant messaging platforms,
it allows users to send and receive messages, stickers, emojis, images, and all sorts of
attachments using WiFi, ethernet, or mobile data. In its current form, iMessage works any on
iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch running iOS 5 and up or any Mac with OS X Mountain Lion
and up. You can register your account to your phone
number like SMS or to your email address – or to a bunch of email addresses, if that’s
your thing.Before I get into the history and some of the controversies that have come up,
I want to go a little deeper into what iMessage actually does. So, the iMessage protocol is a binary protocol
based off the Apple Push Notification Service. Messages are encrypted end-to-end and have
delivery receipts that you can access through read receipts. On iPhones, messages can be sent via SMS/MMS,
which show up in green text bubbles, or data, which show up as blue. Sent messages show up on the right, replies
on the left – pretty intuitive for anyone who’s ever used iMessage or any other messaging
app. One of the nice features over a strict SMS
service is that you can see when another user is typing a message to you. Originally, there were some issues with non-iPhone
users not receiving messages sent through iMessage, I’ll get into that a little later,
but that’s been fixed now and messages sent via data to a non iOS user now get automatically
converted to SMS. Alright, so now I’m going to get into the
actual history of iMessage. It was first announced at the Apple Worldwide
Developer’s Conference in 2011. Scott Forstall revealed it during his keynote
on June 6th and it was released in the iOS 5 update just a few months later in October. It was the same year that iCloud, OS X Lion,
AirDrop, Launchpad, and Mission Control were announced, so, a lot of important things happened
that year. This first version was already pretty impressive
already. It was designed to take the place of SMS without
changing apps so that users would have a seamless transition to the iMessage protocol, and it
included the ability to send everything from basic text messages to contact information,
real-time locations, and read receipts. It also transferred pictures way faster and
in much higher resolution than SMS because it took advantage of the iPhone’s data connection. One of the changes that came with iOS 6 in
2012 was the ability to send iMessages from devices linked to your phone number. That meant you could send and receive texts
from your iPad, iPod touch, or Mac. Along with some aesthetic changes there wasn’t
much more that changed until 2015 with the release of iOS 9. In this update, Apple made the wise choice
to rearrange the Notifications Center to chronological order instead of having notifications grouped
by app. This made navigating notifications – especially
messages – way easier for users, especially those who had messages coming in from multiple
apps. Apple also introduced a bunch of other ease-of-use
updates like quick replies (which let users respond to messages without even opening the
iMessage app) and improved the search function. Now we get to the current state of things. iMessage is now part of the broader Messages
apps available on iOS and macOS – that includes iMessage Apps, the Messages App, iMessage
Service, the Messages framework, and the App Store for iMessage, a bunch of which were
added later on for iOS 10. There are a ton of new features that make
it stand out from other messaging apps. Recent versions include screen effects like
bubbles, fireworks, and lasers that you can select to show up on your own and the message
recipient’s screen. There are also, of course, stickers and emojis,
but also massive 3X emojis, access to GIFs, and tapback responses that include a heart,
thumbs up, thumbs down, and more. iOS 10 also introduced Digital Touch, which
lets you sketch images directly on the screen, us Haptic Tap, and send your live heartbeat
through the iPhone and iPad interface – a feature that was originally limited to Apple
watches. Basically, you can send just about anything
through iMessage, from any Apple device, to any device period. To add even more to the list, users can now
download quite a few extensions that add even more features. Secret for iMessage allows users to send messages
that disappear from the app after a period of time, like Snapchat or Signal disappearing
messages. Circle for iMessage adds an extension to send
money in dollars, euros, pounds, or bitcoin to any other use. iMessage Analyzer lets users take a peek into
their own messaging habits with detailed specifics about word usage, how often you get contacted,
and so on. This a pretty big development for the app,
which didn’t allow add-on apps until iOS 10. This step not only means that users have more
flexibility with how they send messages, but that the iMessage system is building into
a more self-sustaining platform with functionality far beyond just instant messaging. Since iMessage has a ton of features and is
designed to work with Apple products, you’d think it would be the go-to choice for Apple
users when it comes to sending messages. Unfortunately for Apple, it’s not. Depending on the country, most users stick
to alternative apps for their messaging. WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger are in the
lead there, with LINE, Telegram, WeChat and Viber as some of the other popular runner
ups. Despite all of its features, a lot of iPhone
users install an alternative messaging app almost as soon as they pull it out of the
box, which might be why Apple has been working so hard to increase functionality and access
to additional apps. The exception to this rule seems to be with
U.S. teens, who average about 25 iMessages a day according to an analysis by the CEO
of the Fam messaging app, Giuseppe Stuto. A lot of adults, though, are looking for safer
and more independent messaging alternatives – especially in the wake of the Cambridge
Analytica scandal. In particular, a lot of people are looking
to messaging apps with heavy encryption and some extra security features included like
Signal – and iMessage has a bit of history with data vulnerabilities. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, the EFF,
gives apps security ratings based on features like encryption, forward secrecy, history
of security audits, documentation of existing security measures, identity verification,
and ability for independent review. iMessage got included in these ratings in
the 2014 Secure Messaging Scorecard and got a 5 out of 7 score. It ranked high in most areas, but Apple’s
code secrecy prevented a lot of independent auditing and it was impossible for users to
verify contacts’ identities. Some cryptographers argued that there were
some hidden, but big vulnerabilities in iMessage – especially for man-in-the-middle attacks
– and that some of the features Apple claimed, like forward secrecy, weren’t as strong
as they were claimed to be. Other reviewers had similar complaints, and
a big independent audit showed that the end-to-end encryption iMessage used wasn’t actually
very strong at all. So, in March of 2016 this report came out
from a group of researchers at Johns Hopkins University led by Matthew D. Green. It showed that the bulletproof commercial
encryption offered by Apple for instant messages, pictures, and videos wasn’t so bulletproof
after all. The report was in a big part in response to
the San Bernardino terrorist attack earlier that year when two shooters killed 14 people
– and the justice department attempted to force Apple to give up encrypted data on the
shooters’ phones and loosen up encryption in the future. As it turns out, there were already plenty
of vulnerabilities that the FBI – and hackers – could exploit to get to sensitive data
past Apple’s encryption. Basically, anyone who could access ciphertexts
could potentially decrypt photos and videos – whether that be a government official
or a hacker. Apple didn’t loosen their encryption in
iMessage in response to the San Bernardino incident, though, and they actually patched
up this vulnerability before the Johns Hopkins report was released to the public. The 2016 vulnerability report wasn’t the
only controversy surrounding iMessage. In 2014, an customer filed a lawsuit against
Apple after turning in her iPhone for an Android model. She, along with thousands of other ex-iPhone
users discovered that they weren’t receiving messages from Apple users anymore once they
made the switch. Because iMessage handles SMS differently than
other texting apps, messages sent to ex-iPhone users from current Apple users were disappearing
and causing all sorts of issues – from loss of business to marriage issues. Some users felt forced to go back to iPhone
from Android, others had to change their phone numbers to solve the issue. Apple employees admitted to the problem openly,
and many users felt that it was deliberate on the part of Apple to keep more money in
their pockets. The original case failed to make class-action
status and was heard by a federal court in San Jose, California where the claimant argued
that she was being “penalized” by Apple for switching to a different product. Ultimately, though, the case was dismissed. Apple offered a solution to the problem by
posting a help article on their website that describes the fix – all you have to do is
log into your Apple account and remove your phone number from your profile. Independent developers have offered their
own solutions to the cross-platform problem, too. Eric Chee, an open-source developer, launched
“PieMessage,” a project that allows iMessage to connect with Android devices. With this code, Android phones can send and
receive messages through iMessage, which not only solves the problem of lost messages for
ex-iPhone users but offers a whole new set of messaging options for non-Apple users in
general. The other major controversy facing the iMessage
app is massive patent lawsuit that’s still ongoing. This lawsuit started in 2010 when VirnetX,
a company mostly involved in the collection of patents, accused Apple of infringing on
its intellectual property. VirnetX is a patent-assertion entity, or what
some people refer to as a “patent troll” – its primary purpose seems to be to accumulate
patents and then sue tech companies that use similar technology. In this case, VirnetX sued Apple over patent
infringements for FaceTime, VPN on Demand, and, of course, iMessage. The case has gone through several different
decisions and an incredible number of appeals. Early on, a jury awarded VirnetX $302 million
in damages from Apple, which then increased to $439.7 million by a judge’s decision. The case was appealed by Apple, but with over
400 million devices with the alleged offending tech sold since then, few courts have been
sympathetic. In April, a Texas federal jury increased the
damages even more – to over $500 million dollars. Apple’s lawyers haven’t commented yet
if they plan to make another appeal, but since they brought in $20 billion in the first quarter
of 2018, they may just pay the damages to end the nearly decade-long dispute. I wanted to wrap up with a few stats about
iMessage and instant messaging as a whole. The consulting firm Chetan Sharma has shown
that SMS texting has declined pretty significantly in the last several years – and it attributes
some of this international decline to more inclusive, well-rounded apps like iMessage. That’s not really surprising considering
how many messages are sent through this platform every day. As of 2012, just one year after its release,
300 billion messages had been sent in iMessage, averaging about 28,000 messages per second. In 2016, that number had grown to 200,000
messages per second – and a staggering 63 quadrillion iMessages sent per year. Today, there are no official usage reports
released – but it’s safe to assume that that number is higher than ever before.So
that is the history of iMessage, and if you want to vote for the next video topic, don’t
forget to subscribe. Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you next
time.
