[pavon]

I absolutely agree. Personally, I've managed to convert around 3 times as many Android users as iOS users, because of this feature. And the few people who stopped using Signal after starting using it did so because of limitations in the SMS/MMS features (fewer number of users allowed in group text, etc). I fully expect to loose 2/3 of my Signal contacts as a result of this decision, and may drop it myself if the number remaining is too small to be worth running a separate app, as most of the ones left will probably be on Matrix as well.

It also puts a spot-light on the "your phone number is your username" policy. This made perfect sense when you are using Signal for opportunistic encryption of texting. It is much less justifiable when using it as a Silo'd app. I really hope they change that and give people who were waiting for that change time to join before killing SMS support.

[godelski]

> It also puts a spot-light on the "your phone number is your username" policy.

I'm willing to bet that this decision is just jumping the gun by a month or two since usernames are around the corner (code exists, just not enabled. Can be used if built from source).

Though I haven't had a hard time converting (Android) users by using another app. Especially people that already use WA. The "other app" just comes off as normal. Apple is a different ball game because the walled garden, but that's also the weakness because you can't send photos/videos in group chats with mixed devices (but Signal can).

[Melatonic]

Signal encrypts your regular texts? I thought it specifically did not do that?

[mynameisvlad]

They say “opportunistic” as in similar to how iMessage works. If you’re both on the platform, it’s encrypted but you still can communicate with everyone else from one app.

That’s a major boost for those that might not particularly care about encryption to look for specific messaging apps, while still helping by building out the network slowly over time.

[tadfisher]

The downside is that they will opportunistically send your messages via Signal. If the recipient chooses to not have SIgnal installed any longer, then your messages go into a black hole.

This became much more of a problem for me after they rolled out their shitcoin; suddenly my techie friends were just not responding to messages, and Signal as my main SMS app was not falling back to SMS for these folks.

[mynameisvlad]

Apple has the same problem, and an article and entire process for disabling it out of band, plus a heartbeat so it’s done automatically after a while if you don’t reset your phone. It’s a major problem.

I’ve only done the switch from iOS to Android once and I remember it was a pain for a few days until everything realized I didn’t have iMessage anymore.

[technothrasher]

Even without an iPhone I sometimes miss texts from people using iMessage because my only occasionally used MacBook seems to randomly like to turn messages back on, and so anything from an Apple user ends up there instead of on my phone. It stays that way until I figure out I’m missing texts and go find them on the MacBook and have to manually turn off messages to it again.

[chimeracoder]

> If the recipient chooses to not have SIgnal installed any longer, then your messages go into a black hole.

For two weeks, messages will be shown as sent but not delivered, and after two weeks Signal will not let you send messages to that number until it reconnects to the Signal servers.

For comparison, Apple automatically sends all SMS messages via iMessage opportunistically, and if the user then switches to another phone, all SMS messages from iOS users will be silently discarded in perpetuity. This is a big problem because the recipient has no idea that they're missing messages, and also if they no longer have access to an iPhone, there's no way for them to deregister their phone number from iMessage.

[zwily]

That hasn't been true for awhile:

https://selfsolve.apple.com/deregister-imessage/

They will also deregister you automatically after some period of time. What you described is the situation several years ago, but it's much better now.

[chimeracoder]

That's a link to deregister a phone number from iMessage without an iPhone, which is good, but I don't see any text on that page that confirms that they'll deregister you automatically, or if there's any user-visible indication of the issue. If that's the case, then I'm glad they finally addressed it, because it was definitely a problem for far too long.

In that case, Signal's current behavior would be comparable to Apple's, if Apple also deregisters you after a period of inactivity.

[GeekyBear]

> The downside is that they will opportunistically send your messages via Signal. If the recipient chooses to not have SIgnal installed any longer, then your messages go into a black hole.

The user cannot just log out of Signal and have the app on other people's devices automatically fall back on SMS the way it works with iMessage?

[mynameisvlad]

A lot of people will just delete an app and think there were no side-effects. There was an article here a few weeks ago about people not cancelling in-app subscriptions after deleting an app. Apple will remind you after it deletes it, Google does not.

Logging out might not even be enough, depending on the logic on Signal’s side. Do they use active devices, or just that an account exists?