Once a dominant force in the smartphone industry, BlackBerry has lost its way in recent years, and having fallen way behind the Apple iPhone in the pecking order, the Canadian outfit has called out its Cupertino rival in the battle of the IM services. Having opened BBM up to iOS, Android and Windows Phone recently, the company is now busy trying to sell the once-popular instant-messaging service to the masses, and as is the case with most tech companies nowadays, BlackBerry has gone on the offensive against its fierce rival's corresponding iMessage.
If you've been inundated with iMessage spam and don't know how to combat it, there are a couple of different avenues you can explore in the battle against the apparently prevalent spamming.
Last week, we reported on an issue pertaining to Apple's iMessage service, which meant that some messages would be sent, marked as "delivered," but never received. At the time, an AppleCare rep acknowledged the issue, but now, the company has formally outlined the problem, while also noting that a fix will be bundled into a forthcoming software update.
Apple's iMessage, since its introduction, has offered a powerful means through which iOS and OS X users can communicate in a secure, reliable manner. I say reliable, but iMessage hasn't been without its fair share of bugs and downtimes, and in a recurrence of an old issue, it looks as through iMessage is hijacking regular SMS messages and sending them to Apple IDs - even inactive ones.
The little icon that pops up in iMessage to indicate that the other person is writing a reply can be something of a double-edged sword. Most of the time, we sit there and wait for the message to come through, in which cases it proves a useful implementation, but on other occasions, when the other person pauses their response or replies with something innocuous like (my biggest gripe) "LOL," we often curse the fact that iMessage has essentially given a false-positive. Now, if you want to irritate somebody by feigning an elongated response, you can do using the very simple trick of sending a copy of that very same icon.
Apple has managed to pull off the recent introduction of iOS 7 without too many issues. The initial traffic from user downloads managed to cause a small amount of server downtime in the first few hours of availability, but other than that, it has been relatively plain sailing for the Californian giants. It's probably unreasonable to expect that a major overhaul of an operating system would launch without any service affecting bugs at all, and those iOS 7 converts who have been experiencing iMessage related issues should soon see a permanent fix winging its way to their device through an over-the-air update.
If you’ve ever used an iOS device or a Mac recently, then you’re probably aware of iMessage. Apple’s instant messaging service is a fantastic, free-of-charge way of communicating between compatible iOS devices like the iPhone and iPad, but it looks like the Android world is also getting involved. The iMessage Chat app is now available as a free-of-charge download from the Play Store, and if you trust the word of the security conscious, then it probably represents one of the best and most negatively efficient ways to compromise your Apple ID.
Apple's iMessage was first introduced along with iOS 5 back in late 2011, and has since processed many billions of messages between iPhone, iPad, iPod touch and OS X Mountain Lion users worldwide. But whilst celebrated for being secure, efficient, and generally reliable, a new-found vulnerability demonstrates just how easily one can be attacked by floods of messages in a DoS-esque manner, to the point where the app locks up and becomes unusable. Many Apple developers, including jailbreak gurus such as iH8Sn0w and chpwn have been targeted in a spate of attacks, and although the culprit’s origins are rather unknown, it's worrying just how easily the attacks were conceived. More details right after the jump.
If you happen to be an iPhone user or smartphone enthusiast in general, then the news which we brought you yesterday regarding a flaw in Apple's iOS mobile operating system that allows text messages to be spoofed might’ve has caused you a little bit of concern. Regardless of what aspect of the system you are using, it is always a good idea to be vigilant with any incoming communications, especially those that may look like they are attempting to mislead or deceive with malicious intent.
When I shifted to the iPhone from a Samsung Galaxy S II, one of the things I liked instantly was its iMessage service. As a matter of fact, much of communication between the people working at Redmond Pie takes place through iMessage. We like it for its instantaneousness and security.