Apple notifies Messages beta users that service will end on Dec. 14

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
In an email to users on Friday, Apple reminded Messages beta program participants that the preview period will end on Friday, Dec. 14, noting that the service will then only be available on OS X Mountain Lion.

AppleInsider Jim was first to note the upcoming closure, which brings the OS X 10.7 Lion preview service to an end.

iMessages Beta End


Apple first introduced Messages beta for Mac in February, bringing cross-platform messaging support for OS X and iOS. As a replacement for the previous iChat application, Messages beta was meant to bridge the gap between Apple's computers and portable devices with "Messages Everywhere," a feature that allows users to start a conversation on one machine and move seamlessly to another.

In June, Apple cut off downloads for the beta in preparation of OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, which replaced the beta service with the dedicated Messages application.

The email points out that users must upgrade to Mountain Lion in order to keep using the service.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 36


    This sounds obviously logical to me. But I hope there's improvements coming to Messages itself, as it's definitely buggy, particularly coming out of sleep.

  • Reply 2 of 36
    mac_128mac_128 Posts: 3,454member
    If Apple is upgrading Messages in such a way that it will no longer run on Lion, and have no intention of upgrading Lion, then I get it. Otherwise it seems to amount to little more than extortion. Mountain Lion will not run on a whole selection of recent Macs, meaning more than just a simple inexpensive upgrade for some. So why do it? Why not allow Lion users who have been successfully using an integrated Messages app to continue to do so? Who does it hurt? Plus it keeps this kind of communication in the Apple ecosystem. Will Lion users be able to downgrade back to iChat? Not having been involved in the beta program, were users notified at the beginning it was limited and would eventually be forced to upgrade? When Apple choses not to support a particular feature on older equipment, I get it, but to take away something that is otherwise supported just doesn't feel right.
  • Reply 3 of 36
    That is just positively dickish. What if you have hardware that is not supported by Mt Lion? I suppose you are supposed to 'upgrade' your hardware too?!?!?!?!
  • Reply 4 of 36
    Messages works fantastic for me. I use it to text my family on their iPhones and to talk to my co-workers in another town who are using Live Messenger (using the Cocoon plug-in). It all integrates together perfectly.
  • Reply 5 of 36
    gazoobeegazoobee Posts: 3,754member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by GadgetCanada View Post



    Messages works fantastic for me. I use it to text my family on their iPhones and to talk to my co-workers in another town who are using Live Messenger (using the Cocoon plug-in). It all integrates together perfectly.


     


    It's still very buggy for me and the people I message with it.  Especially on multiple devices.  Often half of the messages go to one device or another and the rest go somewhere else.  

  • Reply 6 of 36
    gazoobeegazoobee Posts: 3,754member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by larry91403 View Post



    That is just positively dickish. What if you have hardware that is not supported by Mt Lion? I suppose you are supposed to 'upgrade' your hardware too?!?!?!?!


     


    Seriously?  Your position is pretty weak here.  You've been using a beta.  You should expect it to go away someday, or to cost you something some day.  


     


    Also, you don't *have* to use it there are many alternatives.  In fact you weren't "supposed" to use it really since a beta is for testers, not for daily use.  

  • Reply 7 of 36
    What was 'Messages'!?

    Didn't even know it existed.......
  • Reply 8 of 36
    On a slight tangent, Messages is very good at basic messaging. It is incredibly unreliable for syncing between iDevices, however.
  • Reply 9 of 36
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    wubbus wrote: »
    On a slight tangent, Messages is very good at basic messaging. It is incredibly unreliable for syncing between iDevices, however.

    Up until recently you couldn't add your phone number to the Mac or iPad Messages app for iMessages.

    That meant that if you were using an iPhone and didn't use your email address as the ID then all new messages you created would be sent from your phone number as an ID to the iMessages server and you'd get responses that only targeted your iPhone.

    Now that is all (finally) taken care of and you can choose on every platform how you want the default to be sent, and which account IDs will receive the iMessages. However, there are other hiccups and quirks but at least that part seems to have been finally resolved.
  • Reply 10 of 36
    solipsismx wrote: »
    Up until recently you couldn't add your phone number to the Mac or iPad Messages app for iMessages.
    That meant that if you were using an iPhone and didn't use your email address as the ID then all new messages you created would be sent from your phone number as an ID to the iMessages server and you'd get responses that only targeted your iPhone.
    Now that is all (finally) taken care of and you can choose on every platform how you want the default to be sent, and which account IDs will receive the iMessages. However, there are other hiccups and quirks but at least that part seems to have been finally resolved.

    I'm aware of all that, and I think it was a really good move to converge messaging between devices. As marketed, it's great. But from my experience (iPhone/iPad) and my wife's experience (iPhone/Mac) it is very buggy. Other users probably have much more favourable experience with it.
  • Reply 11 of 36
    Does this mean that Messages under Mountain Lion will magically become something other than a poorly-conceived, incoherent, difficult-to-configure, confusing, bug-riddled mess? Or is it just that we're supposed to pretend that removing "beta" from the name somehow elevates the application to something deserving of having been released?

    Increasingly, Apple follows the time honored Microsoft model%u2026 "Let marketing determine the features and pick the release date. We can always try to fix it later if anyone notices it's trash."

    Ooops, sorry, never mind, put that down%u2026 %uF8FF is Good. %uF8FF is Great. Long live %uF8FF.
  • Reply 12 of 36
    ktappektappe Posts: 823member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Gazoobee View Post


     


    It's still very buggy for me and the people I message with it.  Especially on multiple devices.  Often half of the messages go to one device or another and the rest go somewhere else.  



    This is exactly what happens to me. What you would expect is that it would work the same as iCloud e-mail, which is that incoming messages go to ALL the devices. But with Messages, if it is running and someone texts me, it hijacks the incoming text and only displays it in Messages; the text never comes to the iPhone.  I have to be sure to close Messages when I know I'll be away from my Mac or I miss all my texts. WTF, Apple? Fix the darn thing before you start taking it away from people.

  • Reply 13 of 36
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    ktappe wrote: »
    This is exactly what happens to me. What you would expect is that it would work the same as iCloud e-mail, which is that incoming messages go to ALL the devices. But with Messages, if it is running and someone texts me, it hijacks the incoming text and only displays it in Messages; the text never comes to the iPhone.  I have to be sure to close Messages when I know I'll be away from my Mac or I miss all my texts. WTF, Apple? Fix the darn thing before you start taking it away from people.

    I haven't seen that issue. What I have seen since the original Messages for Mac beta is the SW get smarter about communicating with each other, as it should be.

    If I am using my Mac with my iPhone near me my iPhone will not get a sound notification (and I don't think a visual one on the lock screen) of a new iMessage if I read it in the Messages for Mac app within a short time frame. If I don't then my phone will also make the sound and show the message.

    I'd like this to extended even further so that when my phone and Mac are on the same WiFi network (bonjour could easily achieve this) my phone will turn off other services automatically and when they are not on the same network then the phone will auto-engage other functions. Kind of like the new DnD feature but proximal and more intelligent.
  • Reply 14 of 36


    This is a dick move.


    At this rate, with each new speed bump of the latest Apple product they will stop supporting parts of the OS on all older hardware?


    Although, since they increasingly don't bother to finish and polish their software anyway, by that time most Mac users are unlikely to notice, having moved on!


     


    Stop the games Apple.


    Concentrate on building and maintaing foundation, walls, roof, and subsystems of OS X. And stop already with the constant repainting, furniture arranging, and stressing over whether to use an ogee or dental molding!


    "Real" artists ship "real" products that "really work!"


     


    [Case in point. I don't think any version of pages Pages has ever printed and envelope properly on my HP CLJ 2550n! I have to feed the envelopes in backwards.]

  • Reply 15 of 36
    desuserign wrote: »
    This is a dick move.
    At this rate, with each new speed bump of the latest Apple product they will stop supporting parts of the OS on all older hardware?
    Although, since they increasingly don't bother to finish and polish their software anyway, by that time most Mac users are unlikely to notice, having moved on!

    Stop the games Apple.
    Concentrate on building and maintaing foundation, walls, roof, and subsystems of OS X. And stop already with the constant repainting, furniture arranging, and stressing over whether to use an ogee or dental molding!
    "Real" artists ship "real" products that "really work!"

    [Case in point. I don't think any version of pages Pages has ever printed and envelope properly on my HP CLJ 2550n! I have to feed the envelopes in backwards.]

    It was and has remained a Beta app in Lion. It was not part sold as part of the OS and it was never sold as a stand alone app. I can't fathom why you'd think this was a dick move after they stopped offering the DL back in June (so about 6 months ago) and ML has been available for months.

    You don't have to like it and I'm sure you et al. have plenty of reasons why you wish it would stay active on Lion but that doesn't mean Apple grant your wish. I would wager that cutting it off means that they simply aren't investing in Lion frameworks and we'll see iMessages retooled to resolve many of the intermittent and consistent issues that have been creeping up. If that is the case and they can extra people on dealing with iMessage better for the majority instead of for a few people still on Lion that actually use it then I'm going to side with dropping Lion support. This is not a Sophie's Choice decision here.
  • Reply 16 of 36


    Originally Posted by larry91403 View Post

    That is just positively dickish. What if you have hardware that is not supported by Mt Lion?


     


    Then you don't get to have it. JUST like every single other software upgrade in the history of computing. Somehow this is a foreign concept to you?






     I suppose you are supposed to 'upgrade' your hardware too?!?!?!?!



     


    Tech changes; get over it.





    Originally Posted by DESuserIGN View Post

    This is a dick move.


    At this rate, with each new speed bump of the latest Apple product they will stop supporting parts of the OS on all older hardware?



     


    "How dare someone turn off a beta for which I'm not paying and am not supposed to be using if I didn't understand the terms of use. I am rightfully outraged, and I will sue and win. What I will win… is… as yet unknown."

  • Reply 17 of 36

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post


     


    Then you don't get to have it. JUST like every single other software upgrade in the history of computing. Somehow this is a foreign concept to you?


     


    Tech changes; get over it.


     


    "How dare someone turn off a beta for which I'm not paying and am not supposed to be using if I didn't understand the terms of use. I am rightfully outraged, and I will sue and win. What I will win… is… as yet unknown."



    There's no reason this upgrade needs to be restricted to ML


    This is not a hardware issue


    Actually I have paid for ML and am using it. But it annoys me that Messages is not backward compatible to iChat on Lion (as it could easily be.) And it has been a PITA to use compared to iChat as well.  

  • Reply 18 of 36


    Originally Posted by DESuserIGN View Post

    There's no reason this upgrade needs to be restricted to ML


     


    I'm in complete agreement! But that's for Apple to decide.


     


    Who says they won't offer it as a paid download in the Mac App Store? They're trying to hit a balance between updating to Mountain Lion and getting marketshare for iMessage. I don't think cutting off Lion users is the right way to go, but then again Apple probably couldn't care less if their services are actually used.

  • Reply 19 of 36

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post


    . . .  but then again Apple probably couldn't care less if their services are actually used.



     


    But that is exactly the problem.

  • Reply 20 of 36
    clemynxclemynx Posts: 1,552member
    They used people to test the service and now to thank them who don't have ML they force them to upgrade.
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