1. https://twitter.com/russellholly/status/1401950208133632004
The green/blue distinction is very meaningful. It tells you whether your chats are encrypted, which is not a default to SMS technology. In fact it would be more honest or accurate for Apple to display a padlock to inform you that you're secure; instead we have colors.
They predate iMessage being end-to-end encrypted, and predates Apples current privacy push. Additionally Apple senior leaders have got up on stage and joked about how people with green bubbles are second class friends.
All of that together makes me think the bubble colours are primarily there to gently nudge people into getting their friends and family to buy iPhones. Which is also the reason why iMessage doesn’t have an Android app, as stated in an internal Apple email made public in the Epic games lawsuit.
I don't think anyone can argue with a straight face that the color-coded messages aren't at least partially motivated by creating an in-crowd and out-crowd dichotomy, but its a stretch to say that they are there _primarily_ to get Apple users to bully their friends into switching platforms. Like many others have pointed out, there are a variety of reasons why one would want an obvious distinction between SMS and iMessage messages.
the obvious reasons: - knowing when your communication is encrypted - knowing when your going to incur outrageous fees from your service provider (cheap text messaging is not ubiquitous across the modern world) - knowing who you can communicate with without a cell signal (eg during flights, in remote areas, etc)
but also it serves a useful purpose for less advanced/savvy users to reduce confusion on feature discrepancies. There are a lot of niceties/features in iMessage that modern users might not realize aren't common to SMS messages. The average iMessage user might not be aware that they can't just send a huge video file over SMS, or a PDF, or send messages with the 'effects' Apple offers, or have named group chats that people have the option of joining or leaving, etc.
The 'cool kid' dynamic that the color coding creates is definitely not an accident, but there are obvious benefits to it that aren't nefarious in nature.
But IMO the solution there wouldn't be to remove the red/blue distinction, which as noted in this thread serves as important security and feature indicator — the solution would be to compel Apple to serve their customers better by not having them caught in the crossfire in their marketplace battles with Android.
I also noted that it would be more accurate for Apple to display a padlock to display the security status of a chat, but that would actually be even more derogatory. It's basically saying "this chat is unsafe."
I really hope Apple at least announces iMessages for the web, and a native client for Android. A lot of households are multi-ecosystem.
This is important between fully iOS users too if data isn't available, to signify it sent via SMS.
There was a time when iMessage was not end-to-end encrypted? I thought it launched like that on day 1.
Also, MMS is terrible.
Right now we're in a weird spot where sending a text from android -> Android is usually encrypted (via RCS), and Apple -> Apple is encrypted, but between the platforms they're not.
I assume Google and its users would love if Apple opted to support RCS, and I assume Google would also love if Apple built iMessage for Android. Apple's chosen to do neither, despite the fact it would give its users a richer messaging experience and a way to encrypt more of their communications.
It's their choice, but it boggles my mind that people defend it.