Apple Execs on iMessage for Android (2013)
twitter.com
twitter.com
These emails actually make me change my mind on both aspects. First, apparently they were at one point undisciplined enough to talk about risky topics in writing. Second, the reasoning in those emails is actually very reasonable. iMessage was a non-revenue-generating service that cost them money and was funded by sales of Apple devices, so it's being offered as a service to users of Apple products. This isn't unfair behavior on Apple's part.
It also demonstrates the harm with these lock-in strategies very well. They are concerned that their product wouldn't be compelling enough for people to buy it.
Wouldn't be better if they owned the messaging platform and provide the full experience for iOS due to the fact that they control the device? Owning the platform would have given them also the ability to get revenue from non-Apple users through things like payments and other services that can be integrated into the app.
In its current situation, it might be the case that Apple has won the battle but might end up losing the war.
Why is there a “messenger war”? Like what’s the end game? Why do you want people using your free messages product? Data? But e2e encryption and privacy are primary features… I don’t get it
Messenger apps have powerful network effects. Imagine all your friends are on iPhone and use iMessage, if you're the only android user in that circle you're getting a degraded experience so there's a strong incentive to move to iphone which means more sales for apple.
(i.e 1 billion people use Messenger X, is the game plan that some one else with an actual business model wants those billion users so they buy it... so Messenger apps are a marketing channel?)
I really distrust Signal for it forcing to add contacts only by phone, not hy sone user ids/nick-names
The more recent bout has their own services in messaging itself; bots to provide enterprise-specific functions to Slack, payment and marketplace tie-ins to Messenger.
In the US, Facebook admitted that they saw billions in revenue shortfalls because of Apple’s new prompt that makes user tracking opt in.
Besides, Facebook has already lost 70% of its value. Right now, Facebook is worth 240 billion. Apple is worth 2.2 trillion. Facebook is not exactly operating from a position of strength to throw away its most affluent customers.
Why should I continue reading rest when you already made insane claim based on nothing. Or have I suddenly been teleported to USA? I primarily use iMessage when I'm sending messages with my phone. I have only one contact that uses Whatsapp.
The rest of the world doesn't have the SMS problem that the US has.
I can confirm essentially no one in western Europe uses iMessage. I've seen people use FaceTime to call friends, but I've yet to even see someone open the iMessage app in person.
I use facetime quite a lot though, because it works better than everything else.
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20220315IP...
That's really a simplistic way of thinking. It is marked specific sure, but China have WeChat as the dominate messaging app. Denmark has some level of WhatsApp penetration for sure, but it's lower than iMessage (23% vs 33%), in some circles it is really noticeable if you switch to Android. iMessages is also a bit weird, because a large number of people do not care that it's technically iMessage, it just the messaging app on the phone, meaning it's SMS (even if it's technically not). I believe Sweden is rather similar. You also have to consider how many have multiple messaging apps installed. My guess is that a large number of the WhatsApp users are still available on iMessage.
I don't think it makes sense to entire continent or even countries as being WhatsApp or iMessage. We have to view it in much smaller circles. Like businesses, income classes or circles of friends and family.
>more than 70% of the possible iPhone population doesn't use iMessage.
Based on? Are they not receiving SMS messages at all?
>The rest of the world doesn't have the SMS problem that the US has.
So why are they using Whatsapp?
Anecdotally more people I know use Signal than iMessage, including my non tech savvy sisters and friends. iMessage is too weird and Android too prevalent for anyone to consider using it where I am from (the U.K.)
Those two use Signal/Telegram.
Not denying that there's a fair whatsapp penetration, but iPhones are quite popular and I have many iMessage groups that do not overlap in the membership.
(this is how it sounds)
/s
The cluelessness of the Anglosphere about the rest of the World is very entertaining and sad at the same time.
It is always shocking when people make such baseless claims like "Everyone users iMessage" when a very simple google search would show them this is not the case.
It is a very big world out there and so few realize this.
Indians use Whatsapp, and so does the fourth biggest country in the world, Indonesia.
We all use Whatsapp to discuss everything, from business to personal stuff to memes. I even use Whatsapp calling with some of my friends and colleagues in the USA. My friends circle has a monthly ritual of chatting through Whatsapp group call. I'm also a part of 3 Whatsapp groups to discuss exclusively football, as well as 5 Whatsapp groups for business networking (white shoe finance).
If Zuck were to get pissed and take down Whatsapp from the Apple Store, I know for a fact that a number of my colleagues would immediately buy an Android phone right off the bat, instead of getting Signal or Telegram. I might personally go the Signal option, but without the network effects, I would be driven straight back to Android. That would mean Apple directly losing an entire set of premium customers in markets outside USA and China.
Fun fact:- OPEC dealings are conducted over Whatsapp.
Honestly this "iPhone is objectively better" narrative of some commenters is facepalm worthy.
This is the sort of "but actually" pedantry that I come to HN for. Thank you for your service.
You do see the fault with your logic, correct? you state it is an "insane claim" yet offer zero proof... So effectively "based on nothing"?
Here, take a read:
" WhatsApp announced in 2020 on its blog that the messaging app is actively used by over two billion people worldwide. This puts the green messaging app far ahead of all other messaging apps, such as Facebook Messenger, WeChat, Viber, Apple Business Chat, or Telegram in terms of user numbers. "
Your personal anecdote that you have a "only one contact" is not relevant, what is relevant is statistics.
Yes, in the USA iMessage is more popular https://www.statista.com/statistics/294439/messenger-app-sha...
but here's the thing, the population of the US is rather small vs other countries where whatsapp is very popular.
The one making "insane claims" is actually you.
https://www.verint.com/blog/what-countries-are-the-biggest-w...
Also, having lived in 2 different countries in EU, I have never used WhatsApp. Only iMessage, Signal, and SMS.
If in EU you manage not to use something else than iMessage the you are in a bubble because most people in EU use Android. You somehow managed to have an iPhone bubble but your situation is not the rule but the exception.
By decreasing age:
SMS Whatsapp Signal ? (I'm old enough I don't know what younglings use these days)
iMessage has a more tribal spread due to its platform specifics.
Note: I have zero data to back it up, so please correct me if you have data.
More than likely, but the government is never going to legislate that companies use a technically excellent messaging product. Governments have the strongest incentives to cripple messaging:
1) Government pressure degrades private & secure messaging, because privacy can be used for criminal activity and tax evasion.
2) The US government has the worlds most sophisticated spy network and is constantly looking for ways to get involved in people's communications.
3) The US government has generally identified "misinformation" to be anything the current administration doesn't like. Presently only the right wing is aware of this fact, but I know the left wing can understand the point because they had figured this out under Trump.
Apple's relative market share and strategy is at best a secondary factor, the US government will regulate first and foremost get involved in messaging to cripple the security of the protocols being used.
If a few companies piss-off each other enough, we might start seeing open protocols for communication
We use WhatsApp by default because of the network effects. FB have no power over Apple here because removing it from iPhones would kill the only reason people use it. The switch to (most likely) Telegram would happen overnight.
I agree that the messaging platforms are not all powerful but they do wield significant power. iPhone is famously good for social media because Instagram and Snapchat camera integration sucked and that was something people consider when buying a new phone.
So there must be a point where switching to a different phone to improve communications is less painful than making all your social circle switch platform for you.
Only time I use WhatsApp is when I’m traveling overseas.
At least taking the example of India, if Whatsapp were to stop supporting iOS, then people would still continue to use Whatsapp in their Android phones.
That is a fantastic point, had never though along those lines. It’d be very interesting to explore if people in, say India, where everyone uses WhatsApp - in that scenario will people drop iPhone, a status symbol, or WhatsApp, a somewhat necessary tool. I don’t think no one knows today and no one wants to find out, risks are too high.
Moreover, in that case it is possible that governments might step in.
That would never happen though because Facebook has enough problems if its own without picking a very risky fight with Apple.
You may be right, but I doubt it is going to be that simple.
I have no idea what all Snapchat offers (never used/installed it). But, FWIW, I think Signal or Telegram have better odds of succeeding in India than Snapchat, but who knows.
Me!
I hate whatsapp ui. And not having desktop app. Tend to use Telegram, and Viber as last resort, to talk with elderly family and with businesses(when ordering something online).
Vibr sucks as well, but not as much as WA.
I remember in France when it was introduced, most phone plans had free SMS, but data was paid (and expensive), so people around me would disable it on their iphones
How come that effect didn't happen in the US?
It doesn't have all the features (esp. Excel) that the Windows version has.
The last email makes it clear that they wanted to keep lock-in in apple's ecosystem
Personally I prefer they don't do google style starting 100 projects and killing 99 out of them but focus on what they do best.
I also can't care less about iMessages on Android, I'm using WhatsApp to ping my wife/family - probably like most.
Cost was a reason, but wanting to maintain platform lock-in was another you seem to dismiss.
It was nice to read the candid exchange between top Apple execs. It was honest, and it was understandable.
It's unfortunate that Craig Federighi felt the need to give it some bullshit spin instead of being honest in the interview with Joanna Stern (further down the tweet thread).
I wish companies were just honest in their public marketing.
I know that a lot of decisions from Apple are just about protecting their profits (eg. building pretty sweet virtualisation tech into macOS, but then limiting it to 2 macOS VMs per computer even if your Mac could easily run dozens of them).
It would be nice if they didn't always try to tell some bullshit story how that was better for the person buying their hardware.
I think it’s refreshing to see that Fed & Phil had in mind a clear path to value with their existing hardware+software strategy, rather than rushing to the growth and market share at-all-costs strategy popular at the time.
It’s so easy to point to Federighi’s email and scream “monopolist”! But Apple was in no way close to commanding a monopoly in the mobile market back then.
Google Meet
Google Meet (Original)
Google Meet (Acquired)
They announced the shutdown of hangouts and the removal of google fi integration and despite the uproar they doubled down on it.
Genuine question to people here. Why ? They keep claiming that they're a data driven company. What data are these decisions based on?
And products just languish as a result.
The theory isn’t anything deep, but it seems to fit the facts.
The data used by the person in charge of making this decision (typically a VP or a Sr Director): what is the probability of them getting promoted. If doubling down or just maintaining and polishing existing projects was rewarded, Google wouldn't have been in this state.
Now why those incentives exist that way? It was a confluence of factors in 2000's when internet was growing rapidly, Google had lots of talented employees, a bold bet in a new area (email, news, street view or browser) had a higher expected value than polishing and maintaining existing products. The culture needs a reset, Google is currently living through its "Ballmer era".
polish/maintain -> stagnate
You can manipulate data to show whatever you want. The incentive structures within the company are to blame.
Edit: Limp leadership is also to blame. Probably some other things too?
A lot of times it's much easier to find data to give you reasons not to do something long-term (very similar to investors focused on short-term results) than to confirm the value of committing significant resources to long-term bets.
Other than "keep milking ads" is there any clear strategy Google's consumer business has shown? Android looks like a good example of executing on that ads strategy, but other things that seem harder to tie to ads directly tend to languish since nobody there actually knows what they want to do in other areas: chat apps? Stadia? Random things like Cardboard? Consumer G-suite? I'd say even assistant/home stuff is languishing (where's the big money maker).
They're not a data driven company, they are a promotion driven company. New products drive promotions and maintaining existing products do not.
Could be as simple as “We tried this for x months. It still isn’t profitable, and we don’t see it becoming profitable soon”
For me, with zero inside knowledge, it looks like Google’s upper management gives managers lots of freedom to launch products, but expects them to bring in money soon.
That doesn’t seem the case for all kinds of products, though. I don’t see Chrome directly making money for them, for example. There, it seems they realize it indirectly, by defending their advertising income, is profitable.
It seems upper management doesn’t have a long term strategy for making money with messaging apps, but still has hope some of their managers will find it.
When the data shows the results you are looking for, you say you're data-driven. When it doesn't, you manipulate and torture it long enough to produce the result you are looking for. If it still doesn't, you come up with some excuse to end up doing the thing you wanted to do anyway.
In that moment I understood the genius of not just shipping an iMessage for Android app. Not having an iPhone is perceived as a failure state.
In continental Europe I've seen just the opposite. In many social contexts having an iPhone is associated with either being a mindless fanboy, a basic trend-following drone or, in general, bad with money.
As in "why would anyone overpay for a phone that does just the same as an Android?".
It's a very curious phenomenon.
- the population of 10 european countries combined is not as big as the US
Populations (skipping Russia with 145 million): Germany 83 million, UK 67 million, France 65 million, Italy 60 million, Spain 47 million, Ukraine 43 million.
That’s 6 countries, 365 million people. The USA has 332 million.
Even taking ‘Europe’ mean ‘the EU’, the ten largest (by population) countries together have about 360 million people (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_European_U...)
Exactly opposite. US states generally have larger area, but lower population. Population-wise, California is about the size of Poland and Texas is similar to Romania. No state is comparable to Germany (83M), France (65M) or Italy (60M).
That sounds like a quality of life issue for people in America.
Which is an absolute joke of a phone unless you just value the apple logo that much, which most of Europe doesn't. 720p screen? 4gb ram? What decade are we in again?
It's like saying that people don't like licorice because people absolutely detest eating.
Maybe it is because it tastes like shit to them.
iPhone runs well on 3gb, 4gb, 6gb. It’s far more optimised than android.
The same cannot be said for android. Over time lack of ram cripples it.
Oh honey...
The cheap phones we have now could totally blow away higher end phones from the past...
But security updates, and lack of support on old phones essentially means you can't do that. Because they're gonna bundle in a ton of bullshit with the security updates.
We're discussing prices so I don't see how this is relevant in any way.
> use big screens all day so don’t value a large phone because it’s strictly a functional device
Then you don't need a $400 phone.
For laughs
Not great, but not terrible camera. Not flagship, but not sluggish processor. Nice bright 90Hz AMOLED display. 33W Fast Charging. Runs TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, Chrome and so on without a hiccup.
What else do you really need?
Is the iPhone a superior experience? IMO, yes. Do I need it? No. But do I use my phone enough that $8 a month is worth it for the improvement? Absolutely.
But I do agree because I'm very tied to the ecosystem, I use lots of Apple products, the whole experience is worth it.
For your usual non-tech professional using your typical five free social media apps, taking a couple pics for Instagram and doing a few calls? I don't think it's worth the extra $8. Better get coffee.
Just compare that to an S10 which is roughly in the same price range now
You really ought to look at Motorola's mid-range; as an example, you can the 2021 G-Power at sub-$150 prices.
That's what I buy for broke family members. They're practically indestructible and can do everything you need for $180 or so
The $300 Android is lucky to get 1, maybe a few critical security patches after that and then it's abandoned.
Meanwhile my mom is on her second iPhone, the first one lasted for 6 years with OS updates, the current one (SE2020) will most likely get updates until 2025. Two phones in about a decade isn't too bad IMO.
I have seen people disable updates, because they change how the apps look like, and devices are anyway mostly space constrained.
A Samsung A13 is €156, a Xiaomi 9A is €100, a Google Pixel 6A is €365, a Samsung A32 is €250...
So yes Apple is significantly more expensive than most of the Android phones, at least looking at the ones that sell well.
Most of them aren’t very good you’re right, but most people aren’t willing to pay more. Keep in mind that the north in most of Europe is to pay for the unlocked phone upfront, not finance it though the carrier.
And the SE is €200 more expensive than the Pixel 6A as I detailed. Not even the same ballpark.
As an example, I've noticed this to be very common in many scenes in Berlin, while in Germany as a whole iOS has a 45% market share.
So, yes, definitely. However it does show a marked difference with the US which is common enough to be worth mentioning.
This is a bad take and is more revealing about your social circle.
I take the phone unlocked, with AppleCare+, to attempt a normalization across regulations. Default warranty in the US is much weaker than in the EU, but should be the same with AppleCare+. Buying a locked phone is also cheaper in the US, but AFAIK it's not possible to buy a locked phone in France anymore.
US: 978 USD (excluding sales taxes), France: 1198 EUR (TTC, including sales taxes) or 998 EUR (HT, excluding sales taxes), so about 992 USD at current rate. So the iPhone in France costs about 14 USD more, or 1.45% more. That's not "much more" in my book, although it is a little bit more.
I think the common mistake is to compare European prices with sales taxes (20% in France) against US prices without sales taxes... Hint: prices displayed on the Apple store in the US are always displayed without sales taxes, while in the EU prices always include sales taxes (I'm not sure it's true in all 27 member states, but it's definitely true in France).
But I've read so many times (on French forums) people argue that Apple is overcharging EU citizens by forgetting to adjust for sales taxes that I defaulted to interpret "In Europe Apple stuff costs much more" that way.
In a way it makes sense, in France what you see is what you get, so the typical French consumer expects the sticker price on the US Apple Store to be the final price. In fact it's the law: in France you have to honor the sticker price, even if it's wrong (unless it's an obvious mistake, but the bar for obvious mistake is quite high).
Replace iPhone with something like Vertu.
Also I happen to live part of the year in Europe. And found the price of Apple products to be within 10% of Apple US.
I don't need to know the financial situation of the iPhone owners. I need to know the financial situation of the 50% of population, to compare to the 50% penetration rate in the US.
As much as I understand, phone carriers / operators subsidize phones in Europe to a much smaller extent than in the US, too.
You can argue that your experience is different, I'm just providing mine which I've experienced consistently enough to find it worth pointing as a common divergence from what I see in the US.
https://9to5mac.com/2022/03/24/eu-legislation-to-make-imessa...
And the only stats I could find say that iMessage is used more than WeChat
https://www.androidauthority.com/imessage-big-deal-guide-308...
Could it be that maybe your anecdote is meaningless outside of your bubble?
The legislation is aimed at opening up the APIs of all messaging apps/companies which meet their criteria for being a "gatekeeper". Apple simply happens to meet those criteria.
> And the only stats I could find say that iMessage is used more than WeChat
Your article called their data an estimate without giving any insight into how the data was estimated, other than the caveat that it may include users who only used imessage for sms.
You mean anecdata without hard facts are meaningless??? You don’t say.
Not to mention, where was the anecdote in your article? There's no anecdote there in a 1.3B estimate, for all I know it's just some random reporter's guess (backed up by who knows what), whereas an anecdote is at least a hard fact, just one with small sample size. If I don't know how the estimate is made then I probably actually prefer the anecdote.
Nonetheless I'm pretty sure apple would not want to hear X likes apple hates android merely b/c it reads apple where it disappears into NY Post page 6 buzz and gossip thing eg vapid nonsense
I think they want to hear they like apple because of its hw/sw features and tight integration.
Brand is a by way to tqa which is a by way to sqa (isakawa). Fanboys are repulsive to anybody who cares about products and services
It's not a culture of being cheap.
Is a culture of not valuing, in particular, the Apple tax.
A huge amount of people in Europe happily overpay for their cars. In any country of western or southern Europe you'll see tons of Mercedes.
I feel like you got offended by my comment as if I was criticising Europeans somehow. I wasn't.
I reside in the EU and I use an iPhone. This is dependent on context and social circle, but it does happen.
You really don’t see the fallacy in this statement?
Do you have any statistically valid longitudinal surveys?
> This is dependent on context and social circle, but it does happen
And every woman that lives in my house thinks I’m the best husband for her. You can draw any conclusion as long as you limit the sample size.
This is obviously an informal conversation and I've clearly stated in my comment that "I've seen" a different situation "in many social contexts". Which I, again, informally generalize into a phenomenon I consider common enough to be mentioned.
I do not intend to provide you with statistical backing for what amounts to, again, clearly obviously anecdotal evidence.
In short: Jesus, if you disagree or have a different experience, it's OK, let me know, no need to go straight into a formal semantics discussion.
It means about as much as the old Slashdot meme “I haven’t watched TV in a decade. Do people still watch TV?”
Could it possibly be that your experience is not representative of the broader EU?
My original comment was answering an existing comment that literally started with "I saw a humorous exchange at a social event" and described literally an anecdote.
I'm hoping you'll see why it's obvious that my comment was very much fit to the existing conversation that was already happening.
I think it’s a really safe assumption that most people don’t really care what others have, or really care that much about a device vs it doing what they need.
I don’t think that’s a US vs Europe thing. I see people in tech circles in America make the same judgements, but don’t realize that it’s irrelevant
I had never encountered the "blue vs green" bubble problem until moving to the US.
It's partly because the US has a higher rate of iPhones (through subsidized phone plans) and partly because the US hung onto SMS much longer than other countries.
However the initial person I was replying to was talking about judgements regarding the device itself and as a whole, not just messaging friction
Does 33% of the population of the EU and 50% of the population of the US really fit in your tiny bubbles.
You realize Android phones are running an operating systems whose entire purpose of being is to collect your data and continuously make money off of you?
> The first group buys for status,
With 50% of the population in the US having iPhones and 33% in the EU, where is the “status from having one”?
Besides, in the US, the difference between buying an iPhone on a 24 month interest free payment plan and an Android phone on the same payment plan is minimum. Even at minimum wage that’s less than 5 hours of work. But with todays worker shortage, even fast food workers are making $15/hour. This gets back to how is it a symbol of “status” when you have the same phone as a teenager flipping burgers?
> the second group buys for convenience,
You mean people buy stuff that makes their life more convenient? Isn’t this like saying “water is wet”?
> and the third group because the repairs are cheaper and easier (fewer models)
Repairs are easier because Apple has retail stores all over the country and actually have good customer service.
Maybe we should not assume it's always a country thing. It's peer pressure behaviour, and your immediate group of peers might or might not care.
It's not really the same, since if a group is using WhatsApp and you want to join, but don't have WhatsApp, you can simply install it. The same with all other messaging platforms.
With iMessage you can join over text/MMS, but it will make the experience so much worse for everyone that most people (from my experience) will simply not allow you to join.
There's a reason this is a major cause of dread for socially vulnerable teenagers https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-apples-imessage-is-winning-... but it's not that different for adults.
However I have seen first hand the Android prejudice, to call it something, in the US. And I've never seen it in the EU, where I've spent the majority of my time lately.
And, conversely, I've seen plenty of prejudice against iOS in a many varied (but not all, of course) social contexts across the EU.
But yes, definitely, it's anecdotal evidence based on my own experience.
Jokes aside I've found the UK to be closer aligned with the US socially on many things vs rest of Europe
The Smartphone Premium Tier device-segment (>600 USD w/o subsidy) makes up ~50% of all sales in UK, which firmly positions Apple far FAR in the lead in this segment, just like in US, UK, AU,... This is also not evenly distributed geographically (cities have a much higher sales of iPhones than rural areas).
--> There are barely any "tribes" left in the higher income-brackets of UK. A person who can afford an iPhone likely owns an iPhone, so non-iPhone users are either "quirky exotics" (i.e. using a foldable device) or very likely in a lower income bracket.
The lower income bracket is where the fringe of Apple/Android is, and that's where the argument of "iPhone means I'm successful" / "Android means I'm smarter" is really happening (~400USD w/o subsidy).
So if you're in one of the above english-speaking countries and you don't notice this argument, you're likely in a higher income bracket and likely live in a city.
Unfortunately I cannot share the data on the figures I mentioned earlier as they are restricted for sharing (I'm working in Smartphone business and we're analyzing sales data of all the world to make strategic decisions).
I tried a quick search to find some public data on price brackets and target groups I could share instead, I didn't find much unfortunately. But here's a public stat on price brackets to show the big valley: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1169438/share-of-global-...
The data resolution is unfortunately not high and also not clustered in countries, but it shows one aspect: ~70% of global sales accounts for devices <300USD. Apple has no smartphone below 300USD w/o subsidy so their global market share of ~23% of all sales is actually concentrated in just 30% of the market. In countries with more high-tier sales like UK, Apple usually has a significantly larger share of that tier. In more granular data it's visible how much Apple actually owns those price segments outside of China, and how households with more disposable income don't move away from Apple anymore (surely also thanks to Airpods and Apple watches, whose value degrades when not on iOS).
Anyway, what happened in English speaking countries first but is also growing in others (i.e. Spain, Italy, Brazil,...), as a result of that split is, that people of lower income and/or status associate owning an iPhone with wealth and success. This is not so much noticeable in higher income brackets where everyone can afford an iPhone, but on the bottom of that "iPhone class" this is very prevalent. Moreover, on the lower fringe of this there is not only social pressure to own an iPhone to represent your status, but to also own a RECENT iPhone and/or Airpods, Apple watches etc.
Unfortunately I couldn't find public data to demonstrate this, so it's fair for you to consider this not answered. Within the smartphone industry all this is quite known for many years now. Not sure what could be done to reverse this, so far the potent competition to Apple actually decreased by leaving the market.
A final interesting bit for which I also found zero public data: For several years this "iPhone class" in western countries was slightly female-driven, with more women transitioning from Android to iOS or upgrading to new iPhones than men. This seems to have balanced itself in the past 2 years now, maybe because the recent iPhone improvements are more techy than experience-focused? (speculation)
In recent years I only used SMS for 2FA.
Half of the problem is a branding issue (calling it "messages" on the phone did not help) and the other half of the issue is that it's not available on Android
Some of the arguments are straight up bonkers for me - for instance, "iMessage is more secure." Is it? Apple is a US-based firm and subject to the whims of US laws and governmental intrusion.
In my circle - and I have lived in both Europe and Asia - we heavily use Telegram. I find it to be far more favorable experience than iMessage. UX and interoperatibility between platforms is far more superior and it runs flawlessly - doesn't matter whether it is a flagship Apple/Samsung device or a cheap Xiaomi phone. Or PC/Mac/Linux for that matter.
I'm feeling you are assuming that the alternative to iMessages in Europe is SMS. It's not. The alternative is WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, Facebook Messenger, etc.
why? They're both end to end encrypted but owned by meta.
Framing fundamental privacy measures as sneaky mode is actively harmful to their broader adoption, paints a target on the few people who do have dire need for protection, and makes us all vulnerable to efforts to legislate against what progress we’ve made.
E2E. yes; explicit key management, no.
So basically you are getting encryption on your device, but do not know, who can decrypt.
About the only messaging app that makes some effort on key verification and keys cannot be changed randomly is Threema.
If you start to really 'obsess about the details' -- and this'll mean different things to different people -- you'll start to run into the walls that Apple puts up. It's a very one-sided "my way or the highway" dynamic. It's easier to work around on their laptops, but impossible (or at least unreasonably impractical) on their phones. For context I gave iOS a shake twice, once with the XR and once with the 13 mini.
I've always felt that iOS is the platform you go with for:
- unparalleled high-quality integration with the Apple ecosystem
- a very strongly (and unavoidably) opinionated experience (where the opinions are usually more-or-less correct)
So where do you think these files that are used are stored?
Every app that reads and writes files shows your standard file picker that lets you load and save files that can then be shared across applications. This has been the case for years.
Having to use WhatsApp removes a reason to have to buy an iPhone and adds a new one not to care about the brand of the phone.
and yeah they are perceived as "status" lifestyle items. It's why apple emphasizes devices that can be shown off/worn in public
I agree software-wise Android ~= iOS but Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 < Apple A16.
But I wouldn't think that would be the case at all in a poorer country like Poland or Romania.
Getting non-work people into a video call if you don’t have an iPhone is painful.
Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp both have video calling...
In case you have lots of information to share you can also leave a recorded voice-message via WhatsApp, but that's all done in a asynchronous way, i.e. the person receiving the recorder voice-message can listen to it whenever he/she feels like it.
That was our first and last date, but I did quickly thereafter buy a new iPhone...
That's a crapshoot of an argument. If it runs the apps you need to be productive and doesn't get in their way, what's the difference?
My 4 year old Android device can do anything productive that someone else's iPhone 14 can do. What it can't do is play the latest games (not enough RAM), stream Netflix comfortably (small screen), or impress people with face unlock (lowly thumbprint recognition for me).
I've seen people on benefits with better iPhones than mine.
If your date judges you for having an Android instead of an iPhone, they're a terrible judge of character and wealth.
- I don't want to think about my phone, what software it runs, rooting it, modifying it
- I don't want to think about my phones reliability
- I don't want to think about getting it repaired literally anywhere in the world (I have had countless perfect experiences with the Apple store)
- I don't want to think about it being secure, if its stolen yadda yadda
- Having support for a work profile is irrelevant because I like to use two phones to keep everything separate
I bought a Dell laptop, there was a problem with the trackpad. The Dell technician came to my house and fixed it on my dining room table.
"Do you want a partner that uses social signaling as a criterion for picking their partner?"
Aren't they the same guy?
If a date cares which toilet or phone you use... that is weird. Run.
FWIIW I have a 20 year background in software engineering and devops. Today I run an infosec company, live in silicon valley, and I do not have a cell phone at all.
I have a desktop computer for getting work done in office hours, and if I have time alone away from home for an extended period of time I bring a laptop and a book which are used at times of my choosing.
Paper maps exist. As do standalone GPS devices. Personally I look up directions before I leave and write them down. Within a few months of not using a GPS I actually started learning to navigate on my own.
There is even evidence GPS reliance is literally causing atrophy in the portions of our brains evolved for navigation: https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2019/7/24/20697829/gp...
I actually still use and prefer taxis over uber/lyft because there is no app, and they tend to know where they are going without staring at a phone while driving. As a motorcycle rider, I think all distracting screens should be turned off while driving. They get people killed.
As for photos, dedicated point and shoot cameras are still a thing as they have vastly superior lenses to most/all phones.
As for keeping lists, I switched back to paper notes. I rarely even look at them because the act of writing things down commits it to memory remarkably better than I expected, and my memory is pretty poor.
As for music, I use rockbox on a small dedicated music player with 2tb of storage. I filled it so I have plenty.
There is nothing stopping you from still using a phone for all these things, but consider keeping your phone in airplane mode full time so you are a bit less distracted and more disconnected.
The average person checks their phone 300 times a day. When you know the internet is off... that addictive habit dies down.
I did that for a year and used offline music and maps on the go etc. After that I stopped paying for cell service I never used as I could find wifi anywhere if I felt I really needed it. After that I deleted apps one by one and finding alternatives. Somewhere along the line I started finding I would forget to bring it with me to go shopping or for a walk. About a year ago I just ditched it entirely. I simply realized I am happier and more present and focused without it. Even airports, traveling, etc. There is no anxiety for me when I am without internet or a phone like there once was. It is like modern day survival training that paid off.
The mental health gains and my overall ability to focus has gone up so dramatically I do not see myself ever going back. Maybe a beeper for emergencies but that is about it.
I suggest anyone start with airplane mode and wifi only for a while and see how far down that path is right for them.
If you had asked me 2 years ago if I would ever leave home without a phone I would have thought you were nuts. Detoxing from anything takes time.
Practically no-one has WhatsApp here, but all my family in the Netherlands use WhatsApp almost exclusively. It's my impression that in the Nordic countries it's iMessage but the rest of Europe uses WhatsApp.
I'd like to see statistics though if you can find them.
I have noticed that my Norwegian friends use Facebook Messenger quite a lot and the iPhone is pretty ubiquitous there with younger folk, so perhaps Denmark is the same.
Android isn't bad, it is just that the ecosystem around iOS is that good.
This eternal attempt of forcing Apple to make their products/platform more open is in opposition to a lot of its users as well. I actually enjoy the walled garden and most do - it makes for a hassle free experience. If you don't want that - fine, go get an android or a old nokia.
To your point about walled gardens, I don't see how Apple developing an imessage client for android users defeats the walled garden. Unless you think part of the walled garden is to keep Android users from contacting iPhone owners? I don't think thats what you mean but that is what you are saying.
Take from that what you will.
Also how they admit that a busy messaging service "does not cost us a lot to run", but HN constantly defends the 30% tax for app store storage space
so yeah like HN, except in HN this would start an epic flamewar "how dare you say that"
It is interesting.
Vietnam: Facebook Messenger, Zalo (home grown IM), Viber.
Not sure I agree. A generation or two is eons in tech. In that timeframe there will likely be another massive paradigm shift that totally washes away today’s thinking about phones, communication, etc.
Their existing market dominance among teens positions them very strongly to keep brand loyalty into whatever paradigms come next.
It’s also not just “social pressures to use iPhones” but the fact that parents can:
* give them hand me downs due to longer device lifespans
* the ability to get them more easily serviced when their kid breaks something by going to the Apple Store
* the ability to more easily buy a decent midrange device on a student discount
* the ability to communicate more easily themselves using iMessage
* appealing to privacy and safety in Apple marketing
People over index on social pressure from other teens. There’s lots of reasons teens get devices and many come from parental choices.
Maybe the percentages will vary as they grow but any company worth their salt is paying attention to the possibly high rate of market drop off that they’ll experience
None of these may have arisen or become so popular if Apple & Android had created interop.
But even without it, they are both E2E encrypted. Of course you could ship new code that send the messages unencrypted but it would be extremely risky for Meta and the government, depending on the target
Over time that changed.
Now, it's basically a US thing. In other countries messaging apps are used by the majority.
Pretty damning for anyone who still thinks that Apple didn't intend to directly profit from teen bullying.
Imo it has to do with perceived status of owning an iPhone.
> Now, we are starting to work on Safari again but look at Chrome. They put out releases at least every month while we basically do it once a year.
Even though this was in 2013 nothing about the release cycle (still only major changes with the major OS release versions). I wonder if some of the other emails have more context on this.
Or they release them at a faster cadence, which was the point of the quoted portion of the emails. That doesn't mean no planning.
EDIT: Actually, I reread your comment and have no idea what you're getting at. Why do you think I'm suggesting Google has no planning?
Among my iPhone-owning friends, it is common to hear “they didn’t add X to Safari in iOS 16 but I hope they will in iOS 17” or “did you watch the iOS 16 promos? They’re adding X to Safari.” It is expected that major Safari features coincide with major iOS releases.
Non-APNS push notifications landed on macOS in 16.1. They get webkit features in minor releases. Mouse and keyboard support for iPad also landed in a minor release. They average about 6 releases a year.
There is only one reason why chrome got so much market share: because they put an ad on the Google homepage "Try a faster browser!". The marketing was bullshit (bloated websites don't load any faster in Chrome than in other browsers), but it worked.
If any other company advertised their browser so heavily, they would be the leading browser maker today. But noone else can put ads on every load of the Google homepage.
I think browsers are just so complex that most people don't understand that there's something wrong with their browser or operating system and just blames the website. Few years back it feels that everybody knew that if something is a bit off on the web they should try a different browser. Now, this idea seems to be more or less gone - most people only have 1 browser installed to begin with.
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220406005379/en/Pip...
> 87% of teens own an iPhone and 87% expect an iPhone to be their next phone; 72% of teens already have AirPods
Pretty much.
They are hurting inter platform communication by encouraging people to use the only messaging app on the market that isn't multiplatform.
Secondly they intentionally provide a bad experience (like low res images and video) when people do try to communicate by text.
TFA is the most direct example that this is entirely according to their plan.
I think it's fair that many people dislike this.
My understanding of low res images and video is that it's a limitation of MMS messaging?
I dunno, I read the exchanges and it seems fairly benign. Execs asking the question of "do we want to invest in this or not?" and coming to the conclusion not to invest outside their own platform.
They wouldn't even have to engineer it themselves. Opening for third party developers would quickly solve the problem. Besides, making a multiplatform app doesn't seem to be an issue for Apple im other contexts, or for any other maker of messaging apps.
> My understanding of low res images and video is that it's a limitation of MMS messaging?
Apple could fall back on a more modern MMS version, like RCS.
It's pretty clear from the article, as well as countless others (like https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-apples-imessage-is-winning-... or https://www.npr.org/2022/09/08/1121756012/iphone-android-tex... ) that they simply don't want to.
They'd rather make more money while making people less happy. You don't have to blame them, but you can understand why it makes some people unhappy.
But the whole SMS/MMS -replacement thing is purely an American problem, the rest of the world has pretty much moved on to different applications that are cross-platform.
This is basically going to involve a lot of initial engineering effort no matter how you slice it. Cleaning up and opening a codebase, or turning a private protocol into a for-public-consumption interoperable multi-platform messaging protocol is a huge undertaking. Possibly even bigger than maintaining a second closed Android-only implementation of iMessage.
Second, there is a ton of design decision that needs to be put into that, too. What do you do with iMessage iCloud backups of users who switch to Android? From Android? Do you interoperate with other backup providers? Does this change the fundamental nature of iCloud backups? How do you interoperate with forks?
> Apple could fall back on a more modern MMS version, like RCS
They could. But that is also significant engineering effort and not something they get "for free." If it doesn't make the iPhone-to-iPhone experience any better, they aren't likely to invest heavily in it
I don't think there's an intention to make people unhappy, I just very much doubt that there are many Android users working at Apple who want to see this in their day to day lives, and Apple tends to build products for themselves first. Lots of other people just happen to buy them
So when a journalist complains their Android-using parent has a bad experience, of course the default answer would be "buy them an iPhone".
Higher quality images/video. Whenever we are at a wedding or whatnot, the fastest and easiest way to share high quality pics/video is to iMessage it.
This website says it still compressed quite a bit at Best Quality:
I assume all the big successful companies are like this. To change it, if that was your desire, we need to be outside their influence. That's why FOSS is so valuable.
Most providers moved to bundled plans with tons and tons of SMS included, but only when they already lost to WA.
[0] Last year I needed to send a photo through MMS. It took me 3 attempts to find a proper combo on how to photo in a format acceptible for MMS. Think 640x480 at best. Only three because I've used MMS in the past so somewhere back in my mind there are still info about it. If I were 20 y/o I wouldn't even figure out what I need to do.
Edit: is this a flintstones ref?
I think this would be very helpful for someone who's just venturing on to half of your career length.
It was with great difficulty that I convinced my girlfriend to try an Android phone that I had tricked out for her. The main obstacle was that her entire family of more than twenty are locked into Imessage. She felt ostracized afterwards being the green bubble in the family. She has gotten many of them on Signal, but they treat me with some disdain. I really learned what a firm grip Apple has on its users, and it is proven here yet again that it is by design. She must really love me.
I have a group of friends who refuse to use Signal (because of the phone number requirement) and for several years the only channel we could agree on was Steam chat.
I have a side of my family that I have warned that I will only see their messages once a month because they will only use Facebook Messenger. I keep my Facebook account for them.
> And since we make no money on iMessage what will be the point?
In case you ever get fooled into thinking Apple really cares about its users or their experience - they care as far as it makes them money. Then they don't care.
I am sure Apple cares about its users or their experience and making money.
It’s bad business practice to put energy towards something that doesn’t serve your mission because you lose focus and discipline.
For the things they do invest in, Apple puts a lot of energy in the user experience because they believe that there are business benefits to doing so. This is true of most well-run companies. Generally speaking, our economic system works out well because the incentives of businesses align with the incentives of the consumer.
However I hear things are changing. Plenty of teens on Discord.
Neither is great but Android MMS is much better. And of course RCS is better still. And Google Messages let's you automatically upload videos to Google Photos and let you share them with a link. The affordances to send high quality video are significantly better on Android.
(I don't use any of the above, instead preferring to use Signal.)
Apple doesn't care about their users, except insofar as keeping users happy can make Apple money.
In cases where keeping users happy can't make Apple money, they don't care about their users.
Keeping Apple users happy when it doesn't make them money directly may have strategic importance (which is why iMessage exists in the first place)
Keeping Android users happy when it doesn't make them money is a distraction.
Thats why they have iTMS and Apple Music and Apple TV and iCloud ported to other platforms - because those front paid services.
That and the way they remove you from group chats if you ever try to turn off iMessage makes the whole thing feel like a dark pattern to me. Apple really has us hostage as iMessage users.
I’m generally a big Apple fan but iMessage feels like abuse to me.
Do you have a reference for this?
At the Facetime announcement, Jobs said that would be an open protocol. Then they ended up in a big patent suit over Facetime and it didn't happen. Not sure how much the suit influenced the decision, but for whatever reason the Facetime protocol was never opened up. I don't remember a similar announcement about iMessage.
As far as abuse, how so? They provide a messaging app. That app is compatible with SMS. There are several alternative messaging apps. Where is the abuse?
Source?
Even if they had said it would be open, changing their minds later wouldn't be a lie, it would be... changing their minds. I'm not an Apple user or fan, and I dislike iMessage's weird half-baked integration with regular SMS, but this feels like an overreaction even if there was a place where they claimed it would be open.
[0] https://youtu.be/LPMjUtfQPks?t=4296
The link above will take you right to the part about iMessage.
They have to do that since messages are encrypted. If they left you in they’d either have to send messages insecurely or warn everyone that the entire group was now insecure due to you. There’s no way that wouldn’t be decried as a dark pattern, too.
I don’t think it had anything to do with their earlier promise (and I’m also not convinced patent issues were the real crux of the matter ten years ago).
Not really; Apple simply doesn't move that fast. You can certainly see projects get more resources as a result of trends, but that isn't necessarily going to move the release forward a year.