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Comment by Animats | Hacker News Reader

"... younger consumers are concerned about being socially ostracized for not having an iPhone"

I'd argue that iMessage is one of the most monopolistic elements of the iPhone. With their market share as large as it is, and with only one remotely viable competitor, they should be forced to open up an API allowing other people to create clients.

(Anyone remember the glory days of GAIM/Pidgin and multi-account messengers?)

OTOH I bet the majority of users have no idea that imessage and sms are different things. Iphones show up blue but thats about all the average end users notice about the protocol.

I've got to hand it to Apple for implementing it that way; the seamless UX works so well. The fact that Google never built a competitor that functioned similarly is utterly baffling.

I think part of the reason was also to put messages on data. when the iphone came out you could get unlimited data from att, but I think you still might end up with a plan with finite text messages. Being able to text over wifi or 3g would save you from running up sms. blackberry had something similar too.

> (Anyone remember the glory days of GAIM/Pidgin and multi-account messengers?)

Such things still exist, and even include iMessage ;-)

It’s vastly more complicated than “apple opens an api”. iMessage does a lot more than just messaging, and key components of apples spam and fraud story are tied to individual devices.

For Apple to open iMessage, would require that android manufacturers enroll the devices.

I use an iPhone, and I try to get all my friends to use signal

By her own admission she was on an unimportant part of the project when she joined in 1965. She was recorded working on completely unrelated stuff in 63. When she was actually promoted to leadership the work was already done

I like that Signal is open source, but I dislike their insistence on shutting down third party clients, because I believe third party clients are almost universally better than first-party ones.

In addition, their continued reluctance to add an export or any kind of meaningful history backup is also a negative.

The chat landscape is dire. I view Signal as a least bad option for my friends to use.

I think telegram is a great tradeoff. Not as secure (by default it is not even e2e), but their clients on every platform are just slick and very great.

Yep, they've started nagging for donations too. Signal, no means no.

You can just not donate.

Differentiating messages between iPhone and non-iPhone (i.e. blue text vs green text) has to be one of the greatest ploys in business history.

A good case could be made that apple are deliberately encouraging cyberbulling with it.

That's a stretch. To begin with, you can't even see the blue/green difference until you actually send a message to someone. All received messages are gray. And even without the color, you instantly know the difference between the two -- one tells you it was delivered, the other one is a shot into the void.

No you can detect if a number is iMessage by putting it in the sender tab of a message. If it’s iMessage-able then it will turn blue.

Differentiating between e2e encrypted, internet-sent messages vs SMSs are important, though.

And it is not an issue anywhere else on Earth besides the US, people just use third-party messenger apps and that’s it.

I recently snagged a nice apartment in another city thanks in part to being an iPhone user. I don't drive, so there wasn't any way for me to do the viewing in person, and the owner doesn't understand Zoom or Teams but they do understand FaceTime. Say what you will about "lock-in", but I'd rather be "locked in" with everyone else than "locked out" of good opportunities.

Sad that social signals have become so important. In this case it also reduces competition and freedom of choice. I like having a custom launcher, side loading, many options for manufacturer, and even alternative ROMs.

> Sad that social signals have become so important.

That implies there was a time they weren't. They always have. If anything, in most cases the signals have been more diverse and therefore weaker over time.

Perhaps I should have qualified with "and so costly". When I was coming up Air Jordan shoes were the thing to have. Yet even the most expensive pair was considerably cheaper, and there were some less expensive versions too. The shoes were also a weak signal because few thought less of me for not having them, even fewer cared when I got a less expensive pair.

I would come up with the opposite example. When I was growing up, Air Jordan shoes were double or triple the price (~$60 to $100+) of other shoes with no extra utility, just branding. As opposed to an iPhone, which might be double the cost of the cheapest Android, but it will last twice or thrice as long making the amortized cost much lower.

Amortized cost is a great counterpoint. Though I wonder if it's true in practice when kids and teens are so likely to break their phones long before the break even point. (Moreso with the no-case trend.) And Apple repairs are rarely user serviceable and with fewer repair vendors equiped to do them.

That's probably an exaggeration, but in some circles people call me out for having an Android in group texts. I'm on the border between Gen Z and Millenial

Veblen goods effect.

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