oh, cool. Where do I go to get my no-fee access to iMessage with my pixel phone?
Otherwise you'd need to update the entire OS, just for a minor security fix to imesssgae.
The expectation is users will download for the new emojis and in the process get all their security updates.
Before, people would delay updating forever as they would see no noticible benefits and even sometimes decreased performance.
Kinda the same reasoning auto updates are on by default and we have the concept of evergreen browsers etc.
Huh? The only AOSP images Google produces that I'm aware of are GSIs, which build directly from AOSP and therefore can't have proprietary apps. https://source.android.com/docs/core/tests/vts/gsi#building-...
(Also reminds me of Android messaging nagging me to push RCS messaging - ain't nobody has time for that Mr. Google)
So there is plain RCS and Google RCS.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/30/23981350/google-messages...
> While iMessage has so far not been deemed a platform – as it doesn’t have enough regular users in Europe (WhatsApp is far more popular there, even among iPhone users)
Apple might be correct in this regard, as iMessage is not very popular in EU specifically. For this to apply here, either Apple would have to be caught lying about their numbers (not impossible), the EU would have to lower the minimums, or the US would have to create their own counterpart as iMessage is much more popular in the US.
It's not even easy to know who's got an iPhone now: it's just a big phone with lots of cameras as any other one. However it's likely that two close friends, families, etc all using iPhones could decide to use iMessage for their own messages. Same as for... (had to google it) FaceTime.
The argument that iMessage is a service provided by Apple for Apple products and that they should be allowed to do whatever with their products is the same argument they've used to restrict App Store, force developers to use their payment systems and charge outrageous cuts of every payment a user might make through there.
iMessage plays quite a notable role in this, as a user whose friends use iMessage (more prevalent in parts of the U.S. I think) might feel unable to move away in order to be connected to their iMessage-using friends, in turn ensuring that they keep buying iPhones and paying Apple a 30% cut of all their app subscriptions from Duolingo to Disney+.
They do this with a lot of things, if you try to use a password manager on iOS other than Apple's, it's so restricted it's almost unusable.
Source: recently switched from iPhone to Pixel, not sure how long I can keep it up though
In America, iMessage got there first. Even though it's technically worse than WhatsApp, enough people use it (a majority) that it doesn't matter that it handicaps its own users with SMS and green bubbles. People think it's all the other phones' fault rather than the iPhone's fault. It's a massive driver of iPhone sales, and Apple execs are on the record acknowledging that.
That's not how it's supposed to work. The better messaging platforms should be competitive. Apple stock would tank if they were forced to open up the iMessage API.
If I were on the board of Apple, that's precisely why I'd be pushing for it to be open. I would be terrified if my company's value were in a stupid chatting protocol. It's the difference between accidentally driving off a cliff and purposely driving off a cliff with a parachute. I'd choose the parachute and make money/goodwill from the exposure vs. losing everything because the "blue sheeple" woke up.
Suppose Apple had plans to monetise iMessage at the time it was developed and eventually decided against it for whatever reason. This would leave the company with a an app running on most phones. What to do? I can easily imaging someone standing up in a meeting and suggesting: "Well, running it costs very little, why don't we just minimise the cost of running it and keep providing it for as long as the cost is low?"
That doesn't make sense to me. It makes monetisation be a synonym of funding.
Surely, monetisation means that you do x in order to earn income from hardware sales. That is to say, your motivation counts, or rationale. The rationale is of course only known to people who attend the relevant budget meetings.
(Just to be clear: I have no problems believing that it is like that. I've worked at a company that spent a lot of effort on a service that earned nothing, I asked about it, the CEO looked at me blankly and just said that that service wasn't monetised. People make choices I don't understand. Why shouldn't Apple do that?)
iMessage is a service that allows your phone to connect and send messages to other iMessage users.
Use email if that's what you need. Nobody forces you to use iMessage/Telegram/WhatsApp/...
The EU strongly disagrees with this statement in case of the the latter two, which is why they are being targetted by the DMA and must provide interopability so that you cannot continue to be forced to use them.
If iMessage had users in the EU, the same would have applied there.
Being forced to use something does not mean you are being held at gunpoint or that no other options exist. For messaging apps, being in a location where your entire social network uses one app is indeed a case where the average person ends up forced to use that app as picking another option means not talking to your social network (unwanted) or having to convert everyone else (unreasonable). This harms both competition and users.
I think that clearly marks the end of any useful discussion.
Assuming you are just misunderstanding. The comment about iCloud email is talking about interoperability. Where someone with a gmail account should be able to send an email to someone with iCloud account. And vice versa.
The argument is that it is not OK to prevent this sort of interoperability, and requiring this does not mean you have serve the users of other services with servers and hosting, you just have to allow WhatsApp to send messages to imessage and vice versa. Just like email
To add to that, in most countries iMessage has irrelevant market-share and I know people who don't even know what that word means (we tech people live in bubbles). So an Android iMessage is not really sought after in most places anyway.
But that doesn't mean anyone can come sit at my table and eat my food. Nobody reasonable thinks it does.
[1] https://bgr.com/tech/apple-had-a-good-reason-to-bring-imessa... [2] https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-biden-outlines-wh...