If the DOJ accomplishes nothing else besides forcing Apple to open up iMessage, it will be a victory.
The lock-in of having functional communication with your friends and family is insane. Take that away and it becomes almost a no-brainier for people to consider competing devices.
And no, nobody with an iPhone is interested in switching to whatever messaging app you beg them to use, just so they can message you.
HN chronically forgets that the average american cell phone user might know what iMessage actually is. Nevermind even having the faintest idea what a WhatsApp is. Or ever even heard of signal.
My "normal" friends and family are majority iPhone users. I'm Android.
I "literally ruin" their group texts. I've seen people actually reject relationships because they don't date people with "green bubbles".
Don't even get me started about work group texts.
I know restaurants where some of the servers have group iMessage chats with customers for early notification about nightly specials, Android users literally can't be added.
Likely not maliciously, but this has created almost a "second/lower class" of phone users that encompasses ~50% of the country.
Not at all. A few of my friends are techies and they use Android/iPhone about 50/50. Family is mixed as well. No one in family uses iMessage.
> I've seen people actually reject relationships because they don't date people with "green bubbles".
This seems like a feature, not a bug. I don't think you want to date someone who makes important life choices based on Apple marketing.
Edit: Is this a "Bay Area" problem or something? Or maybe a "young people" problem? I just can't imagine caring about whether someone messages me with "blue" or "green" text bubbles.
> Not at all. A few of my friends are techies and they use Android/iPhone about 50/50. Family is mixed as well. No one in family uses iMessage.
I would bet money this is the opposite of the majority experience.
As with ICQ/AIM/MSN Messenger back in the early 2000s I bet it's regional. WhatsApp seems extremely popular in my age/peer group where I live.
Why?
No, that's stupid. Sorry, not trying to be a jerk, but there's no other way to put it: that's just stupid and not worth any consideration in this argument.
Even putting aside the unlikelihood of what kind of idiot would someone have to be to reject a relationship with an Android user, the basic premise of caring about blue vs green is too shallow to form as any basis of a massive suit like this.
"Apple must be broken up because people think my Android phone isn't cool" ??
Apple, by overlaying iMessage features over SMS and only accessible to iPhone users have created a virtual second class of phone users.
Yup. We all get this. It's the most effective social lock in ever invented.
And I'd love to have all of them opened up.
Couldn't Apple just make the shittiest Android iMessage client anyone could ever imaging and the go "See, there it is, nobody wants it"
My take is that Apple has engineered iMessage in such a way that if anyone could just use it, then Apple would be stuck with a massive bill for running the infrastructure, without any benefits. They could in theory charge people a small amount to cover the cost, but that would also just keep people of the platform. WhatsApp made next to nothing when they attempted to charge people and Signal rely on donations. There's no way to push a for-pay messaging app.
iMessage being Apple only isn't what keeps me from buying an Android phone (Google manages to do that all by themselves). I already have three messaging apps on my phone, and four on my laptop, there's plenty of choice on that front.
Then he said that he wouldn't use it, because his family and friends won't let him... said they practically staged an "intervention" last time he used a device without imessage.
This wasn't a small YouTuber. Among teens, the pressure is even more real. imessage is being used to drive adoption in a really bizarre way.
Apple's original sin: making great software that works.
It's no surprise this makes other HW and SW companies envious, and everyone wants (and asks the DOJ to secure for them) a piece of the pie.
All the know is "android makes the bubbles green and iMessage doesn't work as well with them, or at all".