So… here’s a hot take I guess (disclaimer: i am an iphone user):
People who are actively complaining about Apple having features that are unique to its platform don’t know how products work. Apple created this technology and design themselves and other companies want to leech off the features. We should want competition like iMessage vs whatever Android uses. For anyone to basically say Google doesn’t have the ability or resources to create an actual competitor is silly. They absolutely can make an alternative, but they choose not to. Google becomes complacent and progress slows or completely stops. I’d rather have a product that is FEATURE-FULL than feature-less.
Additionally, this contact feature thing is neat, but I wouldn’t call it a “game-changer” or revolutionary. It’s similar to the super old ability that some cellular providers had/have where you could play a specific song instead of the calling tone.
The issue is that if Google does create a competitor, or an open standards competitor is created, like RCS vs iMessage, Apple isn’t going to implement that, or in any way interoperate with it. So even if Google or someone else made a better system that worked beautifully on Android and any hypothetical alternatives, but Apple only implemented their own system and refused to share, things would remain shit. Which is exactly where we are.
Apple doesn’t want to live in a world where multiple brands and types of mobile phones operating systems exist harmoniously. They want to intentionally make life difficult for anyone who didn’t buy an iPhone. In the process they make it intentionally difficult for people who did buy an iPhone, because their communications with non-iPhone friends are hampered.
They’re also egging easily influenced teenagers on to shame other teenagers for having “worse” phones and creating unnecessary divides and unhappiness among friends. All so kids will bully other kids into buying iPhones.
None of these features are difficult to invent or implement. They should all be open standards and iPhone users and Android users should all together be angry at Apple for putting a malicious profit motive above the creation of a smooth and universally interoperable user experience.
Google could have avoided all this many many years ago, but they fucked up big time.
In Europe Whatsapp solved this issue, in China Wechat did, in other parts of the world Telegram or Viber or Messanger or some other app did.
The reality is, only the US somehow stuck with SMS for the longest time and then transitioned to iMessage as the main IM app, an app that only exists on one platform.
this. I don’t understand why people fail to acknowledge that Google fails to present a competitor to iMessage when they kill every chat/IM app they have after 2-3 years and replace it. I totally agree that the lack of interop with Android sucks, but that’s just the world we live in. Apple makes a far better messenger than any other service for my how I use it.
I will say I think the best thing ever was Palm WebOS’s Synergy. Where it pulled all your different accounts stuff into one view (Yahoo, AIM, SMS, etc). It wasn’t a true interoperable service, but it at least made it where you only needed one app for all your accounts.
The issue is that if Google does create a competitor, or an open standards competitor is created, like RCS vs iMessage, Apple isn’t going to implement that, or in any way interoperate with it. So even if Google or someone else made a better system that worked beautifully on Android and any hypothetical alternatives, but Apple only implemented their own system and refused to share, things would remain shit. Which is exactly where we are.
If Google had a popular competitor to iMessage, Apple users would feel left out, and that’s what would force integration.
All they had to do was add sms to one of their chat apps, and people would have migrated over word of mouth for the extra features slowly overtime.
This is uniquely an issue in the U.S. because there are plenty of popular cross-platform competitors that are widely used in Europe: WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram.
iMessage is unpopular in Europe precisely because it’s not interoperable and your friend group will look at you funny if you want to use some stupid system that only works on iPhones.
Nobody uses SMS for anything here, aside from notifications from businesses and such.
I think from Google’s perspective they don’t want another chat app. They are fine if apple keeps iMessage. They want apple to use RCS standard as a fallback for iMessage when someone doesn’t use an iPhone. The benefit being rich text messaging for all. It won’t affect apple users except by making the experience better for everyone.
I personally use android and text my 8 friend who use android with RCS. There are some awesome things you can do with it, but for ease of talking with my co-workers and other family, I use bluebubbles to use iMessage on Android. The issue is that not everyone has a Mac to use this. Overall I think apple is going to apple.
So… here’s a hot take I guess (disclaimer: i am an iphone user): People who are actively complaining about Apple having features that are unique to its platform don’t know how products work. Apple created this technology and design themselves and other companies want to leech off the features. We should want competition like iMessage vs whatever Android uses. For anyone to basically say Google doesn’t have the ability or resources to create an actual competitor is silly. They absolutely can make an alternative, but they choose not to. Google becomes complacent and progress slows or completely stops. I’d rather have a product that is FEATURE-FULL than feature-less. Additionally, this contact feature thing is neat, but I wouldn’t call it a “game-changer” or revolutionary. It’s similar to the super old ability that some cellular providers had/have where you could play a specific song instead of the calling tone.
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk. 😒
The issue is that if Google does create a competitor, or an open standards competitor is created, like RCS vs iMessage, Apple isn’t going to implement that, or in any way interoperate with it. So even if Google or someone else made a better system that worked beautifully on Android and any hypothetical alternatives, but Apple only implemented their own system and refused to share, things would remain shit. Which is exactly where we are.
Apple doesn’t want to live in a world where multiple brands and types of mobile phones operating systems exist harmoniously. They want to intentionally make life difficult for anyone who didn’t buy an iPhone. In the process they make it intentionally difficult for people who did buy an iPhone, because their communications with non-iPhone friends are hampered.
They’re also egging easily influenced teenagers on to shame other teenagers for having “worse” phones and creating unnecessary divides and unhappiness among friends. All so kids will bully other kids into buying iPhones.
None of these features are difficult to invent or implement. They should all be open standards and iPhone users and Android users should all together be angry at Apple for putting a malicious profit motive above the creation of a smooth and universally interoperable user experience.
Google could have avoided all this many many years ago, but they fucked up big time. In Europe Whatsapp solved this issue, in China Wechat did, in other parts of the world Telegram or Viber or Messanger or some other app did. The reality is, only the US somehow stuck with SMS for the longest time and then transitioned to iMessage as the main IM app, an app that only exists on one platform.
If anyone doubts how poorly Google have managed messaging, they need only to read this article: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/08/a-decade-and-a-half-of-instability-the-history-of-google-messaging-apps/
It’s decades of Google screwing up and shooting themselves in the foot.
this. I don’t understand why people fail to acknowledge that Google fails to present a competitor to iMessage when they kill every chat/IM app they have after 2-3 years and replace it. I totally agree that the lack of interop with Android sucks, but that’s just the world we live in. Apple makes a far better messenger than any other service for my how I use it. I will say I think the best thing ever was Palm WebOS’s Synergy. Where it pulled all your different accounts stuff into one view (Yahoo, AIM, SMS, etc). It wasn’t a true interoperable service, but it at least made it where you only needed one app for all your accounts.
If Google had a popular competitor to iMessage, Apple users would feel left out, and that’s what would force integration.
All they had to do was add sms to one of their chat apps, and people would have migrated over word of mouth for the extra features slowly overtime.
This is uniquely an issue in the U.S. because there are plenty of popular cross-platform competitors that are widely used in Europe: WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram.
iMessage is unpopular in Europe precisely because it’s not interoperable and your friend group will look at you funny if you want to use some stupid system that only works on iPhones.
Nobody uses SMS for anything here, aside from notifications from businesses and such.
You just described “Google Hangouts”.
I think from Google’s perspective they don’t want another chat app. They are fine if apple keeps iMessage. They want apple to use RCS standard as a fallback for iMessage when someone doesn’t use an iPhone. The benefit being rich text messaging for all. It won’t affect apple users except by making the experience better for everyone.
I personally use android and text my 8 friend who use android with RCS. There are some awesome things you can do with it, but for ease of talking with my co-workers and other family, I use bluebubbles to use iMessage on Android. The issue is that not everyone has a Mac to use this. Overall I think apple is going to apple.