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US Gen Z and the iMessage Lock-In

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Re: US Gen Z and the iMessage Lock-In

#51

Post by olyjohn »

pcmoney wrote: post #12
lobstercat wrote: post #5

honestly havent been in an imessage group chat since groupme came out

They never had a monetization plan and don't charge for use and their last re-design was in 2012? How do you think they make money? Either they don't and they are going to disappear soon or they do and they are just another data pimp. They got bought by Skype awhile back which is being shelved in favor of Teams. I bet MSFT shuts it down once it remembers it still exists.

Skype for Business, which is not Skype at all, is being shelved in favor of Teams.

Re: US Gen Z and the iMessage Lock-In

#52

Post by bytematic »

1_player wrote: post #9

Is WhatsApp not used in the US? Honest question. I'm in EU, I moved to an iPhone a few years ago and I've yet to receive an actual iMessage, but my friends, local or international, all use WhatsApp. I just use regular SMS for more "formal" messaging, such as with my boss or landlord, or to receive OTP codes.

I've never seen anyone use it in the 15-25 age range for U.S. . I downloaded it once to talk to a friend from The Netherlands, but then we switched to Viber

Re: US Gen Z and the iMessage Lock-In

#53

Post by kitsunesoba »

1_player wrote: post #9

Is WhatsApp not used in the US? Honest question. I'm in EU, I moved to an iPhone a few years ago and I've yet to receive an actual iMessage, but my friends, local or international, all use WhatsApp. I just use regular SMS for more "formal" messaging, such as with my boss or landlord, or to receive OTP codes.

Aside from a couple of friends in Japan, everybody I talk to regularly uses either iMessage or Telegram. I might have used WhatsApp 3 or 4 times in total since I first got a smartphone in 2009.

Re: US Gen Z and the iMessage Lock-In

#54

Post by rolltiide »

pcmoney wrote: post #50
rolltiide wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (Cue all the neckbeard Linux/Droid guys without a family or kids saying "its not hard you just need to... ") Now we're talking, and this is a social cues thing. For example, a discussion about airdrop - which many android users don't know they are missing - often has an android user rationalizing their existence about some other convoluted way to share images maybe offline that is still worse.

I do know that type of person and yes it is not fun. Or they recite all the specs of a new Android vs iPhone and how you are such an "idiot" for being an Apple sheep. When really you don't care that much and the price difference isn't significant. Not to mention side by side your iPhone is noticeably faster in a real world test of launching the same app, browsing etc. Convincing those people that specs are mere indic…

This, along with classism, along with a now worse user experience in mixed company, is what leads to people to just isolating themselves from people with "green bubbles".

And to top it off, the "green bubble" person is mostly oblivious to that happening too.

Re: US Gen Z and the iMessage Lock-In

#55

Post by asclepi »

I do notice a pattern of misunderstanding that I've also observed when talking with Android users IRL.

iMessage is very different from Whatsapp. For starters, there is no dedicated iMessage app. iMessage is managed from the iOS Messages app, which handles both iMessage and SMS. It's very good at managing both from one unified interface. In fact, it's so good that it uses arbitrary coloring of messages so you can see what message was sent through iMessage and what message was sent through SMS, because you would often not be able to tell otherwise as it's all in the same interface.

A lot of caveats apply here, but broadly speaking, while an iMessage user is typing a message, Messages will contact Apple to check if the recipient is also an iMessage user. If yes, it will try to send the message through iMessage and color the text bubble blue. If no, it will go through SMS and the bubble gets a green color. If iMessage fails in the first scenario, Messages will offer to revert to SMS.

So unlike Whatsapp, Messages doesn't care if the recipient has iMessage or not. And it also does not care if the recipient has an iPhone or not. It will get the message over regardless, as long as the recipient can receive SMS, which any Android phone can. Whatsapp, OTOH, does put the onus on the recipient to have the app. In other words: when it comes to the recipient, Messages (the app) is actually a lot more inclusive than Whatsapp (the app).

These HS teens aren't locking others out because they can't text their Android friends. They perfectly can, as OP from the Twitter thread also acknowledges, from the same app that they use to text their iPhone friends. They lock them out because Messages colors the bubbles green, which has become a social stigma in our high schools. Nothing more, nothing less. So it is not a technical limitation, and neither is it a cost issue, as virtually all wireless plans include unlimited (SMS) texts in the US. It is purely a human factors issue, which teens of all times and generations have been very prone to. As sad as it is.

Re: US Gen Z and the iMessage Lock-In

#56

Post by SwiftyBug »

danfang wrote: post #32
danpalmer wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a great idea. I'm a huge +1 to E2E encryption and mobile support – I'm looking for something good to replace WhatsApp. Minor bit of very biased feedback – the name "Thread" is quite overloaded. Thread (my employer) is a clothing recommendation service, ThreadsStyling is a luxury fashion concierge, Thread Group are an IoT specification, Open Thread is an implementation of that spec I believe.

Yeah, I figured it was. I'm quite open to a name change ( http://www.paulgraham.com/name.html ). I have some ideas in mind. Thread is temporary at the moment.

How about Message.in?

Re: US Gen Z and the iMessage Lock-In

#57

Post by anchpop »

pcmoney wrote: post #46
anchpop wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android has about 40% market share in the US [0], are you claiming that 40% of the us are unable to identify social cues? I have a hard time believing that this isn't just classism. Most of my friends from poorer areas, especially the ones who grew up without access to the internet, have an Android. And my group chats with them work pretty well since android supports the open standard RCS [0]: https://gs.statcounter.…

I don't think it is a social cues thing either. I switched back and forth between Droid and Apple for awhile until I read some fairly disturbing predictions on how all these personal data warehouses could be used to digitally enslave us. I am not sure it is a social cues things, although I will concede frothing at the mouth Android and Apple fans are not people I like to be around. TBH the biggest driver towards Appl…

For context, I'm not a huge fan of either, I've used both. On iOS, Airdrop is very useful, especially if you also use Macos. On the Android side, I use Google Assistant all the time and find it to be much smarter and more convenient than Siri. I use Windows and the default messaging app on my Pixel, and being able to text from my computer is really convenient (you can do this if you have an iPhone and a mac, too). Honestly it doesn't make that much of a difference which you buy, 99% of what you'll be doing will be the same on either phone. The main thing pulling me back to iPhones is the fact that they stay updated for much longer, but I'm stuck on Android for now because of how easy it is to find pirated movies and cast them to my TV.

Re: US Gen Z and the iMessage Lock-In

#58

Post by n8henry »

asclepi wrote: post #55

I do notice a pattern of misunderstanding that I've also observed when talking with Android users IRL. iMessage is very different from Whatsapp. For starters, there is no dedicated iMessage app. iMessage is managed from the iOS Messages app, which handles both iMessage and SMS. It's very good at managing both from one unified interface. In fact, it's so good that it uses arbitrary coloring of messages so you can see…

They are locking their Android friends out of group messages, which are very popular among that age group.

Re: US Gen Z and the iMessage Lock-In

#59

Post by bonestamp2 »

danpalmer wrote: post #8
pcmoney wrote: post #6

It is interesting that the comments on the Twitter thread are "Just use WhatsApp". Which is basically iMessage but from Facebook. Comparing two, the vendor lock-in from Apple seems much preferable to the one with Facebook in light of the data scandals Facebook has and their ongoing effort to backdoor WhatsApp and integrate it with FB messenger etc. Also a group message is only as secure as its most weakly encrypted m…

In Europe WhatsApp was huge well before Facebook purchased them. From my own experience, the product has barely changed since then, so I don't really feel like it's a Facebook product (yet), and so while I dislike using Facebook services WhatApp is basically fine for now. Almost everyone I know uses WhatsApp. Funnily enough my family are the only ones who don't, and use iMessage instead. This isn't an active choice t…

> I don't really feel like it's a Facebook product (yet)

Agreed. When they purchased it, people were obviously concerned, so they promised not to combine it with Facebook Messenger. But, at their F8 conference this year they announced they are going to unify them. So you're right when you say it doesn't feel like a facebook product yet. But, I guess it probably will at some point. I think we all knew this was coming though -- there's not much point in purchasing it if they're not going to leverage it one day.

Re: US Gen Z and the iMessage Lock-In

#60

Post by n8henry »

anchpop wrote: post #42
word-reader wrote: post #10

It's not just about it "being green", the contrast between the text and the background is lower with the green SMS bubbles than the blue iMessage bubbles, making it harder to read. I guarantee you if the SMS bubbles were a shade or two darker green people wouldn't care as much.

Its pretty interesting that Apple, who pride themselves so much on form, chose that undeniably unpleasant shade of green.

It's very much by design.
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