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iMessage for Windows: A labor of love that will never see light of day (2018)

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Re: iMessage for Windows: A labor of love that will never see light of day (2018)

#101

Post by 013a »

harpratap wrote: post #50
kelnos wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> iMessage motivates people to people buy iPhones instead of Android Why, though? Does your average iPhone user actually care if the bubbles they see in their chats are blue or green? If so, why? Note that I'm talking about average users. Sure, there are likely a bunch of privacy-conscious users who believe in Apple's commitment to security and privacy and prefer iMessage on those grounds. But otherwise, why? > It wo…

> Why, though? Does your average iPhone user actually care if the bubbles they see in their chats are blue or green? If so, why? They definitely do. Not sure what your age or demographic is, but young folks do care a lot about higher social status which is tied to blue bubble because of iPhone prices. It has nothing to do with privacy though.

People definitely do.

The worst part is, an excellent upgrade exists. The RCS experience between Android users is pretty much as good as iMessage. Apple could support this; not to replace iMessage, but to upgrade SMS conversations. My tech-illiterate mom's Galaxy S negative 12 has it. Of my contacts, every single Android user I text (maybe a dozen) has RCS. Its standard.

When I put my iPhone XS and my S20 Plus side-by-side; chatting with Android users using rich text via RCS; animations at 120hz on a display so blindingly bright the brightness slider turns red at the end; so seamless with the device's edges its like looking through a portal; unlocking with a sonic sub-pixel fingerprint reader; swiping notifications away at a rate the iPhone can't approach; charging my computer keyboard, mouse, phone, laptop, and smartwatch with the same cable... I've religiously used both iPhone and Android, I switch every year, and the iPhone feels like its years behind Samsung right now. Its not close.

Re: iMessage for Windows: A labor of love that will never see light of day (2018)

#102

Post by klodolph »

harpratap wrote: post #87
philistine wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know, for a tech site, people sure do love to forget that iMessage is preferred because it brings features instead of mere social status.

Whatsapp brings the same features, if not more. iMessage craze is a purely American phenomenon, the rest of the world has moved on to other IMs

Every part of the world has its own messaging apps. Depending on where you live, it might be WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, WeChat, LINE, or I’m sure others. In Europe I know for a fact that the popular app varies from country to country. So you could just as easily dismiss LINE as a “purely Japanese phenomenon” but the fact is each app is popular in a certain part of the world.

Because network effects are more important than UX or features.

Re: iMessage for Windows: A labor of love that will never see light of day (2018)

#103

Post by kalleboo »

paulie_a wrote: post #70
est31 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iMessage motivates people to people buy iPhones instead of Android when everyone else in a social circle has it. Why should Apple give up on that? What will Apple gain from making it ubiquitous? It would in fact disappoint many people as now they can't use their phone to distance themselves from the people who don't have that blue circle. Note that I'm arguing from Apple's perspective here. From my own I believe they…

Why would anyone want to buy an iPhone because of iMessage. It doesn't do anything special

Network effects. All your friends are using iMessage.

This is mostly a US phenomenon because in other countries people had already adopted other messaging apps due to higher text messaging costs and for free international voice/video calls

Re: iMessage for Windows: A labor of love that will never see light of day (2018)

#104

Post by loosescrews »

monadic2 wrote: post #3

If ever Apple needed to open source server and client code for a public good it is with imessages. Yes it has clear limits with a centralized server, but it is realistically how a lot of “secure” messaging happens and it’s very difficult to endorse being tied to expensive hardware. You can say the same about facetime: it is clearly higher quality than competitors in every experiment I’ve tried, but their refusal to i…

I think Google Duo and WhatsApp are the competitors to Facetime. Zoom is more of a competitor in the video conferencing space along with Google Meet, Skype for Business and Cisco WebEx. Regular Skype is more of a competitor in the all-in-one consumer messaging space along with Google Hangouts.

Unfortunately all are proprietary and it was the previous generation, iChat and Google Talk, that were based on the open XMPP standard.

Re: iMessage for Windows: A labor of love that will never see light of day (2018)

#105

Post by klodolph »

toasterlovin wrote: post #96
sandeeps_ wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like you have never used Whatsapp!

In the US, nobody uses WhatsApp, so it’s not a realistic option. Network effects are a thing.

The US is a big place. WhatsApp has plenty of users in the US. It’s easily the third messaging app I use, after LINE and iMessage. And the people I talk to on WhatsApp are US natives, it’s not like they picked up WhatsApp in some other country and brought it here.

Re: iMessage for Windows: A labor of love that will never see light of day (2018)

#106

Post by the_snooze »

toasterlovin wrote: post #96
sandeeps_ wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like you have never used Whatsapp!

In the US, nobody uses WhatsApp, so it’s not a realistic option. Network effects are a thing.

> Network effects are a thing

Exactly. These are social products. Features are meaningless if you can’t talk to the people you want to reach.

Re: iMessage for Windows: A labor of love that will never see light of day (2018)

#107

Post by spideymans »

paulie_a wrote: post #73
internet2000 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iMessage is a much better user experience. Users associate the blue bubbles with that.

Like pretty much every other messaging app on every phone platform currently existence?

Other messaging apps have the same features as iMessage, but not the same user experience. For example, WhatsApp has a pretty massive spam and fake news problem, and Facebook messenger is significantly slower and applies a high degree of compression on media. iMessage offers the best UX, and that’s why, in my experience, iOS users will almost always opt to use iMessage over competitors when communicating with other iOS users.

Re: iMessage for Windows: A labor of love that will never see light of day (2018)

#108

Post by rootusrootus »

aantix wrote: post #48

SendBlue will be launching soon. They support sending iMessages at scale, similar to Twilio's SMS service. Not sure how they're doing it. https://sendblue.co/

Guessing that they are using Apple Business Chat. We've looked at using it, too.

Re: iMessage for Windows: A labor of love that will never see light of day (2018)

#109

Post by VMisTheWay »

est31 wrote: post #11
monadic2 wrote: post #3

If ever Apple needed to open source server and client code for a public good it is with imessages. Yes it has clear limits with a centralized server, but it is realistically how a lot of “secure” messaging happens and it’s very difficult to endorse being tied to expensive hardware. You can say the same about facetime: it is clearly higher quality than competitors in every experiment I’ve tried, but their refusal to i…

iMessage motivates people to people buy iPhones instead of Android when everyone else in a social circle has it. Why should Apple give up on that? What will Apple gain from making it ubiquitous? It would in fact disappoint many people as now they can't use their phone to distance themselves from the people who don't have that blue circle. Note that I'm arguing from Apple's perspective here. From my own I believe they…

If you have ever talked to an iPhone user, you will know performance, features, and quality are the last things on their mind.

The phone must be pretty and have the Apple logo on it. They might repeat the marketing about privacy and security, but if the person actually cared about either, you'd never use Apple products.

Re: iMessage for Windows: A labor of love that will never see light of day (2018)

#110

Post by klodolph »

loosescrews wrote: post #104
monadic2 wrote: post #3

If ever Apple needed to open source server and client code for a public good it is with imessages. Yes it has clear limits with a centralized server, but it is realistically how a lot of “secure” messaging happens and it’s very difficult to endorse being tied to expensive hardware. You can say the same about facetime: it is clearly higher quality than competitors in every experiment I’ve tried, but their refusal to i…

I think Google Duo and WhatsApp are the competitors to Facetime. Zoom is more of a competitor in the video conferencing space along with Google Meet, Skype for Business and Cisco WebEx. Regular Skype is more of a competitor in the all-in-one consumer messaging space along with Google Hangouts. Unfortunately all are proprietary and it was the previous generation, iChat and Google Talk, that were based on the open XMPP…

Is Google Duo much of a competitor? Hangouts is circling the drain, Allo is dead, and everyone I know is confused by Duo, including Google employees. If you made a list of the ways Google employees made video calls to each other outside work, I’d be suprised if Duo were in the top three.
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