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Eddy Cue wanted to bring iMessage to Android in 2013

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Re: Eddy Cue wanted to bring iMessage to Android in 2013

#41
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I quite literally don't need to care about the blue bubble nonsense. It's a great flag for a person I can happily ignore.

I have a family, small children, relatives. Grandparents loves to see videos of their grandchildren. Sharing a video via group MMS is fraught with problems, it often doesn't work, or the resolution is garbage. iMessage works every time. I'm not dismissing your experience but the green vs blue bubbles do make a big difference for many of us.

The video messaging being garbage is a huge downside. I have to resort to facebook messenger to get a copy to my whole family.

The actual color of the messages really isn't the problem.

Re: Eddy Cue wanted to bring iMessage to Android in 2013

#42
post #38

Like many others, I switched from iOS to Android during a time when it (edit: this transition process) was most fraught with very unexpected failure modes. I remember being absolutely incredulous that anyone thought this experience reflected positively on Apple in any way-- it seemed incompetent at best, and had a strong stink of maliciousness to boot. I've always seen this as major bungle on their part, and it's one…

i honestly don’t remember what period of time you are referring to. could you elaborate on examples from the period of time iOS was “fraught with very unexpected failure modes?” edit: i just saw your edit to specify iMessage the app.

I'm referring to iMessage specifically causing tons of unnecessary problems when switching from an iPhone to an Android phone. This was over 5 years ago so I have no idea what's fixed or isn't now, but I do still occasionally have problems when an iPhone user tries to message me as part of a group.

These were all intermittent: Messages were lost or delayed for very long periods (going both ways), groups were completely broken, I couldn't tell who was messaging me because they were assigned some random source number (which I think also happened both ways), and images were compressed to illegibility.

Some people I seemingly just couldn't text with at all.

Here is just one small thread of thousands about it: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6750172 [Not the best example, but I'm having trouble tracking down the posts I remember browsing back when I made the switch.]

It was a complete mess, experienced by many users, and it was entirely Apple's fault.

Re: Eddy Cue wanted to bring iMessage to Android in 2013

#43
post #2

They would have captured 100% of the messaging market. Reminds me of '90s *Nix companies with sales bros wanting to sling around overpriced hardware, preventing expansion of the company in other fronts.

No. In 2013, WhatsApp was already the de facto standard messenger in Europe. See https://web.archive.org/web/20140412064444/http://blog.whats...

Is this the typical american point of view where the US == the world?

Re: Eddy Cue wanted to bring iMessage to Android in 2013

#44

I feel like I'm the only iPhone user that barely makes use of iMessage. All my chat communications is done via Google Hangouts (or whatever they call it these days), WhatsApp, or Kakao (I'm Korean). I think I have exactly one friend who I use iMessage with. Then again, half my friends are Android users, so...

> Then again, half my friends are Android users, so...

That's the reason. Same reason my friend group is all on WhatsApp. If we all had iPhones, we'd just use iMessage.

Re: Eddy Cue wanted to bring iMessage to Android in 2013

#45
post #11
post #2

They would have captured 100% of the messaging market. Reminds me of '90s *Nix companies with sales bros wanting to sling around overpriced hardware, preventing expansion of the company in other fronts.

Depends on location, IMO. I was an Android user for years (since the Nexus One!) and the vast majority of my contacts were on iOS. My lack of iMessage was a constant frustration and I would have signed up in an instant. But I'm in the US, which has a disproportionately high amount of iOS users. Across the rest of the world iMessage would be competing with WhatsApp and its existing network (something the e-mails in th…

Strongly agree. The US is weird in two ways:

1. iOS being uncommonly popular (in other words: the US is weirdly rich compared to even most developed countries)

2. People texting a lot (maybe other countries’ carriers used to just make texting too expensive?)

Outside the US, people more commonly use messaging apps, and there is less peer pressure to be on iMessage as it is less likely for someone (in a certain social class…) to have a big majority of iOS-using peers. I had never even heard the term ‘green-texter’ until I went to the US

Re: Eddy Cue wanted to bring iMessage to Android in 2013

#46

I feel like I'm the only iPhone user that barely makes use of iMessage. All my chat communications is done via Google Hangouts (or whatever they call it these days), WhatsApp, or Kakao (I'm Korean). I think I have exactly one friend who I use iMessage with. Then again, half my friends are Android users, so...

Completely depends on where you live AND also your social bubble. That's why these threads are often repetitive in nature. Everyone's different. Here in NYC, I can count the number of Android users I've met in one hand... but I know that tons of people have Android phones. Most chatting happens on iMessage and maybe Instagram chat (people seem to exchange IG usernames rather than phone numbers nowadays).

I'm actually in NYC too. Definitely see tons of Androids here.

I've never seen or heard of people exchanging IG information - is that really a thing? Maybe I'm getting old.

Re: Eddy Cue wanted to bring iMessage to Android in 2013

#48
It would be a fantastic outcome of this case if the use of closed standards and lack of integration APIs in a high-market-share product gave rise to a presumption of monopolistic practices. That is obviously what drives the lack of integration points with iMessage and other messaging services, but right now there is no consequence. If it were codified, even in a court precedent, it might be enough to get these systems to start playing nicely again. Remember the days when you could write a client that would connect to most online chat services? I want those days back.

(To be clear, I guess this is wishful thinking. But I would be happy if it came to pass.)

Even better would be a requirement to provide interoperability APIs at a legislative level, but I guess that will be a long time coming.

Re: Eddy Cue wanted to bring iMessage to Android in 2013

#49
post #2

They would have captured 100% of the messaging market. Reminds me of '90s *Nix companies with sales bros wanting to sling around overpriced hardware, preventing expansion of the company in other fronts.

No. In 2013, WhatsApp was already the de facto standard messenger in Europe. See https://web.archive.org/web/20140412064444/http://blog.whats... Is this the typical american point of view where the US == the world?

I don’t know why you’re taking this needlessly snide tone. It seems obvious that GP thinks that iMessage would have dominated, even WhatsApp in Europe.

Re: Eddy Cue wanted to bring iMessage to Android in 2013

#50
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I quite literally don't need to care about the blue bubble nonsense. It's a great flag for a person I can happily ignore.

I have a family, small children, relatives. Grandparents loves to see videos of their grandchildren. Sharing a video via group MMS is fraught with problems, it often doesn't work, or the resolution is garbage. iMessage works every time. I'm not dismissing your experience but the green vs blue bubbles do make a big difference for many of us.

In my case I don't care for the green/blue bubble divide, EXCEPT that I have a limited SMS plan and every time someone messages me it potentially costs me $0.10. That is not that significant until someone sends a series of short messages that could have been bundled into one, and I can't help but think "this person just cost me the price of a coffee".

It's not even Apple's fault, but rather AT&T's confusing and expensive billing options. I could also upgrade to an unlimited messaging plan, but 90% of the billing cycles I'd be overpaying.

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