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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

#181

Post by null0pointer »

cududa wrote: post #164
emsy wrote: post #110

The reason for not bringing iMessage to Android was because parents could just buy cheap Android handsets for their kids. First of all, why not create a product for that niche (nevermind, we're talking about Apple). But what actually bothers me is the weak mindset. I remember when Apple didn't have such concerns because they were certain that they have the best product and people would buy for that reason. This is go…

I’m not sure your assessment is right. They let iPods run on windows and made a janky version of iTunes for windows so it was operable, but I don’t think they ever treated iTunes for Windows as a priority. So, sure they knew iPod was best in class, and people bought the product for use with either platform. But where’s the iMessage analogy? It’s not like all of Android would get better because of iMessage, they could…

The distinction here is that the iPod/iPhone is the product, while iMessage is merely a feature.

By creating iTunes for Windows they were expanding the potential customer base for iPods. By supporting iMessage on Android they would not be expanding the potential customer base for iPhone. If anything they would be shrinking it if they think iMessage is a compelling enough feature for people to switch from Android to iMessage.

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

#182

Post by [deleted] »

prepend wrote: post #155
kop316 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really not sure how to respond to this, because you are assuming a lot of unheatlhy family dynamics there. I will say would hope if you value you relationship with your brother and his fiance, that you actually told him you do that and offered a comprimise on how to chat.

I’d like you to query your family and find out. Of course this is not a reasonable request and I’ll likely never know. This isn’t to mean you have poor relationships. It’s just extremely likely as it happens in every other group. I have friends and family who I don’t include in group chats because we’re using iOS features. It’s nothing significant so I don’t tell them about it. I also have group chats with them. An e…

[deleted]

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

#183

Post by endisneigh »

room500 wrote: post #129
adrr wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cost of iMessage is built into the price of the iPhone and other apple products. Why would they pay to develop and maintain it for other devices? Apple doesn’t monetize their data like other messaging services/social networks. If apple charged $3/m for iMessage on Android would you pay it?

Yes. I prefer Android phones, but I don't want my choice of phone to impact the communication between my friends and family. The only reason I consider getting an iPhone is for iMessage. I would gladly pay a monthly fee so I could use the phone I want AND communicate freely with the people in my social circles.

You're in luck:

https://www.beeper.com/

$10/month and you get your iMessage on Android.

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

#184

Post by [deleted] »

prepend wrote: post #155
kop316 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really not sure how to respond to this, because you are assuming a lot of unheatlhy family dynamics there. I will say would hope if you value you relationship with your brother and his fiance, that you actually told him you do that and offered a comprimise on how to chat.

I’d like you to query your family and find out. Of course this is not a reasonable request and I’ll likely never know. This isn’t to mean you have poor relationships. It’s just extremely likely as it happens in every other group. I have friends and family who I don’t include in group chats because we’re using iOS features. It’s nothing significant so I don’t tell them about it. I also have group chats with them. An e…

[deleted]

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

#185

Post by posguy »

scubbo wrote: post #150
Valkhyr wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't speak for the poster you are responding to, but as someone who also uses Signal for a portion of my social circle, here's my big one: Signal is tied to a phone number, so I can't use it from multiple devices/platforms (unless I want to show up as a different entity from each of them). This alone is the reason why I personally would not freely choose Signal, and only use it because some of my friends insist :-\

I have Signal installed on my laptop, and it works perfectly. Do you mean multiple mobile devices? I guess that's probably true, and I'm sorry to hear that that's a limitation for you. That said - isn't that limitation also true of every other major messaging application. I only know of SMS and WhatsApp - what alternative do you prefer?

Signal on paired devices works really poorly if you are a heavy Signal user (eg: 5+ daily active groups that are media heavy, over 5GB database size).

The Signal servers rate limit you severely, causing it to take tens of minutes (or sometimes half an hour) to catch up to where your friends are at. Brief losses of connectivity are near-unrecoverable without closing the app on either my laptop or Pinebook, and worst yet the read/unread status of reactions to your messages is not synced across to your phone.

Signal also just killed custom emojis for reactions to messages, by refusing to display them. Now my message history shows I have reactions on a message I sent, but I can't even see the darn reaction.

Large rooms (50+ members) in Signal will get your client rate limited quickly, preventing you from interacting with anyone on Signal in a timely fashion.

Element/Matrix comparatively just works across my laptops, desktop, tablet (somewhere Signal refuses to work) and phone. It uses a nearly identical tech stack for the client (Electron with SQLite) but it never seems to need to sync messages from the server, lag behind, fail to connect to the server or fail to send messages. This is with me being in a ton of active rooms on Mozilla's Matrix, bridged rooms with IRC and Discord, and my friends shitposting at incredible rates.

The chat ecosystem is moving, Signal seems to have veered off course :C

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

#186

Post by posguy »

js2 wrote: post #147
majjam wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you mind elaborating on why Signal was sub-par? I use it as my main messenger and find it to be fine. There have been issues where older clients couldn’t receive messages and needed to upgrade their phones to fix. And migrating to a new phone is fragile, but everyday messaging seems ok to me. Edit: honestly the challenge is getting other people to install it

It's been a while. I should probably re-install it and give it a fresh chance. My recollection is that the UI was sluggish and that the app was poorly integrated with iOS (e.g. I don't think it had a sharing extension).

Signal iOS is still underwhelming, on Android it has some really nice features that make it a good SMS client and SMS replacement, but alas no one (outside Apple) is permitted to do that on iOS.

Element/Matrix might be of more interest, it syncs history instantly, has good room support (unlike Signal), bridges in Discord and IRC quite well, and has a ton of interesting native rooms from Mozilla Matrix, Pine64, Gitter and such

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

#187

Post by AgentOrange1234 »

cududa wrote: post #165
beowulfey wrote: post #127

More relevant to the article—does anyone know what Epic plans to argue from this finding? Honestly, I could interpret not bringing iMessage to Android as being decidely anti-monopolistic; they actively tried to avoid capturing the entire market. I’m sure that is not what this evidence is intended to show though.

What benefit would it give Apple to have all of Android users on iMessage? It’s not like they inject ads into your messaging streams/ they left money on the table to benefit another product? To me, forcing them to make an Android version of iMessage would be pretty anti-American. Domestically they have 20-30% market share, and there’s 0 revenue to gain from an Android version except the tenuous concept that maybe the…

Even without direct monetization, there could be advantages for Apple?

- It’d be compelling for a lot of Android users and would probably be widely installed. This would give Apple a strong foothold onto Android devices. They could perhaps build on that for their services.

- For iOS users, this might make features like Apple Pay and sending songs more universal/reliable, which might provide more of a moat against Venmo, Android Pay, Spotify, etc. It’d also give a better privacy/security story if your messages aren’t converted to SMS.

- If it was sufficiently popular, it could provide Apple with a credible retaliatory move in case Google yanked something important from iOS.

- It would weaken the value proposition for important competitors like Facebook. Why let scary FB messenger on your phone if you can talk to everyone over iMessage?

I know nothing and this is just spitballing. Maybe nothing here outweighs keeping it exclusive to iOS, but Apple getting some of their software used far and wide seems like it could have real upside.

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

#188

Post by HWR_14 »

asiachick wrote: post #175
HWR_14 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iMessage in the US took over before WhatsApp or Messenger landed. So it's still going strong based on that (although I wouldn't want to switch to a FB product, so I may be biased.) But SMSs are free and therefore the number of people who use SMS (or RCS, whatever it's followup is), is really high.

SMS is not free while traveling abroad. I know most people int he USA don't travel abroad but I do and is one reason I detest SMS. Further it's tied to my phone number, something I'd prefer not to give out.

If you don't like SMS requiring people to know your phone number, wait until you hear how Signal and WhatsApp work.

iMessage also works abroad (in fact, I tend to use iMessage when abroad because it appears to US based iPhone customers identical to domestic texts.)

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

#189

Post by rblatz »

kop316 wrote: post #140
rblatz wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bet they also have side groups without you in it for when they want to share videos/photos or not deal with MMS jank. Nothing personal, we had to do the same thing to my brother and his fiance. Group MMS is busted it has inconsistent delivery, videos and images are compressed to the point of being basically worthless. Sometimes I'll get 3 of 4 people's messages leaving me with a partial conversation, then hours lat…

I'm really not sure how to respond to this, because you are assuming a lot of unheatlhy family dynamics there. I will say would hope if you value you relationship with your brother and his fiance, that you actually told him you do that and offered a comprimise on how to chat.

I’m not assuming anything unhealthy. We mostly use that chat for sharing videos since MMS is basically worthless for that. But conversations stem from the videos or sometimes people grab the wrong one.

We are fairly good at using the main chat for important things. But again delivery is spotty.

Switching to another messaging infrastructure for the 10 of us is going to be a nonstarter.

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

#190

Post by krrrh »

MomoXenosaga wrote: post #173
krrrh wrote: post #122

> ‘Do we want to lose one of the most important apps in a mobile environment to Google?’ Little did Cue know how determined Google was to fumble messaging over the next decade.

And WhatsApp was a start-up of less than 50 people that took over communication of entire nations in a matter of months. Who saw that coming? Biggest WTF since Napster.

It has to be the highest acquisition-dollar / employee of all time. I doubt anything even comes close. And isn’t it true that they were profitable on their $1 per year subscription scheme?

I’d love to read a book about how it all came together. Especially something that dives into the speculation I’ve had that their relationships and zero-rating contracts with telcos in developing countries and how that could be leveraged into internet.org and establishing FB in emerging markets was a bigger driver for getting the deal done than the idea of owning IM. Does anyone know if there are any interviews with the team that negotiated the zero-rating deals because seems like excellent execution before almost anyone stateside realized what the play was.

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