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87% of American teens own an iPhone; 88% expect an iPhone to be their next phone

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Re: 87% of American teens own an iPhone; 88% expect an iPhone to be their next phone

#521

Post by saxonww »

redavni wrote: post #492
nomel wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> SMS conversations in iMessage lose features. "Lose" makes it sound like they could be found. Are the features even possible to implement with SMS?

Technically yes, Realistically there isn't a need. The iMessage feature set has been mostly matched by RCS on Android. Apple does not want compatible messaging.

I don't think it's this simple. RCS is implemented by carriers and is a feature of mobile service like SMS. It has a qualification/accreditation process. iMessage is an internet service.

If I were Apple, I would not budge.

I haven't used iMessage, so I don't know how it behaves, but my own personal RCS experience has not been good. I am on Google Fi and make heavy use of Google Messages and specifically their web app. I have a Pixel 4a 5G - a good mid range phone. Three Messages configurations are available: regular SMS/MMS, RCS (i.e. Enable Chat Features), or SMS/MMS routed through Fi; RCS is not available if you route through Fi!

I have a couple of really long message histories, and with RCS enabled, it got to the point that I could not keep the web app connected with the phone, open chats, or in some cases see/respond to messages; I'd try to send a message and it would sit at 'sending' for 5 minutes or more, making it very difficult to have an actual conversation with someone. Turn RCS off, and the send/receive delay disappears. Route through Fi as well, and the web app works a lot better and it doesn't get stuck opening conversations.

As another commenter pointed out, it's probably better to use an actual chat application instead of Messages for this. But that's not what I use :shrug:. And my experience, on my phone, is that RCS is not usable at all, and I'm just on SMS/MMS as a result.

Re: 87% of American teens own an iPhone; 88% expect an iPhone to be their next phone

#522

Post by blix »

TurkishPoptart wrote: post #453
blix wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty certain that a lot more interaction occurs through phones than through jeans. As an adult, some of my friends have asked me to switch to an iphone so they could use imessage features in a group chat. It's not hard to imagine being left out of a group for this reason. I don't think I've met a girl in my age group who has anything other than a negative opinion of "Android Users." This stuff doesn't bother me…

I'm ignorant, but what are the features in group chats that Android people don't get? The heart/emoticon bubble things? I used to do group chats with my last Android phone, but now that I have iPhone...I just have too much anxiety to open these chats and respond, because I don't want to hear the notification sound buzz in triplicate over the next hour. I dislike my phone and using it so much that it's making me socia…

Apparently adding a new member to a group text with an android user is a much less pleasant experience than if everyone is on imessage. I'm the android user causing problems so I dont really know the details :P But honestly that the guy singled out the "one android user" who was making his life difficult was disconerting to say the least.

I almost always have my phone on silent for that reason. I like to check my phone when I want to, not when it wants me to.

Re: 87% of American teens own an iPhone; 88% expect an iPhone to be their next phone

#523

Post by saxonww »

GeekyBear wrote: post #509
redavni wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically yes, Realistically there isn't a need. The iMessage feature set has been mostly matched by RCS on Android. Apple does not want compatible messaging.

Google's version of RCS on Android is a proprietary closed source fork of RCS that Google refuses to provide a public API for. > Google's version of RCS—the one promoted on the website with Google-exclusive features like optional encryption—is definitely proprietary, by the way. If this is supposed to be a standard, there's no way for a third-party to use Google's RCS APIs right now. Some messaging apps, like Beeper,…

To be fair, I don't think Apple has opened up iMessage either, otherwise this problem would have solved itself already with a third-party app.

Re: 87% of American teens own an iPhone; 88% expect an iPhone to be their next phone

#524

Post by bmitc »

bink wrote: post #186
bmitc wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seriously concerns me. I'm almost of the opinion that teenagers should not have phones for anything other than strictly communicating: voice and video calls and messaging. But that cat is out of the bag and now we have people growing up literally addicted to devices that are very detrimental to brain development and intelligence, emotions, socialization, etc.

I remember my parents saying that TV was going to rot my brain... then video games... before that it was comic books. Are there any reputable studies that show having a smart phone is detrimental to the health of a teenager? I've seen studies suggesting social media has a negative influence on the mental health of certain teens, but they aren't one and the same.

That's true, but are TVs and comics in your pocket or beside your bed 24/7 like phones? Are they computers that also directly attach you to several friends, family, acquaintances, and strangers instantaneously across several avenues? Do they notify you that you are "missing" something? I don't think there's any example in human history of things that have garnered the daily and sustained use of human attention more than smartphones, tablets, and the Internet.

There is the book The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr that covers this stuff and points to research.

There's also the Wall Street Journal article by him called Does the Internet Make You Dumber?.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704025304575284...

Re: 87% of American teens own an iPhone; 88% expect an iPhone to be their next phone

#525

Post by akmarinov »

CharlesW wrote: post #510
XorNot wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is the answer not to force interoperability? This is exactly what we should be doing because it's generally good for the communications ecosystem and the overall marketplace. It's not an answer to the problem of teenagers having to learn decency, but I'm failing to see a downside to taking Apple to task on this.

> Why is the answer not to force interoperability? Do you want the U.S. government to just strong-arm a private company into adopting a not-very-popular plaintext messaging standard, or do you want them to force the licensing of Google's proprietary extensions that support encryption for 1-to-1 messages as well? (Even with proprietary extensions, group messages are always plaintext.)

To also give up control back to carriers, so that they can sell you packs of RCS messages with your plan.

Re: 87% of American teens own an iPhone; 88% expect an iPhone to be their next phone

#526

Post by meragrin_ »

xcrunner529 wrote: post #488
reaperducer wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are doing this for the network effect. This is what people in the hate-Apple echo chamber like to chant, but it's wrong. When Apple started doing it, there was no network effect. The color choice was made years before everyone started freaking out about green and blue bubbles. It was done to show that a message went over SMS, and not iMessage at a time when many Americans paid for each SMS sent, but iMessages we…

Before iMessage (yes it existed) all text messages were green. Blue denoted iMessage. There was no evil plan from Apple like bloggers love to conceive for attention - it’s merely what was originally chosen and they wanted to differentiate iMessage when they released it.

You know why they wanted to differentiate iMessage? It caused issues with SMS. They knew it. They wanted an easy out for the incompatibilities. It is a problem with the "plebs" not Apple. The "plebs" were just holding their phones wrong. After all, even iPhone users don't know how to hold their phone. How can "plebs" be expected to know how to hold their phones if iPhone user can't?

Apple could fix this if they wanted to, but they don't want to. They know it sells phones. It is intentional.

Re: 87% of American teens own an iPhone; 88% expect an iPhone to be their next phone

#527

Post by bmitc »

hangonhn wrote: post #142
bmitc wrote: post #57

I have never understood the arguments that Apple doesn't have a monopoly or monopolies and thus should get away with all the anti-trust violations they get away with. They definitely have monopolies when it comes to market power and influence, even if Android phones (which are split across several manufacturers) have a larger worldwide market share.

This is the concept that's about to be tested in court. The majority of the revenue generating segment of the smartphone market is iOS while the majority of the overall smartphone market is Android. I get the sense that Apple did this on purpose but the Unity lawsuit may write a new chapter on what it means to be a monopoly. This Planet Money episode talks about this dilemma: https://www.npr.org/2020/09/18/914563075/…

I'm going from memory, but I have looked into the actual definition of a monopoly in the context of anti-trust. If I recall correctly, it doesn't even explicitly say that you need a market majority. It basically says that if you have undue market influence and power and use it then you have a monopoly. A market majority is simply one of the most common ways that that is attained. Again, that is from memory. I'd have to search for the language again to be sure.

Like you point out though with it being tested in court, maybe precedence is strong. Those laws and definitions were written a long time ago. Today's companies like Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon are very different from companies of yesteryear.

Re: 87% of American teens own an iPhone; 88% expect an iPhone to be their next phone

#528

Post by GekkePrutser »

dan-robertson wrote: post #228
cercatrova wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can run apps I download from anywhere I want, for one, like I can on laptop.

That’s always been true of android but the parent implies that something has been changing.

The support duration has taken a leap with most vendors, also I think the UI has really matured.

I'm not the OP though so not sure what they were referring to.

Re: 87% of American teens own an iPhone; 88% expect an iPhone to be their next phone

#529

Post by warner25 »

sho_hn wrote: post #208
vlunkr wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be great if the general population would switch to another messaging app (or better yet a protocol that multiple clients support). I get the sense that this is how WhatsApp is used in other countries. It feels like a real regression to be using SMS based messaging in 2022. Seems like iMessage succeeds only by sheer numbers and ignorance of the general population.

Messaging is pretty fascinating. WhatsApp, KakaoTalk, WeChat, Line, Telegram, iMessage all so strongly dominate their respective set of countries/regions and a lot of them have their own distinct set of user mannerisms/memes.

I thought this was funny when I went to work in Korea for a year, as an American, with a bunch of other Americans; all of us stationed there in the military. Upon arrival, the other Americans immediately told me: "You need to get Kakao. It's how you text in Korea." I complied, but I often made the point that it was just another mobile app that they could install and use even back in the United States, and something like Hangouts would work just as well in Korea. When I moved back to the United States, I kept using Kakao to stay in touch with some of my old co-workers who were still in Korea, and this blew their minds, including some people who were otherwise quite tech savvy.

Note that I don't think many of us were using Kakao to talk with native Koreans, which would be a good reason for using it. Honestly, we didn't mix much. Nearly everybody on my contact list was an American.

Re: 87% of American teens own an iPhone; 88% expect an iPhone to be their next phone

#530

Post by GeekyBear »

saxonww wrote: post #523
GeekyBear wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google's version of RCS on Android is a proprietary closed source fork of RCS that Google refuses to provide a public API for. > Google's version of RCS—the one promoted on the website with Google-exclusive features like optional encryption—is definitely proprietary, by the way. If this is supposed to be a standard, there's no way for a third-party to use Google's RCS APIs right now. Some messaging apps, like Beeper,…

To be fair, I don't think Apple has opened up iMessage either, otherwise this problem would have solved itself already with a third-party app.

Apple has never claimed that iMessage is open.

It's Google that goes on about RCS being an "open standard" when their implementation of RCS is anything but.

It's kind of like going on forever about Android being open source before making sure most of the modern APIs are proprietary closed source code you only get with Google Play.

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