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Fortunately the EU is mandating both! > Many app stores is actually a negative for me Just don't use them, then! They're not mandatory for consumers.
Until the app I really want require me to install their own crapware store/launcher. Or even worse, that utility apps that are needed in daily life require their own "store"
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> This is why the the iPhone is still a status symbol among the middle class and richest people in the EU wat? iPhone costs as much as an equivalent Android (and has for some time), and since you can get it with your phone subscription for a rather low monthly payment, it hasn't been a status symbol for a decade or more.
>iPhone costs as much as an equivalent Android Only flagships, But decent Androids can be had for much less than an iPhone. Like the Samsung A54 for example. Apple doesn't have ~300 Euro phones with OLED screens in its offer.
Sure they do, the iPhone 12 is still widely available and it’s at least twice as fast as an A54.
The prestige argument just hold up when you look at the data unless you scope it to say flagships. Google and Samsung charge just as much, and they have the same decreasingly small prestige that conveys. We’re 15 years into the touchscreen era so you’re just not impressing anyone.
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I think it's a historical artifact -- by the time that iMessage launched, the US was well into the phase of free, unlimited texting, so there was no barrier to "just texting". Since there was also no barrier (in terms of costs, subscriptions, or installation friction) to using iMessage, it was a drop-in upgrade of the user experience for SMS. In contrast, I still have to pay a fee to send SMS messages to my European…
> In contrast, I still have to pay a fee to send SMS messages to my European relatives Oh wow, yeah that's definitely a big reason people would use what's app instead. That's wild to think about and makes no sense. Any idea why that is? Is it regulatory reasons maybe?
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Sweden also has some of the highest salaries in Europe/the world, that's why they're not a status symbol, because even a pizza delivery boy can afford an iPhone 15 Pro Max. But they very much are a status symbol in less developed countries with lower wages: Eastern Europe, Latin America, etc. Lower and middle class people there will save for over a year just to get the latest iPhone, which is why there's a huge marke…
The original claim was about "the EU" as a whole. Now it's "less developed countries with lowest wages". Even in Eastern Europe it's much less of a status symbol than let's say 10 years ago: installment plans are much more affordable to a larger part of the population. Source: am from Eastern Europe (though I live in Sweden now). > Lower and middle class people there will save for over a year just to get the latest i…
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> In contrast, I still have to pay a fee to send SMS messages to my European relatives Oh wow, yeah that's definitely a big reason people would use what's app instead. That's wild to think about and makes no sense. Any idea why that is? Is it regulatory reasons maybe?
The reason is simply that phone calls across Europe were and are usually not free/included in flat rate plans. Telcos just never found a way to agree on something that makes sense: It's quite common to get unlimited domestic calls, but pay 10-30 cents per minute to a neighboring country. Nobody (other than businesses) actually pays that; people just ended up using WhatsApp for both calls and texts instead. So in a wa…
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This - they should just mandate RCS, or maybe actually invest in developing a modern European standard and then mandate that. It’s not like they don’t have research universities with CS departments who could be part of a standards body. I don’t mean they should limit alternatives - just that they should require a modern, E2EE standard on all phones, and then we can all just shut up about this.
No please don't mandate a specific protocol (that probably suck!) instead require the successful/important protocol tho become interoperable.
If you mandate an official protocol be available alongside others, that protocol can be kept up to date by committee.
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> since you can get it with your phone subscription for a rather low monthly payment This is not (anymore) how people buy their phones in many countries. Even on relatively expensive post-paid plans in some European countries, you don't get a discounted phone anymore: All they offer is an interest-free installment plan. > iPhone costs as much as an equivalent Android What's an equivalent iPhone to e.g. a Galaxy A54 (…
> All they offer is an interest-free installment plan. Which even in Sweden (one of the most expensive countries in Europe) is often as low as a lunch for two: https://www.tre.se/handla/mobiltelefoner/apple/iphone-15 > What's an equivalent iPhone to e.g. a Galaxy A54 (~1 year old, EUR ~300-350)? There might not be, which doesn't make iPhone a "status symbol among the middle class and richest people in the EU". It's l…
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This - they should just mandate RCS, or maybe actually invest in developing a modern European standard and then mandate that. It’s not like they don’t have research universities with CS departments who could be part of a standards body. I don’t mean they should limit alternatives - just that they should require a modern, E2EE standard on all phones, and then we can all just shut up about this.
> they should just mandate RCS RCS doesn't have e2ee in the standard.
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> It has nothing to do with the contract discounts that phone providers used to offer. It has a lot to do with that. Many US providers offer significant discounts on iPhones when buying them on a (new or renewed) contract. This was a very commonplace thing in Europe as well, but I believe it's become less common. Installment payments change nothing about the base price.
No, that's true; they don't. But they still make it much more accessible to buy an iPhone for someone who doesn't have €500 or $1000 or whatever at one time to comfortably spend on one. The idea that iPhones could be a meaningful "status symbol" by this point in their lifetime, given all the ways one can obtain one cheaply if that is what one wants , and the percentage of people who own them, just doesn't hold up und…
Financing doesn't make anything cheaper relative to its alternatives (given that they can also be financed).
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> In contrast, I still have to pay a fee to send SMS messages to my European relatives Oh wow, yeah that's definitely a big reason people would use what's app instead. That's wild to think about and makes no sense. Any idea why that is? Is it regulatory reasons maybe?
Because you don’t get free SMS for other countries, do you have free SMS with Canada in the US?