Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Eddy Cue wanted to bring iMessage to Android in 2013

theverge.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 206 posts

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

#171

Post by MomoXenosaga »

nvr219 wrote: post #157
js2 wrote: post #116

> I am concerned [that] iMessage on Android would simply serve to remove an obstacle to iPhone families giving their kids Android phones. We're an iPhone family, but damn is that lame. How about: make the best product. Don't coerce people into buying an iPhone. It drives me crazy how fractured messaging has become. Here's a recent example. My non-technical aunt tried to send a group iMessage to my wife and me. For me…

I agree with everything you said. WhatsApp is the best right now and that makes me very sad.

Simply due to the numbers of users. Getting to 2 billion users is an insurmountable obstacle no matter how good your app is.

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

#172

Post by Geee »

I think they could differentiate with privacy. Privacy is the ultimate silver bullet that could kill Android, because the Google's business model is built around lack of privacy. If iMessage could elevate privacy awareness and expectations, then it's possible that people would want to switch to iPhone.

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

#173

Post by MomoXenosaga »

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.

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

#174

Post by asiachick »

decafninja wrote: post #18

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...

Similar, long term iPhone user, zero messages via iMessage. For me it's 97% FB Messenger, 2% Whatsapp, 1% Line, 0.1% Google Messenger

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

#175

Post by asiachick »

HWR_14 wrote: post #97
aryonoco wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in Australia, and here iPhones have about 50% of the smartphone market, with the other half being Android of course. I obviously know many iPhone users, including my wife and many close friends. I know of no one who uses iMessage. Here everyone uses Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp (and to a lesser extent Telegram and Signal). Is this iMessage fascinating a US thing? Why?

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.

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

#176

Post by BenjiWiebe »

ihaveajob wrote: post #50
afavour wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 expen…

Check out some MVNO's such as Red Pocket Mobile, or US Mobile. If you don't have heavy data usage, plans can be extremely cheap.

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

#177

Post by bscphil »

jmt_ wrote: post #61
decafninja wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Mainly a Gen Z thing I believe (speaking as a member of said generation). Many people my age see their phone numbers as being more private information that should be given to those you trust, so may not want to give out to someone you just met at a bar for example. Instagram can be used as a sort of barrier. Also, each party gets more insight into the others lives by checking out their Instagram account which is usua…

> Many people my age see their phone numbers as being more private information that should be given to those you trust

This is a really relevant factoid against the background of the debate over Signal requiring a phone number to communicate with people. It seems the next generation is likely to look elsewhere if that continues.

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

#178

Post by bscphil »

vmception wrote: post #3
exabrial wrote: 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.

Agreed. They could probably monetize that better than hardware sales too, most likely via Apple Wallet payments and data. And the whole blue/green bubble pretentiousness would have never happened, which is funny because so many Android users still have no idea that's even happening to them or just assume they don't need to care about anybody that cares about that. (protip: its affecting your life and relationships)

> so many Android users still have no idea that's even happening to them or just assume they don't need to care about anybody that cares about that. (protip: its affecting your life and relationships)

To be as blunt as I know how to be: good. I really hope that anyone inclined to treat people that way goes all the way and cuts me out of their life completely. I don't need or want friends like that, and I've had no trouble making friends (including iPhone users) who aren't so absurdly shallow as to treat people differently based on the color of their message in a fucking texting app.

In other words, I really do hope you're right about this and it's affecting my life and relationships, because the only way it could possibly affect them is positively by cutting assholes out of my life.

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

#179

Post by spotman »

js2 wrote: post #116

> I am concerned [that] iMessage on Android would simply serve to remove an obstacle to iPhone families giving their kids Android phones. We're an iPhone family, but damn is that lame. How about: make the best product. Don't coerce people into buying an iPhone. It drives me crazy how fractured messaging has become. Here's a recent example. My non-technical aunt tried to send a group iMessage to my wife and me. For me…

Telegram is one potential answer. I find it to be the fastest messaging platform , and super reliable. Not to mention their desktop apps are not bloated, and message history, drafts, etc sync really well. (note - there is also a secret mode that works like signal, that also doesn't sync message content, which is parity with signal)

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

#180

Post by null0pointer »

zanny wrote: post #161
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 :-\

Matrix / Element should have a comparable feature set to signal for almost all use cases and supports traditional username/password.

Unfortunately Matrix still has the issue of key sharing between clients. If you want to read previously sent messages when you log into a new client for the first time you have to do the key sharing dance with one of your existing clients.

For me it's a little annoying, but I find it an acceptable tradeoff. However I could easily see how for many people this would be a dealbreaker.

Post reply on HN