There’s been too much focus on the color of the bubble, or security, or specific features.
But the real issue boils down to human in/out group dynamics. Being excluded from group chats or having people get frustrated by the lone Android user in the group are powerful forms of peer pressure. And that pressure exists because Apple has pretty clearly made the experience intentionally frustrating.
That said, in the specific feature category: lacking the ability to send a reasonable quality photo or video is also a pretty big issue in 2023.
> But the real issue boils down to human in/out group dynamics. Being excluded from group chats or having people get frustrated by the lone Android user in the group are powerful forms of peer pressure.
There is an odd coincidence/overlap with friend groups and overall lifestyle/ideology and imessage vs android or blue vs green bubbles. I have like a few obscure friends who use android and they are all maga or counterculture weirdos. Meanwhile everyone else that I know (literally everyone, including a huge group chat for my gym weightlifting group, all close and extended family) uses an iPhone and iMessage.
Back to don draper: Android users cry about being excluded, but the rest of us don't even think about android users.
It's not Apple's responsibility or obligation to fix this.
This comment right there is why I will always believe that people will trade convenience over freedom the first chance they get. I've somewhat made my peace with it, because I don't even know if it really matters anymore.
If you, as an individual, really wanna be free and make real choices, you'll have to be willing to be a loner, and risk being considered by the groupthink a "counterculture weirdo", as this comment put it. Otherwise your choices are dictated by those who belong. You may screams your lungs out about all the dangers of going left and all the benefits of going right, if your social circle says it's left, it's going to be left.
Better get comfortable with that reality and plan accordingly.
> Android users cry about being excluded, but the rest of us don't even think about android users.
While I think you’ve illustrated the point that the issue is not just a technical one, I’d rather not be counted in that group. I’m deeply in the Apple ecosystem, but I do think about my Android friends. When possible, I use chat clients that work well for them, because otherwise we can’t share quality photos with each other. I don’t shun people for their technology choices, just as I’d hope they wouldn’t shun me for mine.
> It's not Apple's responsibility or obligation to fix this.
Do you believe that companies have any responsibilities to their customers? Especially when the nature of the relationship is one of directly exchanging money for hardware and services, it seems reasonable to expect Apple to listen to me as a customer and to build capabilities that solve the problems I think are important as a user.
As an Apple customer, I am deeply unhappy with their iMessage stance. In 2023, I want to be able to take a photo with the much-vaunted camera built into the device (one of the reasons we feel justified in spending $800-$1200+ on a “phone”) and I want my device to have the ability to send that photo to other modern devices out of the box. And if that capability doesn’t exist, I’d like a company of Apple’s size/stature to use their position to push forward new industry standards, as have the many companies that built up the modern web over the years. I’m not naive enough to think they’ll do this - they’ve shown us how they operate - but I think it’s reasonable to want this as someone who believes current tech giants owe their existence to this kind of leadership from companies in years past.
I’ve been a product manager. My customers reasonably expected me to listen to their requests, if for no other reason because they were willing to continue spending significant yearly $$$ for the ability to use my product. That doesn’t mean I could always say yes to every request, and I agree I wasn’t obligated to to implement every request, but I did have a responsibility to listen and to try to build a product that my customers would find valuable.
We don’t have to speculate about why Apple is doing this. It’s a matter of public record now from those emails revealed in discovery during a recent trial. The stance is pro-Apple at best, and arguably anti-customer. Given Apples profitability and market position, it’s hard to feel that Apple’s behavior here is really justifiable, even if it’s understandable. And by “understandable” I mean we’ve come to expect anti-consumer behavior and so it’s not surprising that Apple is perpetrating more of it. But I think they should be criticized soundly for it, even if it is their right to not give a shit.
> And that pressure exists because Apple has pretty clearly made the experience intentionally frustrating.
That pressure exists because the individuals involved in those group settings choose to exert such pressure. It’s not on Apple…just like my getting bullied three decades ago for not having a pair of Pumps was never on Reebok.
Apple has explicitly chosen to keep this feature gap for the purpose of locking customers into the ecosystem and forcing people to switch. This is well documented.
I agree that users are exerting pressure. But those users don’t exist in a vacuum, and Apple knowingly made the decision to force the kinds of social dynamics we’re describing, making them as much a part of this as the users themselves.
I think in a world where we didn’t have the emails between Federighi and Cue, maybe someone can more convincingly argue that this is just bad behavior by users. But all of this has to be taken together. The dynamics exist based on the interactions of all involved players, and I think it displays poor behavior by both users and Apple. And when a lot of that poor behavior is playing out in the halls of schools, I think it highlights Apple’s role even more.
Yeah, that's Apple actively degrading the user experience on both sides specifically because one side isn't their customer. To the point that the color itself violates their own accessibility guidelines.
This effectively attempts to lock people into their ecosystem, including their App Store, and it's... honestly kind of wild to me (as an American, for GP's reference) that we've been allowing this to continue, in a country with a specific history of using antitrust law to go after phone companies for abusing their network effect to create monopolies.
That makes it sound like android phones are at fault. It's an iOS problem where they refuse to be compatible. People who use iOS should be asking Apple to fix it if they cared about this problem at all.
Not Android, but SMS. SMS is a terrible messaging layer; Apple is not going to sink (very expensive) engineer time into papering over its badness when they already have a working alternative that their customers use.
RCS is not SMS; it’s a significantly easier protocol to build a smooth UX around.
I’m not claiming Apple is beyond criticism here; they absolutely treat iMessage as a moat. But RCS also clearly burdened by competitive interests, including the unclear state of E2EE in RCS.
My point is that RCS exists essentially to “paper over the badness” of SMS. So does iMessage. And implementing support for RCS at this stage of the game is Apple investing resources in fixing their SMS problem, using an imperfect solution that was introduced to paper over the issues with SMS.
Maybe I misunderstood what you meant by papering over the badness.
As a dumb question, how does Apple make a change that would allow android messaging to work without a cellphone? How does apple make a change so that android's messaging system isn't unencrypted by default? RCS is not encrypted, google has an extension that makes it encrypted that only recently supported encrypting beyond 1:1 chats.
It's not Apple's fault google half assed messaging on android for a decade+.
> It's not Apple's fault google half assed messaging on android for a decade+.
It’s also clear that Apple was never interested in pushing for an industry solution to this problem either. These two companies are in the unique position to provide leadership in this category, and they haven’t.
In the earlier days of the web and in other areas of innovation, the companies at the forefront of their respective industries industry champion new standards to support their broader goals. This was a use case ripe for better standards, but all parties involved are more motivated by greed than interoperability/supporting the consumer.
> It’s also clear that Apple was never interested in pushing for an industry solution to this problem either.
The industry (cell carriers) don't want a solution, at least not one that interests non-carriers. It's almost a rehash of the Netheads vs Bellheads fight.
Carriers want a messaging system that requires a SIM and thus a paid subscription to their services. They own network infrastructure and want end users beholden to them to access services. Cell carriers loved the days of WAP and MMS where anything done on a phone was a for-pay service from the carriers. They resent anything that bypasses their ability to nickel and dime people.
Neither Apple nor Google (or WhatsApp or Signal) want a messaging system that requires a SIM and any dependence on carriers' infrastructure. They want an entirely over the top service that transits a completely agnostic Internet layer. Just in practical terms they don't want to only be able to provide service to devices with cellular radios.
RCS is top to bottom a protocol designed by carriers. It requires a SIM for access and hasn't included E2EE because carriers love their data mining. It's a capable replacement for SMS/MMS but it's still tied to carriers. Google and Apple have provided leadership with messaging but carriers are not interested in the direction they're leading. WhatsApp grew primarily because of carriers charging stupid texting rates, especially international rates.
The core problem is groups wanting Internet based messaging get no buy-in from carriers. Even though smartphones are an overwhelming majority of the messaging landscape they're not the only devices used. If the carriers had their way you'd never be able to send a message from your laptop to my phone unless the laptop had a cellular radio and a service plan.
These issues existed before Google started pushing RCS.
On a side note, I still believe iMessage was in response to Google Talk, whose protocol was both open-source and interoperable with platforms outside of Google.
> iMessage works on wifi without a cell connection
How often are you in a situation where you do have WiFi but don't have a cellular connection? In my experience, the opposite is much more common--not having WiFi but having reliable cellular data.
In any case, WhatsApp, Telegram, Messenger, and open source solutions/protocols like Signal also work on WiFi without a cellular connection.
> green txts constantly break group messaging to the point where I refuse to add my friends partners who dont have iOS
Wow. I feel sorry, not for you, but for your friends who chose to be friends with someone so shallow.
> there are no abilities to admin group messaging with green txts (change the name, add/remove people, etc.)
Who cares? In more than two decades I have never once felt compelled to change the title of a group text, of all things. How often do you need to add and remove people from an existing group text anyways? Group texts, at least for me, have always been ephemeral--for example, a few messages exchanged to coordinate a date and time for dinner plans, and that's it. If I need to add someone, I'll just make a new group text or relay the information independently, it's not that hard.
How often are you in a situation where you do have WiFi but don't have a cellular connection? In my experience, the opposite is much more common--not having WiFi but having reliable cellular data.
Your experience is only your experience. It is not the only experience. Off the top of my head in the last year: Cruise ships, hunting lodges, rural restaurants, in tall buildings, a factory, various places underground like hotel laundry facilities.
Wow. I feel sorry, not for you, but for your friends who chose to be friends with someone so shallow.
Wow. I feel sorry for you not having a job that entails using a phone. But many other people do, and are in department-wide our team group chats. Again, your experience is not the only experience.
In more than two decades I have never once felt compelled to change the title of a group text
Congratulations. I envy your simple, orderly, uncomplicated life.
> How often are you in a situation where you do have WiFi but don't have a cellular connection?
Ummm, all of the time. Traveling, on a plane, etc.
> Wow. I feel sorry, not for you, but for your friends who chose to be friends with someone so shallow.
Huh? When your group message constantly breaks so you can't communicate properly its far more respectful to make sure the couple gets the message than not.
> How often do you need to add and remove people from an existing group text anyways?
I get added to group chats all of the time that I want to leave (due to spamming stuff) but can't because ONE person has an android phone.
I think we’re saying the same thing re: your 2nd and 3rd points.
WiFi is an interesting one, and some providers already provide SMS over WiFi via the “WiFi calling” feature. It’s certainly more convenient (or at least involves less setup) when iMessage is involved, but I suspect this isn’t the top reason people are clamoring for iMessage.
Example - I start a group message with 1 android user (droid) and 3 iOS users (foo, bar, and doof). `doof` sends a message to the group and it shows up as a group txt. `bar` sends a message and it now shows up as a direct message. I don't know whether `bar`'s message was a group message or a DM.
But the real issue boils down to human in/out group dynamics. Being excluded from group chats or having people get frustrated by the lone Android user in the group are powerful forms of peer pressure. And that pressure exists because Apple has pretty clearly made the experience intentionally frustrating.
That said, in the specific feature category: lacking the ability to send a reasonable quality photo or video is also a pretty big issue in 2023.