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)
But don't worry non-Americans, people are judging you on the basis of how you dress, eat, walk and talk and deciding silently whether to let you in their social circle or not.
Then, WhatsApp came and it was free and cross platform, compressed images and video to send them quick with decent quality, and free of spam. Absolutely perfect execution, in my opinion. If it was not owned by Facebook, I’d probably pay a considerable amount for it if it promised security and privacy.
There were no usernames with watsapp, its just your phone number, its so easy that even my mom can use it.
Honestly, reading the rest of the comments in this thread to this effect, it's terrifying that the runaway success of a single company can so degrade the fabric of personal relationships this way.
The only people I've met who use iMessage have been Americans and the Americans I've met that live in the UK use WhatsApp or Messenger as their primary local comms, though frequently iMessage with friends in the US. I wonder why it is that iMessage hasn't enjoyed the same dominance here, even when the iPhone has. (45% iPhone in the US vs 40% in the UK)
This isn’t derogatory; it’s literally how the human brain develops. Everyone goes through this phase. It’s not something that Apple created.
Thus they are vulnerable to a do it all app like WhatsApp. IMO just exporting iMessage wouldn’t have been enough, they would’ve needed to combine FaceTime too.
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?
Everyone I know with an iPhone chooses iMessages for texts and group chats first, and only reverts to WhatsApp when someone on Android has to be involved.
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.)
This means that while you might be part of the group while physically present, you are not a part of the group outside of that. For billions of people around the world that is a problem (not the tech, but the isolation), and as such, that is where a good deal of focus goes towards.
This isn't about selecting your friends or social groups based on tech, but about groups of people dynamically interacting. Replace the applied construct with something else and it still applies. (you don't like smoke signals because big smoke is evil to you, so you use carrier hawks, but al your friends still use smoke signals and can't be bothered to learn how to maintain a hawk)
People don't consciously 'organise' a group with some 'group manager' and a nice hierarchy, technology choice panels, and acquisition procedures. There isn't some grand evil plan where the 'group CEO' selects the technology that everyone now has to use. This is just users using an end-user service on their end-user device that doesn't cause them friction and makes them happy.
People don't think "I want to send an instant message to my group-colleagues on their mobile OS on their mobile hardware over their WWAN link to setup a meeting in our shared calendar for a ninety minute gathering for a consumption of nutrients". They generally think: "I could go for a bite, I'll let my friends know so we could go together". Everything that makes that harder just gets thrown out.
It's not even Apple's fault, but rather AT&T's confusing and expensive billing options. I could also upgrade to an unlimited messaging plan, but 90% of the billing cycles I'd be overpaying.
Switched to T-Mobile that same week.
Convincing an entire extended family to switch app is not simple. Making sure they are all set up with an alternative messaging app is not simple. Getting them to remember to use it with your specific chat while they use the default app for other conversations is not simple. Using an iPhone is simple.
The one big thing about iMessage is that it never really changes. And it cannot be hijacked by some other application like on Android. For better or worse, and for basic services like text messages I'm erring on the side of better. I have no idea how many times I had to go fix messaging issues when my grandparents were using Android. Facebook tried to take over all messaging. Then it was Google, with whatever iteration of failed messaging application they were pushing out. Or when they had phones that actually received updates it would suddenly drastically change the user interface.
We're having weekly video calls on FaceTime, and the superior sound quality of a FaceTime Audio has made it possible to even have a phone call with my hard of hearing grandpa. They don't even know they're using it. I send them high resolution pictures and videos of my hikes, that they can enjoy on their iPhone or iPad, whenever they want. Pictures and videos stay there without them having to do a ton of complicated tasks in a forever changing user interface, like Snap and the likes. The Apple Watches lets them know when someone is calling, and it gives us peace of mind knowing that they always have it with them. Everything uses a format they're used to from long before smart phones was a thing: Phone numbers. My grandmother is writing her life story on her now 7 years old MacBook Air. All their devices are backed up to my iCloud-family subscription. We've started using AirPods with Live Listen to include my grandpa in our conversation when I'm visiting them. If you haven't tried this, you should. It's mind boggling good.
The amount of time spent fixing things for them have gone from an almost weekly thing to non-existing. Being seniors they also have a lot of time on their hands, and Apple-partnered stores, at least around here, provide excellent support for anyone that owns an Apple device, regardless of where it was bought. All their devices are updated almost effortlessly: They get a notification about a pending update that tells them exactly when the device will be updated and what they need to do. The one big wish I have would be to postpone major updates for a couple of months. The recent trend of Apple radically changing the user experience is not a welcoming trend.
There's a lot of things I've really started to hate with Apple. And to be honest, at this point the things I just listed are more or less the only things holding me back. But the things mentioned in this post is such a huge quality of life improvements for all of us, almost like a cliché of Apple advertising. It's almost embarrassing.
Three years ago she got an iPad and it’s zero support calls with way more communication.
So while I suppose it is possible to have a non-horrible text experience on Android, I’ve only succeeded on iOS.
FYI, this is carrier related. Many carriers have a hard limit on how big attachments are, and will silently reject them if you go over that limit.
What the limit is varies based on the carrier, but it seems that a "safe" limit is ~1.1 MB (This is the hard limit that Android enforces for the largest MMS attachment it allows). T-Mobile seems to allow higher (I think I got up to 10 MB?), but I do not know what would happen if you sent an MMS to another carrier that is that big (they probably silenty drop it).
So you have two options: either reduce how big it is (which Android Messaging silently does), or flat our reject it. So the video is problem is silently reencoded to accomedate the 1.1 MB limit.
Why doesn't this happen on iMessage? Probably because you can set your MMSC (the Server that sends/recieves MMS) to Apple's MMSC, so you can standardise how big it is.
Because iMessage is not MMS - it uses a custom protocol and works completely independently from the carriers.
I just know that if you have an iPhone, you have to set your MMSC to Apple's servers versus the carrier's servers.
I don't believe this is true. To the best of my knowledge (and a quick Google) Apple has no MMSC servers. I've certainly never input any.
SMS and MMS sent on iOS use the same servers an Android phone would. But when the target phone number is detected as being iMessage capable that whole system is ignored and iMessage is used instead.
There is no technical relationship between SMS and imessage, but to the user it's the same interface
The actual color of the messages really isn't the problem.
But it was a bit infuriating to realize how huge an impact it was having on my kids who were being socially excluded for the sin of Android. Many children have ipads and hand me down iphones with no SIM just for iMessage, which they all just refer to as texting.
I have a lot of group chats as the only Android (soon to be Pinephone) user. Group Chats work fine.
My family mostly has iPhones, and we have several group chats with me in it on Group MMS. They work fine.
It downgrades to standard MMS which doesn't have all of the features, AND delivery is hit or miss.
With iMessage I can be fairly sure that all messages will arrive, with MMS groups... it's a shit show. There's been plenty of times where someone whose a green bubble will receive only part of the group messages, or none of them whereas the rest of us do. It all depends on the carrier.
And the thing that causes all that friction is including an Android user in the group text. It's entirely not your fault, but also it's very natural for people to want to exclude Android users when the majority of the group uses iPhone.
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.
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 example is there’s a family group chat about a planned vacation, everyone is on it. It’s pretty important.
I have numerous other group chats with hiking photos and kid photos that don’t include them because they can’t do moment shares and all the stuff that my family members send out from their iPhone.
I don’t think this means we have a bad relationship. I also don’t text my elderly family members who don’t have mobiles, I call them.
It’s just a function of using convenient tools and what’s available.
Similarly I have friends and business groups that only communicate through discord or whatsapp or viber, etc. I would never feel bad because a subset of my friends started a chat on Facebook and didn’t include me. I don’t use that app.
But I also don’t believe that I’m in all group chats with all people I think are important.
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.
https://www.dhs.gov/blue-campaign/indicators-human-trafficki...
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.
It’d would’ve been inflammatory but accurate and informative to put an insecure padlock for unencrypted messages which may be read by your carrier.
Haha, what?
Anyway, joke's on them, I use Signal.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26970035
TL;DR: This is carrier related.
Android phones do support RCS. Apple will not implement it. Apple will only support the bare minimum of SMS/MMS and then people wonder why it doesn't work well.
Carriers have worked to improve messaging. And Apple won't work with them, preferring to make "green bubble" a horrible experience. People should be outraged that Apple is able to e2e encrypt their chats but refuses to implement the standards.
If carriers were good at messaging systems, SMS wouldn't be so unreliable and expensive. MMS would have worked well. But sure, maybe their new system works? Except, for the most part it's only rolling out widely because Google decided to be the default RCS server, so it's yet another Google messaging service; 9th time is the charm.
Google deployed e2e in rcs at the end of last year... But does that mean it works everywhere? I'm guessing probably not.
Unfortunately, if the carriers impose the same attachment limit, it really won't help. The limit on MMS is largely artificial (considering the phone and the MMSC talk HTTP...sending an MMS is literally an HTTP POST).
RCS is its own technology. If everyone in a chat uses RCS, SMS and MMS are not used at all. It is like iMessage - but based on an open standard
The reason there is an attachment limit is because the carriers enforce it in the first place. It isn't a limitation of the MMS standard.
As such, what would stop carriers from enforcing the exact same limitations on RCS?
There isn't really a demand for carriers to increase the limits.
To now argue that nothing can or should supplant it is just Applecronyism.
But I'm in the US, which has a disproportionately high amount of iOS users. Across the rest of the world iMessage would be competing with WhatsApp and its existing network (something the e-mails in the article note) and I think it would have been an uphill struggle.
1. iOS being uncommonly popular (in other words: the US is weirdly rich compared to even most developed countries)
2. People texting a lot (maybe other countries’ carriers used to just make texting too expensive?)
Outside the US, people more commonly use messaging apps, and there is less peer pressure to be on iMessage as it is less likely for someone (in a certain social class…) to have a big majority of iOS-using peers. I had never even heard the term ‘green-texter’ until I went to the US
Yes. US mobile plans gave enormous buckets (thousands) of SMS messages a month to mobile users 10-15 years ago, so there was little incentive to move to other mobile messaging systems.
Conversely, the lack of such generous SMS allotments in most non-US countries drove widespread adoption of WhatsApp/Facebook Messenger/etc.
Is this the typical american point of view where the US == the world?
I'm not sure that would have helped Apple in anti-trust battles.
Isn't that against their DNA? Apple doesn't like to capture market share - they instead go for high profit share regardless of marketshare.
High profit share but median market share helps to avoid antitrust regulatory action.
Reminds me of '90s *Nix companies with sales bros wanting to sling around overpriced hardware, preventing expansion of the company in other fronts.