In a product development org, refusing to prioritize something is identical to deprioritizing it.

@Time0 -> Priority1=X, Priority2=Y

@Time1 -> Priority1=X, Priority2=Z, Priority3=Y

Across this timeframe, Y's priority was lowered from P2 to P3, because the org intentionally decided to make Z a higher priority.

One could argue that improving this experience was never in their priority list; but as long as product leaders in the org knew about it; its the same thing. Letting something linger in the backlog, and intentionally deciding to never add it to the backlog in the first place, are identical.

I don't know about "maleficence", but intentional: Yes. Cognizant inaction conveys intentionality.

I think you're misreading the above comment.

He's pointing out that Apple considered green originally the best background color for texting, and then added their own protocol with a blue background.

So it's not like they deliberately relegated SMS to green because they were certain blue was better; if they believed blue was superior, they'd have used it from the beginning.

Yes, and then Time Happened, and every other part of iOS was updated; including, by the way, THE GREEN BUBBLES, to make them less readable, I feel like I'm taking crazy pills and no one else remembers that they used to be a different shade of green, with black text, which has significantly more contrast [1].

Regardless, they could improve it at any time, yet its been like this for... a decade now? Cognizant Inaction Is Intention. It doesn't matter why it is how it is; they can make it whateverthehell they want, they run the code, they run the org, they got the keys to production, so: fix it!

The original color may not have been malicious, but it WAS DELIBERATE. Every design decision at Apple is deliberate; to assert otherwise is to be revisionist. Cognizant Inaction Is Intention. Its color was deliberately chosen originally; its color was deliberately changed; their inaction in fixing the accessibility issues that change created is Deliberate, because Cognizant Inaction is Intention.

[1] https://d2bs8hqp6qvsw6.cloudfront.net/article/images/750x750...

As I'm trying to tell you, assuming malice instead of disagreement isn't productive. It's always been green, even when it was the only option. Perhaps they feel that green is still the best choice!

As others point out, there are accessibility options for people who want more contrast (and which benefit users with trouble reading these outbound messages in far more useful places).

It's not the same shade of green, IIRC it's been changed 2 or 3 times, each iteration having lower contrast with the text color.

It used to be black text on a green background with a bevel to make the text bubble look like it has depth. I'm probably in the minority but I still don't like the modern high contrast flat material design of everything.

In addition to that, iMessage in iOS 5 and 6 did NOT use white for text. Black letters were used instead.

As an iPhone user, it’s very clear that it is done intentionally. The shade of green hurts to read.

No but not updating the default for 10 years in a way that mostly affects only Android users seems like borderline malfeasance to me.

It's not a "default", it's an indicator of how the message was sent.

So every sent message looks white on bright green or just the ones sent over SMS/MMS (I.e. to Android users)?

Messages sent via SMS/MMS are green, messages sent via iMessage are blue.

If you send a message via SMS/MMS to an iPhone user, it's green.

There is no detection if the user on the other end is an Android user.

So it's a default.

Are you saying the default phone that users go out and buy, is an iPhone?

No, green is the default.

Blue is the default, because iOS always tries iMessage first in preference to SMS.

There's a setting for that too.

No.