Given Android users don’t have iMessage that’s kind of not an issue then.

This _is_ the issue and it's what this whole debate is about.

It isn't a debate. You're demanding access to a walled garden on the grounds that you don't think the wall should be there.

You're entitled to use or not use iMessage per your preference. You are not entitled to use of iMessage on a platform of your choosing. Where do we stop this? Is Apple then required to create iMessage clients for Windows Phone as well? Perhaps a Blackberry client too? Maybe a website?

If you want to share an iMessage account and all the rest of the ecosystem benefits Apple provides, then get an iPhone. That's how you do that. And you can still absolutely talk to Android users once you have an iPhone, because the iPhone provides the essential middle-agent between iMessage and SMS that enables you to do that. Apple has done this forever and has designed Messages to degrade gracefully: you are not barred from texting anyone who doesn't have an iPhone, instead your message is converted to SMS completely seamlessly and sent from your phone even if you actually sent it from a Mac or iPad.

The endless moaning and whining from people not in their ecosystem about iMessage is so, so fucking tired at this point: from the accusations of platform lockout to the bitching about the fact that SMS messages are green instead of blue, on and on. If you guys are SO HARD UP for that iMessage goodness then just pony up for an iPhone, holy shit. Or at the very least, go bitch up Google's tree so they'll develop a decent messaging client that won't be abandonware within 6 months.

Quoting myself from this very thread:

"I own a Mac an iPhone and an iPad but iMessage and FaceTime are entirely useless to me because no one I communicate with on a regular basis uses Apple devices"

and

"The issue is that I as an Apple user want to be able to use iMessage to communicate with Android users."

To sum it up for you as succinctly as I can: I am an Apple customer expressing unhappiness about some aspects of the product and the product strategy.

But that's not within your control. To use iMessage with Android users you'd need to convince them to use an iMessage client. Usually that means buying an Apple device, but with Beeper Mini the burden was reduced to an app install. But you still need Android users to take affirmative action for you to use iMessage with them.