The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down

Re:The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down by cjk2 on Saturday April 27, 2024 @01:24PM (#40181737)

I'm not in the US but this is not a thing anywhere in the UK at least. Everyone uses WhatsApp. Same with all my friends in Europe. Same with my kids and their friends, although they all seem to be on SnapChat more than anything.

Actually we don't even tend to bother even talking about which phones you have. It's just meh. My best friend doesn't even know what iMessage is as an example.

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Re:The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down by hu3 on Saturday April 27, 2024 @01:54PM (#40181996)

It's a US problem. First link of a quick search:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/03/apples-green-bub...

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Re:The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down by cjk2 on Saturday April 27, 2024 @02:30PM (#40182273)

So it's more a problem with the humans than the technology.

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Re:The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down by rpdillon on Saturday April 27, 2024 @02:54PM (#40182445)

I think it's economic. The US has free texting these days, which means SMS has more usage here than in another countries. This has prevented the entire nation from coalesing around one chat app, as so many others have.

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Re:The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down by distances on Saturday April 27, 2024 @04:21PM (#40183124)

Every country in Europe I'm familiar with has free texts, but I think I can count with one hand the SMS I've received in the last ~10 years from actual people. Absolutely nobody sends SMS over here.

Might be that US got the free texts first though. Not sure anymore what was the timeline with that.

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Re:The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down by imchillyb on Sunday April 28, 2024 @12:11AM (#40185918)

When Whatsapp was released, free text messaging was not a thing for most of europe. The USA had long since ditched charging for sms messaging by that point, so the attractiveness of a free communications app wasn't there.

Also, there are carriers in europe that offer bundle discounts and better data packages for opting out of sms altogether.

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Re:The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down by cjk2 on Saturday April 27, 2024 @03:43PM (#40182827)

It has been the same here in the UK for longer. I haven't paid for an SMS for over 20 years.

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Re:The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down by MindSwipe on Saturday April 27, 2024 @06:32PM (#40184184)

I've had unlimited free texting in western Europe for over a decade now, and so have many other western Europeans. I've had unlimited free texting for longer than I have had unlimited mobile data, yet I still use WhatsApp, I even used WhatsApp back when I didn't have free unlimited mobile data.

It's not about free texting or not, IMO it's either about mobile data or laziness.

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Re:The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down by HDThoreaun on Saturday April 27, 2024 @06:27PM (#40184165)

Texting has always been free so messaging apps never became popular. Most people have always used whatever came with the phone.

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Re:The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down by t43562 on Saturday April 27, 2024 @06:18PM (#40184104)

It's very much a problem that Whatsapp isn't using an open protocol IMO. I really want to use Signal for my family and yet one has to jump from app to app to talk to other people.

It's ridiculous - all I'm asking is for the convenience of email.

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