This sounds promising. But given how much money there should be in this, their timidity is puzzling. Perhaps the solution is brittle or subject to legal or technical challenges. Just read between the lines on this. They’ve got the cure for cancer but there keeping it in animal testing for now…
The app is currently in beta and we’ve decided to keep availability more focused to ensure the best user experience at this time. Although we’re excited to be the first mobile company to introduce a blue bubble solution and we’d like to make it as widely available to Android enthusiasts as we can, we’re prioritizing delivering an optimal user experience before committing to expansion at this time.
Lol really ? Who the fuck cares ? I think its just the stupid media hyping it all up, Over a color of a fucking msg? Man Losers born every minute. Smh
I’m still curious if this is even legal. It seems like a really good idea, but is Apple going to be able to sue over it? I almost feel like it could be covered under the reverse engineering clause, because it is meant to enable interoperability with another product. But Apple’s terms of service already seem really hamstrung on what is and is not allowed. With the macOS SLA beginning with:
For use on Apple-branded Systems
Obviously iMessage isn’t macOS, and I can’t seem to find a specific terms of service for iMessage specifically, but it is running on it. Which is what would make this integration possible. So what makes me wonder if Apple’s lawyers could find a clause there.
The reason they’re moving forward with this is because if Apple tries to sue, it could make a case for Google that Apple is trying to take control of messaging in the United States. If they don’t sue, should Google come after them down the line Apple can say “we’re aware of 3rd party iMessage and decided to not take action to increase interoperability” yadda yadda.
That’s my guess anyway.
Teenagers today suffer unique threats to their health and wellbeing from technology. It may be super easy for you to say “who the fuck cares about the color” but that is far from the case for US teenagers. Willingly setting yourself apart from the group in high school is a precarious move in the best of circumstances.
And for the rest of us, this goes way beyond the color being used. The SMS/MMS fallback in iMessage offers a terrible experience for non-Apple users. Low quality media, inability to manage one’s own memeberships in groups, and no encryption. For those worried about the lack of e2ee: Android users participating in an iMessage conversation don’t have that today. You’re not losing anything from this solution.
Legal disclosures prove that Apple knowingly uses iMessage in an anticompetitive fashion. It’s a moat to keep people from switching away from iPhone. They are leveraging their position in the messaging market to shore up their restrictive phone products. I wish US antitrust enforcement was stronger in this area but until then, I hope Nothing has great success in breaking down this illegal barrier.
Personally, I miss out on a lot of group chats because all of my friends have iPhones.
They’ll create a group chat, I won’t get any messages, then suddenly I’m getting a call on Saturday saying “hey are you coming to the party?” or more often than not I don’t get notified at all and end up hearing about all of the things I miss at a later time. It’s annoying, but I really hate iOS so I deal with it.
I’ve got an iMessage server running on my NAS but it’s not perfect, it requires that the iPhone user send the message to my iMessage account associated with my email, not with my phone number.
PyPush lets you link your number to your Apple Account using demo.py if you need that. It needs a cron job to sit on it for the first few weeks but after that its fine.
How is Apple keeping iMessage an Apple exclusive anticompetitive? That’s like saying Google needs to share their search algorithms because they’re “leveraging their position in the search engine market to shore up their restrictive products.”
In the end, Apple created a service that is massively popular and makes people want to use their products. The fact that US teenagers refuse to use one of their many competitors is hardly their fault. The rest of the world doesn’t give a shit about iMessage either.
You can read about it here: https://www.macrumors.com/2021/04/09/epic-apple-no-imessage-on-android/
Using a dominant market segment to reduce competition in another has always been an antitrust violation. A notable example is MS leveraging their Windows monopoly to force Internet Explorer on people.
Google search is available on apple devices though. Same with stuff like Gmail. Imagine if YouTube didn’t have an app for iOS and you had to use the browser. That would be worse for consumers, but Google could use it as a way to force people into Android. That’s what Apple is doing with iMessage and the whole phone ecosystem is worse because of it, whether you care or not.
Really interesting how different the US is. Here in central europe it’s pretty much whatsapp, telegram, signal. Most people use 2 or 3 of those. Doesn’t matter what device they are using
Who fucking cares about the color of a text message? Stop catering to childish trends. My god what the ever loving fuck is wrong with people?!
