Google failed to compete with iMessage for years. Now it wants Apple to play nice.
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After ruining Android messaging, Google says iMessage is too powerful
- Thread starter JournalBot
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I've gotten the "You can't afford an iPhone? Why are your bubbles green?" more than once.
It's not that you are on a different platform, it's that the implications of being on Android, at least in the US, is that you can't afford an iPhone, not that you compared the platforms and chose the one you want. I blame free-from-the-carrier garbage quality Android phones circa 2010 for this (HTC Eris, I'm looking at you).
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It used to be open to servers operated by other parties, and Cyanogenmod ran one, but I’m not sure anyone used it. Moxie has since written that they’re not ever going to do that again because they want to move too fast, to be able to compete with the commercial players.
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Are you incapable of reading? I was talking of SIGNAL. Jesus Christ.
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And the irony here is that those idiotic iPhone users are just ignorant for the most expensive smart phones are actually Android phones not iPhones. But hey, they got the "right" bubble colors!
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I am pretty sure that if everyone decided to use Signal, Apple would ban it.
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Don't use Signal. Use Threema.
Threema lets you backup your messages (while still being encrypted - it's not rocket science!) on any device (not just Android (*)) and they also do not want to bolt a payment system into their messenger.
The plans to let people transfer money over Signal is an idiotic one - because while governments cannot do very much to encrypted messages, money transfers are a completely different can of worms.
You can bet your ass that intelligence agencies are already salivating over the possibility to browbeat Signal into submission because they're running afoul of regulations regarding the numerous and strict regulations involving money transfers.
(*) I'm not even sure why there's such a huge difference between iOS and Android - I'm not aware of any reason why you cannot import a backup file into an app's local database in iOS. As I already stated, I suspect incompetence.
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I've not come across anyone that uses iMessage - even the most hardcore apple fans tend to use WhatsApp or SMS in Europe.
In SE Asia its often Line and others.
iMessage seems to be a US only fascination.
In SE Asia its often Line and others.
iMessage seems to be a US only fascination.
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At the top end sure, but the cheapest available new iPhone is $400 (iPhone SE), and the cheapest available new Android is under $40.
Also, societal implications of buying certain products haven't exactly matched nuanced reality, well, ever. Base price of a VW id.4 is well above a Mercedes A-class, by over $15k, but put the two cars next to the average person, they will see the badges, and assume the Mercedes is more expensive.
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To be fair, WhatsApp was a great messaging platform before it got acquired by the Zuckerborg and many people still reluctantly use it because its feature set and compatibility across Platform is hard to beat. Signal is great but it has to fight against the Meta behemoth for attention and it takes a lot convincing to switch groups entirely over when the features are pretty much the same.
Google really sh*t the bed when they crippled Hangout and passed on the opportunity to acquire WhatsApp. They have no right to moan about their current messaging woes.
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I guarantee Ron got a raise for the headline, just looking at the comment thread. It’s got as many individual posters or more than any other story on tge front page.
I sure exponentially many more clicked and read it without commenting here.
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Even as an Android user... 13x consecutive messaging failures by the nearly $2T company that re-engineered the web to dominate and monopolize search & on-online advertising... and here we are... "wah, it's all APple's fault.. WAH WAH WAH!!!!". Petty AF.
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Signal works fine with SMS and RCS, for what it's worth. It would just not be end-to-end encrypted. Currently it shows up as an open lock, but turning the messages yellow would be a more striking way to shame people into getting encrypted.
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A green bubble is apparently all some people are worth...
where's a meteor when you need one?
where's a meteor when you need one?
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iOS has a dominant market position in the US while Android dominates in most of the remaining world.
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So kids are just stupid. Because most people can’t afford an iPhone. I’m finally to a point where I can just walk into a store a pick up a couple iPhones. College kids Might Be able to finance one. But most likely, it is their parents.
Then, you can get free iPhones. So really anybody can do I message. You could even grab a free iPhone to do some messaging.
But that isn’t the point. The point is that, if at any time you take one attribute then move to another slightly related attribute, then group people by the first attribute, you’re using the same toolkit as racists. If you have a problem with people that can’t afford the highest end iPhone, state that and use that are your bias. Green text has nothing to do with that.
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The crybullies at google want to parse your text messages and feed them to their AI demon and use them to advertise to you and manipulate the public for political gain, just like they do with your email and searches and coordinates. Time for the revenge of the cypherpunks.
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What a horrible article, nothing but whataboutism. I expect better from Ars.
Apple creating a messaging service that doesn't work well with more than half the worlds mobile phones is a problem, especially given the proven intentional use of that service for anticompetitive lock-in.
Google's criticism is very valid. Google's product fragmentation is a separate issue.
Apple creating a messaging service that doesn't work well with more than half the worlds mobile phones is a problem, especially given the proven intentional use of that service for anticompetitive lock-in.
Google's criticism is very valid. Google's product fragmentation is a separate issue.
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Apple and Google both suck on this issue, but I tend to agree with Google's stated stance. Vendor lock-in is a shitty, consumer-hostile way to do business.
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I and my poorest family extended members are on Android. However, my extended family members who are not wealthy but are a step up from poorest have Apple phones because they can bring any absent family member to any family gathering, can livestream a Covid wedding video to those who can't come. TV reporters are capturing video interviews on their iphone, taking it back to the studio and editing it on the iphone, and putting it on TV.
I originally went with, and have stayed with, an Android phone because I don't like walled gardens. But they are all walled now, I have to go to the At&T store to get someone to help me work out a kink with it (there is no way for me to know if the kink is from the physical device limits, the android version, the carrier software layer, or the app). Nowadays when I go to the store they have to look for a staffer who knows Android well enough to try to solve my problem.
I probably will just get an Apple phone when this one goes. I never thought I would say that, but WalMart no longer carries "Made in America," Google is no longer "Don't Be Evil." SMS is the app I have been having the most trouble with over the past few months.
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Why are most media types enthralled with Apple and pile on Google and Microsoft for anything they do. It is like the very old days for me where everyone who wasn't making a pile of money from IBM hated them and said they were bad for technology. I sold both IBM systems and a ton of software on their products for clients. Seemed to work fine.
I stopped using Apply products when everything they made was 2 or 3 times the cost of some other competing products. And yes I used the Lisa from Apple before the Mac, and I might say Apple IIs etc.
I stopped using Apply products when everything they made was 2 or 3 times the cost of some other competing products. And yes I used the Lisa from Apple before the Mac, and I might say Apple IIs etc.
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How would Apple supporting RCS “solve” the green/blue bubble complaint? Wouldn’t they just lump RCS/SMS together as green bubbles ?
That said I think it would be great for Apple to support RCS, and maybe for Google to have a messaging platform that lasts more than the blink of an eye.
That said I think it would be great for Apple to support RCS, and maybe for Google to have a messaging platform that lasts more than the blink of an eye.
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The real issue is that Google made a knockoff product—Android—to capture the ad revenue that will come from the mobile market. Now that they have most of the ad revenue (they pay Apple billions to have Safari search be Google), they lack a motivation to innovate because all Google does is sell ads. And messaging does currently have an advertising component, so of course Google isn’t interested in making an equivalent or better messaging platform: it’s hard and unprofitable. Instead they’ve gone with “think about the children”.
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It doesn't even matter if RCS is encrypted when the vast majority of SMS 2FA hacks are done with SIM swapping, which is another reason why RCS depending on SIM phone numbers solely is stupid. In the US even something as devoid of features like Google Voice which is not encrypted, is safer than SMS and would be safer than encrypted RCS because even though it's tied to a phone number, it's not tied to a SIM.
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You have an iPhone but it seems that you don’t understand how iMessage works ;-) iMessages can only be used between iOS devices. The messages are green if the message is sent as an SMS, which means that the receiver is not using an iOS device. Your messages are blue if the receiver is also using iMessage, ie. is using an iOS device.
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iOS has a dominant market position only on devices that Apple manufactures.
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Just becuase it has come up some. Default messaging is popular in the US. If everyone is using default messaging, I message will obviously be better. That’s because we have 3 carriers 1 language 50 states and 350m people. In Europe you have a hundred countries, a thousand languages and a billion carriers, so using default makes no sense.
But it is still really stupid. If you care about messaging, you don’t use default. So anybody bullying someone on the default setting is a basic person by definition.
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You’re correct yet miss the point. When I message my wife, I know she’s on Android for “the features” and the texts I send are green (SMS), but when I message 4/5 friends they’re blue because most have iPhones. So you still know who has an iPhone or Android from your own messages to them, which is what Google thinks is causing anxiety amongst teens. This think of the children bit is of course nonsense.
Flagship Android phones cost approximately the same amount as an iPhone upfront. However, an iPhone user can get a new phone every year after their initial purchase indefinitely (has been for the last 6 years at least), which makes an iPhone the “value” buy unless we’re comparing an iPhone to a burner Android. I’ve never seen a trade in your Galaxy S9 or newer and get the brand new S22 or whatever.
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