Ars OpenForum

Fred Duck said:

That's a rather disingenuous way of phrasing it. Apple know what iMessage can handle. They're not in charge of SMS, MMS, RCS, HMS, or whatever the present lingua franca is between carriers. iMessage is currently only available on Apple devices so if you wish to send a message from an Apple device to a non-Apple device, they simply use that lowest common denominator; it's not that they're bent on preventing encryption.

Apple are not google. They didn't embrace and extend messaging and pretend it's a standard the way google have done with their monopoly browser.

If Migicovsky is using such weak reasoning, I am sceptical of his company.

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It's hard for me to view this argument as anything more than Apple fanboyism. I agree with what you say about the lowest common denominator and SMS. But Apple can, and absolutely should provide a default method of encrypted communication for their users to other mobile operating systems. The ball is then in an Android users court on whether or not they want to 1. install iMessage and 2. possibly pay for it. But at least the option is there. Then, if the Android user doesn't want to register their number with iMessage it can default to SMS.

If Apple allowed users to change their default messaging app I'd agree with you more. But with the way they enforce defaults in order to take their arguments about privacy seriously they need to at least provide a default option to other operating systems.