I thought this might be about the practicalities of leaving the Apple ecosystem, shame that it wasn't! 
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Getting out of the ecosystem
- Thread starter 2chance1
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I don’t view it as a stunt.. it’s Business 101.
if I have a certain feature that can keep users on my product… why would I make it cross platform? Apple is a hardware company at its core, its not that difficult to see it from their perspective and I respect it.
I would enjoy having iMessage on my Fold, but I know it’s smart business for them to keep it on Apple devices.
I use both iPhones and Android phones with my 14 PM being my daily driver. I have a house full of Apple products and will continue to buy them.
When I switch to Android phones my Apple friends cringe and say "oh you are green today". Personally I don't see why it matters.
But is does to a lot of people.
Relationship wise.....if the color of a text bubble means that much to someone..... then something else is wrong.
Live and let live people.....to each their own.
You do you and I'll do me
When I switch to Android phones my Apple friends cringe and say "oh you are green today". Personally I don't see why it matters.
But is does to a lot of people.
Relationship wise.....if the color of a text bubble means that much to someone..... then something else is wrong.
Live and let live people.....to each their own.
You do you and I'll do me
I see where you coming from... But when it comes to relationships, communication is vital.Relationship wise.....if the color of a text bubble means that much to someone..... then something else is wrong.
Live and let live people.....to each their own.
You do you and I'll do me
And nowadays… messaging is an essential piece of communication, its not necessarily a deal breaker to be concern with text bubbles. But messaging have the potential to enhance the communications shared amongst a relationship and that’s why most women tend to date men who have an iPhone (here in the US).
agree with everything you said...communication is key to any relationship. But the color of the text bubble whether it is blue or green should not matter. The content of the communication should be the focus.
How many times are you and her messaging back n forth, and are you messaging pics and media super frequently? If y'all don't have rigorous message sessions, then this shouldn't even be an issue.
iMessage is great, why would you want to force your wife to use something she doesn't want?
Remember - happy wife, happy life
For many customers (even most of them?), that’s a stunt.
Yes, for Apple, its business 101. But for customer, it’s anti consumer 101. Different perspective.
Eventually, when one side runs out of patience, they will be forced to take action, whatever it might be.
We are not there yet, cause RCS is still not good enough. Who knows what will happen in the next year or two, but I’m more than happy to get popcorn 🍿 ready for the show.
For folks who can see through superficial decorations to the core, bubble color barely is a concern. Unfortunately, for many, bubble color represents way too much than what they are designed for. I remember once I saw someone saying blue bubble and green bubble was designed intentionally to demonstrate superiority for iPhone compared to other devices, eventually mutated into a bizarre social phenomenon. It’s just sad.
I have no problems texting people that use Android devices from my iPhone so I do not understand what the fuss is about at all.
And that’s why I mention its not a deal breaker, you are correct… the content should be the focus.
But there’s no denying iMessage (or any platform Messaging apps) features can heighten the communication shared amongst a relationship, that’s all I’m trying to explain. We are all caught up in the color of text bubbles… but that’s only to distinguish using iMessage features.
And we disagree. I’m all for Apple implementing RCS… but because one doesn’t agree with a company business practices it’s automatically anti consumerism, I don’t know about that.
If it’s not harming me or the environment… I don’t have a problem with Apple keeping iMessages on their devices.
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I use airmessage on my Pixel and Z Fold4 to iMessage with my wife, kids, and friends. It works pretty great for the most part. However there is an upcoming app called Sunbird that *might* be the perfect solution. Airmessage requires you to have a Mac and basically use it as a server. Also you have to use your apple id email for messaging. With Sunbird you won't need a Mac and it supposedly works with your phone number. https://www.sunbirdapp.com/
The experience on group chats suck between android and apple users. For instance I'm one of 6 coaches on our youth football team. We send videos back and forth of plays or game film and if there is an android device in the group the video is a blurry, pixelated mess due to the video being sent as MMS. The allure of iMessage and the benefit of Apple upgrading to the current messaging standard of RCS would be that all users no matter what device they choose would have a nice messaging experience. There are still iMessage specific benefits that apple would have that benefit only iPhone users so it wouldn't be a total loss for Apple. I don't see a large amount of their users ditching the iPhone for Android all of a sudden if they implement RCS.
I know Whatsapp, FB messenger and other options exist. But most people, at least here in the US, dont know about or care to use those options.
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Damage is not limited to environment. Whatever the initial intention was back when iMessage was released in iOS 3(or 4? I forgot), the social phenomenon continue to flourish. And we have seen many Google RCS vs Apple iMessage barking in the past year or so.
In isolation, iMessage is not “anti-consumer”. But by refusing to provide support (doesn’t even need to be open source) on other platforms, one would argue this is one of Apple’s nefarious practices to lock their users inside the walled garden. It’s all about perspective.
What I push back on is this idea that it locks in users… They can still text people and send photos & videos to non-iPhone users, how is that keeping a user locked in? You would have a better argument if a user is unable to send messages to non-iPhone users.
And in addition to that, if someone doesn’t care to use iMessage… there is an assortment of messaging apps a user can choose from. And you might mention photos & videos are sent in low resolution to non-iPhone users... well, that’s more to do with SMS than Apple.
You see OP’s story. His wife more or less locks himself in Apple ecosystem despite him wanting to use an Android device. Combined with all the other more modern features that are unavailable through SMS, not having iMessage becomes a great deal. Sure, this scenario may not be awfully common, but one that we can’t ignore.
As for lock-in, just ask around forums, check reddit and whatnot, and it shouldn’t be hard to find people content on using iPhone but more than happy to jump ship to android if iMessage is supported on android. Yes, they can theoretically use other messaging apps and services. But no, much like migrating from iOS to android and vice versa, the actual Cost of moving to another platform, even if it’s just a chat app, could be devastating for a few folks, or at least noticeable Inconvenience. By making the migration cost high, Apple locks people in, just like many other stuff. They don’t have to ban sending SMS to android users (not like they can anyways). Just make their life as miserable as possible, and that Usually will do.
Lock-in doesn’t need to be black and white.
Well, it's not that rare for a phone number to get stuck in iMessage when a user switches to another platform, resulting in messages not getting delivered, i.e. data loss from the user's perspective. While iMessage provides some nice additions to messaging, it provides some unneeded extra complexity to something that used to be a rather straightforward process when someone switches to another phone brand.
It really is frustrating, especially since iMessage isn't even something they directly charge for and make a lot of money off of. If anything, it's hard to know how much it keeps people in the ecosystem or not -- but even if it does, it's sort of a "hostage taking" way to go about things and a rather unpleasant way to treat your users.
At the minimum, they should be embracing iMessage on multiple platforms, even if they charged non Mac/iOS users for the service -- and ideally they should simply be embracing interoperability.
That would show actual care and respect for their customers and potential future customers.
That "hostage taking" is also rather literal in situations where you try to switch to Android and iMessage unregistration fails, resulting in messages sent to you going to a limbo and never reaching you.
Yes, there should be an SMS fallback, but I've personally had a situation where messages never arrived before extra steps to remove iMessage enrollment were taken. After that I've often had iMessage turned off also when using an iPhone.
Absolutely true
I've done month+ long tests of Android phones in the past and I never did get SMS to my main number working correctly when I did it -- frustrated (and somewhat scared) me.
Now when I do those trials to evaluate devices, I use a burner number/SIM/plan
iMessage isn't even really keeping me on iPhone anymore truthfully. I'd probably still use it on my iPad and Hackintosh even if I switched to Android -- but nobody on any platform is even making a phone as small as I'd like (I'd like SE1 size or smaller)
My iPhone 13 mini is "fine", but I don't really enjoy holding it and using it like I did with smaller iPhones.
On the positive, it does get me to barely use the thing - which is probably good for me
I completely understand OP‘s story and you might be right to some degree.
Because I’m tied to the Apple ecosystem (my S.O. has an iPhone)… but I found a way to use an Android device while being among the ecosystem. I use a cellular iPad, so.. there are solutions to the problem. Apple provides 3 platforms (or 4 if you want to include watchOS) to use their ecosystem, being locked in would mean you only can use the iPhone.
There are iMessage alternatives on Android, which @aggie99 brought up and @spinedoc77 has an experiment on using Apple Watch with Android (specifically for iMessage).
While not as convenient as what it would be with iMessage on Android, or at the very least Apple adopting RCS for non iMessage messaging, having an iPad, Macbook Air, and AirMessage on my android devices really keeps me from wanting to reach back to my iPhone. With the latest update AirMessage appears to be more stable with less dropped connections. I usually have my iPad or MBA with me at work so I rarely if ever miss an iMessage. The hardest part was to get most of my frequent contacts to start messaging me through my Apple ID email. After getting past that part it's been relatively painless.
Out of curiosity, how do these imessage only users communicate with non iPhone users?
And do they all have macs to avoid typing on the phone when stationary?
At least here in Europe, „nobody“ uses iMessage, even those who have iPhones .
It reminds me of that Blackberry Messenger that only became „popular“ (not really) when it became available for ios and android. Before that, I couldn’t write to anyone with it on my otherwise fabulous Q10
And do they all have macs to avoid typing on the phone when stationary?
At least here in Europe, „nobody“ uses iMessage, even those who have iPhones .
It reminds me of that Blackberry Messenger that only became „popular“ (not really) when it became available for ios and android. Before that, I couldn’t write to anyone with it on my otherwise fabulous Q10
If you're into doing a full swap of hardware, just keep an old cheap iPhone for iMessage only! An iPhone 6 or SE would fit the bill, and can be got for basically nothing.
I use an iPhone 13 and Galaxy s22 plus. Most of my family uses iPhones. Now that Android allows reactions there is no real issue. I do turn iMessage off when using the s22 or some texts will not come through.
Mostly it is a non issue but there are times when a text doesn’t get through from me to someone else or vice versa.
I feel that this is a problem on Apples end and it just shouldn’t happen. Texting is important and needs to function the same across platforms. I don’t care what technology is being used be it iMessage or RCS or SMS they need to reliably communicate with each other. Tim Cook simply saying buy an iPhone shows it is purposeful so that it forces people to use their phones.
I like Apple devices but I also like to use other platforms and devices and I shouldn’t be punished for doing so. I don’t care if there are alternative apps, the default Apps should “just work” and work cross platform.
It seems illegal to me because texting can be extremely important and Apple and Google should work together so that a cross platform texting standard can be implemented. It seems Google has put forth more effort and Apple has brushed them off. If things get worse I can guarantee you that Apple will slowly start to lose customers. People know other people who use different devices and no one wants a headache because of a device they use purposely making their lives difficult.
Mostly it is a non issue but there are times when a text doesn’t get through from me to someone else or vice versa.
I feel that this is a problem on Apples end and it just shouldn’t happen. Texting is important and needs to function the same across platforms. I don’t care what technology is being used be it iMessage or RCS or SMS they need to reliably communicate with each other. Tim Cook simply saying buy an iPhone shows it is purposeful so that it forces people to use their phones.
I like Apple devices but I also like to use other platforms and devices and I shouldn’t be punished for doing so. I don’t care if there are alternative apps, the default Apps should “just work” and work cross platform.
It seems illegal to me because texting can be extremely important and Apple and Google should work together so that a cross platform texting standard can be implemented. It seems Google has put forth more effort and Apple has brushed them off. If things get worse I can guarantee you that Apple will slowly start to lose customers. People know other people who use different devices and no one wants a headache because of a device they use purposely making their lives difficult.
This attitude from Tim really rubs me the wrong way
His customers deserve much better than that attitude and the "results" that have come from it.