...because they don't want to be excluded from their friends' and families' group chats. And once they join the blue-bubble club, they of course partake in the chanting: "Blue bubbles only, please!", "The green bubbles mess up group chats on my iPhone!", "Images in green bubbles never look right!", etc.
>Also, most Googlers in the US use iPhone for personal and corp.
Is this why (as I understand it) Google has historically launched new apps/features on iOS first? I know firsthand that this is true for Google Voice (including before, during, and after the lengthy detour to Hangouts).
Ads get higher CPCs / CVVs on iPhone. Much higher compared to Android, when everything else is the same (country, gender, etc). If I were to pick one reason for iOS-first strategy, that would be it.
Google's messaging experience has been incoherent until the last couple of years. I switched long before that partially because of how awful the experience was, not because of blue bubbles.
Whenever I ask someone the point of using Android, I always get back an answer of "oh, it's because it prioritizes user choice, I can sideload APKs, it's cheap" or something along those lines. But I'm old, I just want a device that mostly works and nothing more than that, and Android (historically) hasn't been it. Worth noting that my iPhone 8 plus still receives updates, a support cycle that long is something unheard of in Android circles.
That's around the time of the Pixel 2 XL, IIRC. They wouldn't get base OS upgrades, except in emergencies.
I bet they are still getting updates Chrome, Gmail, Maps, and all the other core functionality from Google, though. Notably, the most security sensitive element is the system web browser. This also gets updated even when the base OS does not.
Android and iOS are different worlds. For most users, the update lifecycle differences are not large.
There's cross platform messengers like Signal. In EU most population uses WhatsApp as it's the most populat cross platform messenger here and if a first party experience for bot Android and iOS users without any bubble discrimination.
Why is Apple or Google the only messaging option for you? Those are not the only services on the market.
I feel like you're missing the forest from the trees here.
I use Signal. It's ok. I don't use it amongst friends or family because in the US we usually stick to what's installed by default on phones, which historically has been SMS or iMessage. The only people in my life that use Signal are a couple of my clients. They are only on Signal because as they have confided in me, they are distrustful of the government.
I can't really start a campaign to get people to switch to Signal, I don't have that much social capital to burn with my friends/family. And I personally would never use WhatsApp, and while I understand the history of its ubiquity, I can't bring myself to pull myself back into Mark Zuckerberg's ecosystem.
I find it really funny that having friends and family use a different app is considered bothersome but it isn't when they push you to buy a $500+ phone.
If they’re discussing the bubbles issue, then the existence of Signal/etc is somewhat irrelevant. It’s a social problem, not a technical one - and that friends group is on the blue bubble train.
Yes, the bubble issue does not exist if we use cross platform messaging apps. Nobody is forced to use iMessage. It' mostly an US issue.
Europeans, latin Americans and other large demographics, don't have the bubbles struggle because people don't default to iMessage but cross platform messaging platform to not discriminate anyone. Crazy, I know.
In Argentina everyone is on WhatsApp… but it’s not “to not discriminate anyone”. It’s because when WhatsApp came about we were still paying through the nose for SMS… so it was seen as “free text messages”. Then voice messages became super popular because it’s faster for people on phones with no/bad dictation and subpar/broken touchscreens and/or predictive not adjusted for local language (Spanish varies wildly from country to country, specially colloquially).
I know. I have lived outside the USA and this is not lost on me. You are missing the point though.
The social issue exists in the USA and that is what they're complaining about. It does not matter what the rest of the world does when this thread is based on that - in a thread about US iPhone market share, no less. Cross-platform-apps would've been the solution for this already if they had any shot of doing so.
Its because getting people to download and sign up for another app is friction. Everyone already SMS in america because its free, unlike other countries where you have to pay per message.
I have friends from Africa and India, and they use whats-app when communicating with people in their home country because it costs money to send regular SMS.
SMS is also free on most of Europe's plans. But apps are just much nicer. Encryption, photos (MMS really sucks). Easily having a group chat which is really a pain with SMS. Sending files... History on all my devices, full scroll back.
SMS is just so outdated.
The only problem with the apps is that people use different ones. But I use matrix with bridges to unifi them all into one. Very much like beeper.com .
I use many of the popular messaging apps regularly. In my experience, iMessage is unquestionably the highest quality and most reliable messaging app I use, everything else is a downgrade. Some people may care about blue bubbles, but most people just want messaging that doesn’t suck or randomly fail at its core purpose.
If people want to compete with Apple on iMessage, they need to offer a product that isn’t obviously inferior. The longer they wait, the harder it will be to displace iMessage in the iOS environment.
Maybe for teenagers. I have yet to meet anyone over the age of 16 who cares what color their "bubble" is. iMessage is good, but I would never pick my phone based on it.
My work issued phone is an iPhone 11, which was released in 2019. It is running the latest version of iOS and it is still buttery smooth and a joy to use. The equivalent Android phones released in 2019 would be a Samsung Galaxy S10 (last update was to Android 12) or a Pixel 4 (last update was Android 13).
I'm using Galaxy S10, and I'm not bothered that it runs Android 12 and not 13. It was updated over several releases, and I cannot tell the difference, except some cosmetic changes.
What is a crucial difference between Android and iOS: older Android releases do have updates for all apps, including those, that in iOS are bound to the system release, like the browser. So even old Android are getting current Chrome (or Firefox, if that's your choice), mail client, calendar, etc. With Android, new system release for existing device is just a number, as none of the critical apps are bound to it.
The big difference is security updates. I get every security update that Apple releases, on day one. Android users get whatever security updates their vendor decides to back port and their phone carrier decides to allow if the phone is carrier locked. The modularity of Android helps a lot but there are still important security advisories for the core OS that go unpatched on users phones.
I haven't used a Pixel 4, but my daily is a Pixel 5 that isn't really much more advanced. Its still pretty quick and very usable, and the battery has held up really well.
Everyone tells me that there are these mysterious kernel bugs that are super dangerous, but, tbh, I have yet to see evidence of that. The more important app layer still sees many updates, including a lot of key system components.
Well...they do mess up group chats, and images and other basic features usually don't work the best, so...what's wrong with this criticism?
I'm sure Google could figure out how to make it play along nicer (they already implemented reactions, so don’t give me bullshit telling me they can’t improve it more) or - better yet, create a more solid alternative.
That's not really Apple's job. They made a superior piece of software and reasonably want to use it to encourage people to their platform.
You might not like it - but it is allowed.
If you'd like the features Apple offers, you're welcome to move to their platform. :P
No different than if you'd legally like to watch Star Wars at home, you'll need Disney+.
Disney isn't somehow required to also offer it on Netflix. :P It's called a feature of the platform. If you'd like that feature, use that platform.
Your cousin doesn't have D+? Well, I guess y'all aren't chatting about the new episode of 'Andor' that dropped that week.
They don't have an iPhone? Guess y'all have to deal with green bubbles.
That's part of how platforms - necessarily - differentiate themselves from one another to encourage users to them, just like console exclusives.
When I was a kid, if you liked Sonic, you had a SEGA. If you liked Mario, you had a Nintendo.
Nobody in the world in the 90’s was expecting a Sonic game on a Nintendo console or vice versa.
I don’t know what changed that people are suddenly freaking out about this, lol.
It shouldn’t have to be explained in a group as highly intelligent as this one that this is simply basic anti-competitive practice.
If iMessage was everywhere it would be a monopoly and y’all would be clamouring for some alternative anyway. :P
There’s literally just no pleasing some of you, lol.
Unsure if you're being obtuse or sarcastic. However in case this is an actual reply, there are a lot of things wrong with it - they produce a closed ecosystem and deliberately hobble interoperability. These kinds of tactics are called platform abuse, but they have also conditioned a sizeable chunk of the population to consider it, and the ensuing behaviors, completely acceptable and moral. If anything, users should be asking for better interoperability, but the fact that I regularly see comments like yours makes me realize that their corporate brainwashing is successful, and secondly, glad that I do not live in that country.
What I think is missed in this conversation is that this behavior seems to be almost exclusive to America as the rest of the world has moved onto WhatsApp. The "blue bubble" rants, to me are like complaining that google's messenger doesn't work with WhatsApp. I'm not sympathetic to Google here. They shit the bed on messaging for years, and now Apple must open up.
Why it would be it only Google's problem to solve?
There are several companies that already solved it, the world moved on, but only certain groups are harping on Apple and Google, nothing else. Why? Just use something else, Whatsapp, Signal, Telegram, they all work beautifully and are significantly popular.
This isn't a technical problem and you're more or less trying to say it is.
There is a duopoloy in phone offerings and people in the USA just do it this way. If Google wants their market share - and to push back against Apple's offerings and prized position socially marked via bubble color - then it's on them. No other app is going to overcome the social issue here.
I'm not saying that it is technical problem. I don't know, how you would arrive to such conclusion based on my comment.
I'm saying that there's no reason why messaging should be put into hand of platform owners. The world is bigger, and if a third party makes a good entry, why ignore it and insist, that only Google and Apple are allowed?
Makes total and complete sense, and seems absolutely anti-ridiculous.
Group chats also work fine if we’re all using Messenger - group chats work just fine if we are all using Signal - it’s almost as if software works as expected if it’s being used as expected.
Mind blowing, I know.
There is no other major chat platform that offers interoperability with services the platform owner does not own.
(Messenger and Instagram just got some sort of interoperability, but since they are both Meta properties, it only helps prove my point.)
What’s beyond ridiculous is to expect a SEGA Genesis cartridge to just run, unmodified on an SNES, which is what you’re demanding, here.
Yeah, a group game of Super Mario Kart 64 works awesomely on an actual N64 with a real cartridge and four controllers - but hey, why doesn’t it work the same on my PS1?
Well, fuck Nintendo for not opening up their game to other platforms! They have awful business practices!
…
…now that’s ridiculous shit, and what you’re almost literally saying; word for word, just with different hardware and software.
(The PS1 doesn’t even have 4 controller ports out of the box, even if it could run N64 software unmodified. The PS1 also had its own exclusives and benefits, such as Final Fantasy 7. Both platforms had their advantages and disadvantages. The N64 was far more powerful, but was hampered by cartridges, whereas the PS1 used CD media and could store much more, but push far less polygons.)
Why on Earth would it be Nintendo’s responsibility to make sure Kart 64 plays great on a PS1?
Isn’t half the point of a first party software release (either Kart 64 or iMessage) to provide a reason for users/players to choose that platform instead of whichever alternative?
Should GarageBand/Logic or iMovie/Final Cut suddenly be ported to Windows or Linux as well?
At what point does the ridiculous demand for interoperability stop? What do you want, only one monopolistic set of hardware and software for everything?
MMS supports video, just very poorly, so one makes that mistake once and then learns to send links to YouTube, Twitter, Reddit, or whatever. IMHO that's vastly preferable anyway.
Any messaging protocol that puts the mobile telecoms as the operator and man-in-the-middle, like RCS, is a terrible idea. It would be like putting Comcast in charge of the Internet. I can think of few companies I trust less with critical app infrastructure.
Erm, SMS has been solid for decades. RCS is end to end encrypted. It's not a "terrible" idea and it's nothing like putting Comcast in charge of the internet, that's just hyperbole.
It's still a protocol that was designed specifically to have the Telco take an active role in the message handling again, something that they lost with the decline of SMS.
Personally I'm very happy for my Telco to just be a dumb pipe that supplies internet bits. Especially because that means I can get at my bits anywhere, not just on blessed networks. They're not however, they want lucrative "value add" features. Features that will have all sorts of strings attached.
But anyway, luckily RCS is dead. I'm not sure how they thought marketing "RCS" against WhatsApp could possibly work. Sure SMS was also a complex acronym but it only took off because there was nothing else. Acronyms are eschewed now by the mainstream. And even as a tech person I'm really happy not having to say "double you double you double you" anymore.
Maybe I'm just narrow minded but I don't really see much way to improve upon existing chat software. The crux of the matter is iMessage is the default on iOS and the majority of users don't swap off for a multitude of reasons.
Cannot tell if this is satire. But if you're serious: https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/8/23343336/apple-tim-cook-im... This issue only exists because Apple stubbornly refuses to join the standard because showcasing how bad Android functions in iPhone Group chats sells iPhones. If they joined, everyone would have the same functionality, but basing the decision purely on money means that'll never happen.
