IIRC, Apple intended FaceTime to be an open standard but got sued by patent trolls and had to change the way they do it.
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Apple Has Created 'Detailed Mockups' of iMessage for Android
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It's my reason I returned to iOS from Android. That was the only thing I missed.
Google hangouts can do that.....so I don't see why iMessage couldn't be your SMS/Messaging app of choice on android.
I'm only learning in this thread that it's not the de-facto standard in the US - which begs the question, what cross platform messaging are Android users using in the US?
Actually I agree. It wouldn't be a loss of sales, since you HAVE to have an iPhone (I would make it a requirement). That keeps people on the iPhone and never looking back since they can still chat with their friends
Yes! I'd pay even more. I cannot track down every single one of my friends and tell them, hey I'm on WhatsApp, can you install and run that and not SMS me so I can respond to you anywhere? I get they have 400 million, but out of those 400 million, the 30 people I chat with don't have it installed. Some have telegram, some have other clients... too many. A common denominator would be nice. NOT another company trying to be the common denominator, we don't need another Facebook messenger trying to the be the "global standard". We need one that already is a global standard to just work even better.
Most US android users use basic text messaging or facebook messenger. If Apple did this they could probably own the U.S messanger market. Then rake in revenue from the Imessage store. As it stands right now the hardware market for Apple is too saturated they need to increase the revenue from their services. If you look at their revenue estimates for this year everything is down except services.
Well, there aren't that many people with iPhones in those countries hence the change of heart. And this is the reason Apple is considering Android version. While in US, iMessage may help them make iOS ecosystem "sticky" it's not the case abroad. With Android being on about 90% of mobile devices, nobody cares about iMessage over there and thus iMessage does not pull new customers to Apple products.
i think people are underestimating Apple's influence on their users. Making iMessage available on Android it willl just send some cats out to the Android platform, but at the same time, it might make some android users to switch to iOS once they get that "taste" of iOS. 90%+ are loyal to the platfrom, they wont leave just becuase a messaging app Android users dont need, really.
There is a standard. It's called SMS ha!
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Kinda not true. A lot of people I know (indian descent) all choose to communicate through WhatsApp even if they have iMessage. It seems as if it's easier that way because many choose to travel abroad, it's easy just sticking to one app. I don't know if it's a lack of education to those who may not know much about technology that iMessage works through data, thus being free.
I'm in Canada, but Everyone in my entourage uses iMessage, even my 76 year old aunt started using it on her iPad.
Even at work, I am in contact with people in France, Eastern Europe and Mexico and they also all use iMessage. So maybe it's not everywhere, but it's not only USA either.
Opening this up to more platforms (Android as this article states or Windows as has been suggested in the thread) just seems like it will make iMessage spam more prevalent. I would like to be able to use iMessage with the handful of people I am close with that aren't on iOS/MacOS but not at the expense of getting spam in iMessage. To date I've gotten a grand total of two spam messages (both reported to Apple). I just imaging that skyrocketing as spammers set up botnets with android emulators and iMessage hammering out advertisements for shady prescription medication and methodologies to earn me $1300 a week from the comfort of my home.
That's sweet of you to value your friends that much but I would certainly not pay that amount per year to text them
iMessage would have already been the de facto standard had Apple made it cross-platform some years ago.
If there is one think I repeatedly hear from people sitting on the fence about switching to Android, and/or what prompts some to run back to iOS, it's iMessage. You might not get die hard Android users to convert, but Apple would potentially lose a lot of people who have watched Android and the device manufacturers on that side push innovation while Apple remains stagnant.
Wow if they do this, it would make me lose one of the biggest reasons to keep my iPhone - the ability to use my computer to send texts/imessages in a mac environment using an app baked in to MacOS
As someone that has gone back and forth numerous times iMessage has nothing to do with my decision with using an iOs device. I'm just fine using whatsapp since it has web based functionality that I can on any computer anywhere or sms if someone actually doesn't have whatsapp installed which is rare.
Technically Whatsapp is better on android because you can actually non apple notification sounds for contacts/or default sound.