Apple's Rationale for Not Bringing iMessage to Android Revealed in Legal Documents

[sirdir]

Why not make it a paid app? Surely they could determine a profitable price point.

Compared to selling iPhones? Not so sure…

 

[thasan]

I live in the UK and pretty much everyone uses WhatsApp. I only send iMessages to my husband and a few select people

WhatsApp got deleted in my phone . iMessage only. and I’m from UK. Most people using iOS I know uses iMessage as primary messaging platform. everyone in family (11 people, around the world) is using iMessage as well as one of the key platforms.

 

[ruka.snow]

I don't go on too many forums like this, but I definitely started using WhatsApp because of international friends. Americans seemed to hardly be using it at the time. I joined when you had to pay $1 for a year though

All my international friends are on Discord and Skype. Some also have Telegram, but I haven't tried nor wished to try that.

 

[applicious84]

I think that capitalism among the world's largest companies really interferes with progress and equality. It's kind of gross, and Apple, Amazon, Google, and FB are all complicit and backwards with such an insular focus on profits. They're in a similar boat as aramco in the way they forcibly set/try to set the terms for industries, even if they're not entirely successful

 

[Juraj22]

Making software only for one platform is called "competitive advantage". This is why there are exclusive titles on game consoles, for example. I don't think that this is something new.

Also, moving iMessage to Android is not possible without dropping some key features. Nowadays it is not only a 'chat'.

Personally I feel that this is mostly Google/Operators fault, because they were not able to create compeling alternative. If ever sms/mms were good enough, and cheap, iMessage would not ever take off.

 

[applicious84]

All my international friends are on Discord and Skype. Some also have Telegram, but I haven't tried nor wished to try that.

I might just be old. Most people I know use Signal, WhatsApp, and text/iMessage. I def know people who use Telegram and Discord, but they're just more apps to me at this point, so I haven't even looked them up. How many apps can I text with?!

 

[JGIGS]

If Apple really cared about privacy it would had given us iMessage for Android.
Then we wouldn't need to install Whatsapp or other junk to talk to others with Android phones.
Everyone would just use iMessage on iPhone and Android and would instantly kill all other messaging services.
Plus Android does support SMS+Messaging app integration (look at Signal) so the experience would had been similar.
They could offer an ad-based version (ads only by Apple) or a bit cut down version as an alternative.

You lost me a bit on the ad's and I wouldn't say it would necessarily kill other messaging services (I think choice is still a good thing to have) But bang on with the privacy argument and I'd say our personal chat messages are the biggest thing people want kept private.

I think Apple could make the android version either a paid app or subscription based if they still wanted to give users a reason to stick with buying an iphone vs an Android phone and at least offset a good chunk of possible iphone sales loss with those paid app or subscription revenues. I personally don't make my phone purchases based on a chat app as I end up using other apps vs imessage as much as possible anyway because it's loses all it's feature with one on one chats with Android users and goup chats with Android users.

It's really more of an annoyance for Apple users who then have to have SMS messages with android uses which are far less secure and break a bunch of features in imessage.

 

[ruka.snow]

I might just be old. Most people I know use Signal, WhatsApp, and text/iMessage. I def know people who use Telegram and Discord, but they're just more apps to me at this point, so I haven't even looked them up. How many apps can I text with?!

I believe Discord was way before any of these. Long ago I decided I didn't want a dozen messaging apps so Skype and Discord are my main ones and Messages has always been used for SMS messages. Messages decides automatically to send via the SNS/MMS or IP. Signal and Telegram I believe are something of a replacement for MSN/Yahoo!, but those where better replaced why Discord.

 

[Taustin Powers]

Exactly. Hardly anyone you know.

Yes, that’s what I said. Congrats, your reading comprehension is quite good!

 

[JGIGS]

Apple really cares about privacy for its customers. Explain to be why Android users are Apple's customers and why Apple should enrich their main competitor.

I think the only way Apple can offer such a service is if it is a part of a subscription such as Apple One or Apple Music subscription.

It's a privacy issue for iPhone users since the conversations with Android contacts or other mobile OS users are over SMS vs. encrypted imessages.

 

[JGIGS]

Apple cares about privacy on its products and not on the products of other companies.

SMS messages with people using those other smartphones reduces privacy for apple users.

 

[Darth Tulhu]

I've been using Android forever and the chicks I've dated have always found a way to send me videos and pics... If your kids are actually being bullied, it's probably not because they have green text bubbles.

I used Android forever and was always able to receive vids and pics as well. That is not the issue.

Here is an older article about this:

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/2...gets-iphone-users-to-hate-android-users.shtml

 

[kk200]

It’s up to Apple at the end of the day. However if they let iMessage onto android a lot of users who stay with the iPhone for iMessage might leave. So it’s a smart move to keep it exclusive to Apple devices.

I don't use iMessage anymore, because all my friends, parents, colleagues are using different os and at the end, I always use the common chat apps which connect them all.

 

[Darth Tulhu]

Ok i know kids are kids and the mobile plans might wary, but are tere seriously still plans that don't have unlimeted sms? Or is it a case of animeted emojies being sent as mms eand hence costing mony, or has it nothing todo with the price of the messages?

Nothing to do with message prices. Just kids being kids, and even grownups being kids:

https://www.androidauthority.com/green-bubble-phenomenon-1021350/

 

[applicious84]

I believe Discord was way before any of these. Long ago I decided I didn't want a dozen messaging apps so Skype and Discord are my main ones and Messages has always been used for SMS messages. Messages decides automatically to send via the SNS/MMS or IP. Signal and Telegram I believe are something of a replacement for MSN/Yahoo!, but those where better replaced why Discord.

Yeah, Discord and Telegram were both way before Signal, and they're more secure than texting and WhatsApp. I just didn't know that many people at the time who were using them. I went to Signal because it was big among some journalists I knew

 

[subi257]

Don’t they use Wechat for everything?

But is WeChat a government mandated app or is it just the popular app there? I know that there is shopping and payment built into it. It is like Apple Pay, iMessage, etc all rolled into one.....from what a friend originally from China tells me.

 

[kk200]

I don't need to look at the market share. I just need to look outside and at my contacts. Every single one of them inside Scotland have a iPhone and again even the ones in England have a iPhone. If they don't have a iPhone they would automatically get a SMS message like anyone else on a feature phone.

I don't believe you at all. Show me the phone market sharing in Scotland.

 

[subi257]

I'm no fan of exclusivity and lock-in. But this sounds like a really moot point from Epic considering they themselves are paying developers for exclusivity on games to only be available within their own Epic Game Store on Windows.

It all becomes too much of a double standards situation for me when one company uses arguments about lock-in and exclusivity and how unfair it is for them when the very same company issues the same kind of tactics themselves when it benefits them.

I don't think a perfect world is possible achieve. How would that possibly work? Why would companies like Apple, Google, Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony etc invest billions in R&D and whatnot if the world becomes a place where everything is forced to be "open". What incentive do companies like Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony have to make great gaming hardware and to invest tons of money into game developers if they can't make the game exclusive to their own platform?

I hate exclusivity from a consumer standpoint. Why do I have to be forced to play Bloodborne on a PS4/PS5 with subpar graphics and 30 FPS when I would much rather play it on my Windows PC with much better graphics and performance? Me a consumer hates it, but form a business standpoint it wouldn't make much sense to have it any other way.

And forcing it to be any different would pretty much de-value it all for the companies pushing progress resulting in progress becoming much slower.


I have a hard time understanding the overall value of iMessage. I use it myself, but strictly for scenarios where I have to text someone. For everything else I use direct messaging using Telegram. I much rather have text messaging using iMessage over SMS as it's much more preferable from a functionality, security and privacy point of view but when I'm using it I have no idea if my message will be going to a green or blue receiver on the other end of the conversation.


I would actually end up using iMessage a lot more if it was cross-platform. There is nothing Telegram really provides me that iMessage is lacking other than me being able to run the software on Windows machines making my life 10x easier.

I completely agree with the thought that why would/should any company pour in millions/billions of dollars for the R&D to create a product, be it physical or IP to have there work turned into something public and it no longer serves the original purpose. That is also almost like canceling out their patent/copyright. These are private corporations that are there to make a profit by creating a sales advantage and things like these remove that advantage.

 

[kk200]

Everyone in the world that has an iPhone uses iMessage. They may also use other messaging platforms, but if they are sending an sms to anyone, they are using iMessage to do it.

I can not recall when I sent a SMS last time ...........

 

[ignatius345]

Hardly anyone I know uses iMessage, BECAUSE it's not available cross-platform. They all use WhatsApp, Signal, Threema, Telegram, whatever.

And everyone I know does use iMessage, because they almost all have iPhones -- and the few of them who don't I just send them SMS and life goes on without me having to check a million different messaging apps or touch anything from Facebook (or figure out what the hell "Threema" is).

 

[ignatius345]

If Apple really cared about privacy it would had given us iMessage for Android.
Then we wouldn't need to install Whatsapp or other junk to talk to others with Android phones.
Everyone would just use iMessage on iPhone and Android and would instantly kill all other messaging services.
Plus Android does support SMS+Messaging app integration (look at Signal) so the experience would had been similar.
They could offer an ad-based version (ads only by Apple) or a bit cut down version as an alternative.

What's weird here is that Apple DOES provide iCloud Drive to PCs, and made a PC version of iTunes for years, so they're not averse to programming for a rival platform if it gives them a toehold.

 

[Wowfunhappy]

I will never understand how iMessage of all things locks people to iOS
It’s not even that good

It doesn't have to be good.

Everyone I know uses iMessage. Therefore, to talk with them, I have to use iMessage.

 

[ignatius345]

But is WeChat a government mandated app or is it just the popular app there?

I think a bit of both. There's a pretty horrifying piece in the New Yorker this week about the detention camps in Xinjiang, and some people were put in for using "forbidden" apps. Or at least that was the pretext.

 

[JunBringer]

As a fanboy and user of both platforms, sure I'd love iMessage on Android. Of course it makes sense for them to not make it as well. Business is business dude.

 

[ericwn]

You can use something else too, it’s not a requirement to use WeChat. The government doesn’t own the protocol. Private sector companies are allowed to innovate and trump WeChat if they are able to. Before WeChat, it used to be QQ.

True that something else might overtake it, it just seemed the absolute dominant local market leader.