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BlackBerry CEO Says U.S. Government Should Force Apple to Expand iMessage to Other Platforms
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Because we live in the real world, where people are free to use their time how they see fit. It's narcissistic to say developer X, Y, & Z must appease me & build apps for my platform P. Who are you to demand anything? Pay & play or go away.
In September, Tim said 200M phones can use the watch. When it launches in March(?) there will be nearly 300M phones that can, assuming sales predictions are correct. By this time next year, there will likely be over 400M. That's a plenty big market. All future iPhones will work with the watch. So as older phones are replaced, the percentage of iPhones able to work with the watch will continue to grow.
OR instead of complaining they could just make BBM as good as iMessage (which really shouldn't be that hard). The only thing that makes me use iMessage is that its the default SMS app anyway, so I don't have to do anything special in order to use it. If BBM was sending standard SMS text messages and BBMs and switched between the two automatically depending on if the recipient had BBM or not I would be all over it
I really do like the integrated access to Messages and Facetime on my Mac and iPhone. I don't know that I'd expect them to deliver any of that to iCloud.com, though, at least not in the near future.
you've missed the point
they all aim at 100% of the market. they just have an expensive product. its a different thing. The barrier to purchasing a rolex isn't what handedness you are or something similar. 100% of consumers can buy a rolex if they can afford it
What happening in the phone industry is that software isn't taking this approach. you have developers who are saying "i'm only going to program for iOS". they've purposely limited their audience who can purchase their item."
Sorry. I thought I was reading news stories on Macrumors. I didn't realize that I somehow was redirected to The Onion....oh wait... I wasn't? That is real???
Blackberry, can I be your CEO? I can make ludicrous statements and demands too that have no business sense or value whatsoever, either!!
Blackberry, can I be your CEO? I can make ludicrous statements and demands too that have no business sense or value whatsoever, either!!
Is it tied to MY number though? Cause I mean with my mobile number not a new one. My google voice lets me text to a different number.
Developers go where the money goes. For now thats iOS. iPhone users tend to buy apps more then on competing platforms. Along with other factors such as smaller user base ( Windows Mobile ) Complexity of programming for multiple platforms vs cost. So all these factors in if developing is worth it on multiple platforms.
Edited for brevity.
The reason why I wouldn't want iMessage to be opened up to other entities is because a service is only as secure as its implementation. It's not just a matter of conforming to some API or protocol, it depends on many many implementation details, on the devices, on the server back-end, between the various servers, how the data is persisted to disk. The stronger the company providing the service is, the more they can resist government intrusion, or have the resources to resist hacking attacks, and the poorer the company, the more desperate they are, and likely to receive payment for compromising the system, or simply not afford the effort to keep it secure.
So to answer your general question, yes I would like every service on every platform, if that was magically possible without compromise. But, given the possible or likely compromises, no, I don't want to open pandora's box.
The reason why I wouldn't want iMessage to be opened up to other entities is because a service is only as secure as its implementation. It's not just a matter of conforming to some API or protocol, it depends on many many implementation details, on the devices, on the server back-end, between the various servers, how the data is persisted to disk. The stronger the company providing the service is, the more they can resist government intrusion, or have the resources to resist hacking attacks, and the poorer the company, the more desperate they are, and likely to receive payment for compromising the system, or simply not afford the effort to keep it secure.
So to answer your general question, yes I would like every service on every platform, if that was magically possible without compromise. But, given the possible or likely compromises, no, I don't want to open pandora's box.
oh I get the reasoning and if you're a business it's a decision you have to make.
That right now is on Blackberry though. its one of those instances where a developer doesn't have unfetted 100% market access because of reasons out of their control.
Blackberry is the company that cose to segment the market by requiring a whole new level of coding for it's native apps. If you're a small time developer, you should want to develope for them still, but its costly and unreasonable.
if I were a mobile dev, I wouldn't be programming for them either.
Yah, wasn't there a company called Orange, too? Haven't seen them in the new much lately.
True, but not every developer has unlimited time and resources to go after every computing platform. They're going to go after the best return on their limited investment, which ever platform that may be.
If we're using Apple and iMessage as the example, yes, they probably have the time and resources, but iMessage is a product differentiator. It's been working out for them so far. We'll see if that continues.
I think that as long as Apple's servers are in the middle, they can guarantee that either a message is sent from A to B with nobody other than B being able to read the message, or that the message cannot be read by B and by anyone else (that would happen if for example an Android app didn't implement the iMessage protocol directly).
Where you are right is that once the message has been sent from A to B, anyone who hacks into A directly or hacks into B directly may be able to read the message. But then if B puts an unlocked iPhone on the table and walks away for a minute, anyone can read that message as well.
Because then there would be no "Apple" advantage in the software arena. I've encouraged people to buy iPads simply because of FaceTime being superior to Skype, in our particular situation (international calls).
In an imaginary world, that's a great idea. In the real world, it's not going to happen. What financial advantage would Apple get by releasing it to Blackberry or Android? They don't bombard us with ads in iMessage today, so what revenue would they get from releasing it to other platforms, which could be used to offset the additional hardware needed and hosting requirements necessary to support all those other users? None.
In a perfect world, I'd like it if Justin Verlander would let me sleep with Kate Upton just because I wanted to, but that's not going to happen either.
Well, sometimes "government should force" is correct. Surely government should for example force companies not to sell phone chargers that catch fire or kill people.
It's because those developers have looked at the market and determined there is a much greater ROI selling iOS apps. It really is that simple. All the Android phone variations contribute to significantly higher development costs, for a market that has been proven to prefer free apps over paid apps by a wide margin.
iMessage is far from perfect and I doubt it generates any extra device sales.
There is absolutely no reason why Google, Microsoft, Apple, Blackberry and everyone else couldn't get together and hook up their different messaging systems. It would mean all messages were sent safely and quickly via data, rather than charges being incurred for SMS.
Apple aren't doing anyone a favour by keeping iMessage proprietary.
There is absolutely no reason why Google, Microsoft, Apple, Blackberry and everyone else couldn't get together and hook up their different messaging systems. It would mean all messages were sent safely and quickly via data, rather than charges being incurred for SMS.
Apple aren't doing anyone a favour by keeping iMessage proprietary.
As a user, of course I *want* my preferred software of whatever type available on my preferred device. But it's insane to *require* that all software be available on every device that someone might prefer.
E.g. Suppose I develop The Funnest Game Ever and release it on iOS. It's actually a pretty small and simple game so it might have taken me about a year and cost $500K to develop. I make several million and I'm happy!
Pretty soon some Android users hear about it and demand I make it available to them. OK, I spend another 200K and four months to release an Android version (I suspected I might want to support other platforms so I used cross-platform technologies which is how I was able to do the swings platform so quickly. It works out OK financially, too. I make another million in Android.
But wait. My android version only worked for 4.0 and later. People with 2.3.3 devices are complaining. And my cross platform tools don't support 2.3.3. I don't want the Feds to come after me, so I spend 500k to release the game for 2.3.3 devices... And I make only 100k!
Then someone with an Amiga files a complaint! Not only do I have to rewrite the game from stratch, I have redesign it to work sitting the limitation of the Amiga and hire some lunatics from the Amiga demoscene which are the only peoplei could find that could (sorta) make the game work on an Amiga. This cost me almost $1 million and I got only $5 in sales from a lone purchase from some 46 year old guy in the UK!
Then Piggie contacts me, expressing his revolving preferences for all the devices his signature...
... And I go out of business.
There's "application neutrality". It would make it impractical for anyone to release software, or at least software that anyone actually wanted to use.
Service neutrality make only a little more sense. But there are still technical and content licensing issues even if you set aside the service providers own strategic business issues.
