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I would have switched to android this year due to high iPhone XS price had it not been the “need” to stay in iMessages. When most of your friends are having a b
by rigidglobe 8y ago
I would have switched to android this year due to high iPhone XS price had it not been the “need” to stay in iMessages. When most of your friends are having a blue chat bubble, you don’t want to be “that guy”.
iMessages is apples secret weapon and I’m surprised android hasn’t done their own iMessages api where all android can interoperable. Or at the very least why hasnt Samsung done their own?
Finally, other secret sauces apple has that keeps their customers in place: iCloud Keychain (very handy when switching between multiple iPads, MacBook, iPhone) without the need to pay a third party password vendor (whose security is not backed by a one trillion dollar market cap).
iCloud sync: easy way for app devs to sync and for customers to have automated syncing between multiple devices that “just works”. I don’t know if android has such easy syncing between different android manufacturers (ie Samsung phone to asus tablet to chrome book, for example). I doubt it.
Finally really nice features like Handoff where my safari tabs are all synced automatically between multiple iPads, iPhone, and MacBook.
And final finally: part of the high price I pay for using apple evosystem is security: I know that safari (unlike chrome) isn’t bent in tracking my every move in order to sell me more ads; or that my cloud password manager is safe (even safety in numbers in terms of security by obsurity (one in many iOS users) backed by a trillion dollar company: pretty sure nobody wants to f with that); my os isn’t bent on tracking my every move or file to analyze later (chromeos, google calendar, google docs); apple has hard stops in place on apps from over snooping (android apps such as fb tracking your calls and sms data); you pay once for your apps and then you can reuse them on the next iphone (app devs are free to release new versions or discontinue support in some reasonable timeframe); and finally all of the above is in apples interest to do for you as long as you pay more for hardware.
Heck even windows 10 tracks your every move and tried to serve you ads. Office has become a yearly subscription model (ewww!). Google offers you free products but you know your every move is tracked and stored into some obscure database only to be analyzed and used some years down the line.
I have been tempted for a while now to switch to android due to cheaper phones but the above benefits are just too strong right now for me to give up over the worry of being labeled some kind of apple fan boy (I’m not; my first smartphone was a galaxy s1 and I prefers thinkpads).
At this point, apple is a service company which offers a lifetime subscription model with free upgrades in exchange for high hardware prices. I’ll take that over security issues, data tracking, and highly convenient features that all “just work”.
- jimmyspice 8y ago> I’m surprised android hasn’t done their own iMessages api where all android can interoperable Google have tried this at too high a level (allo and duo). I guess the reason why it wasn't made for AOSP and instead put on the play store is because they want the masses to be using a Google product. A bit of a shame, since given android ownership rates a 'free' service like that over IP would be cool. Maybe the real problem with that is deciding who controls the servers handling this data or something.
- rigidglobe 8y agointeresting ! Google has strategists of all kinds in place, I wonder if they would make a stupid short term blunder of greed in owning an app over offering a free api for their business customers to compete against the apple juggernaut. The data ownership issue is real; seems to be a tough problem to solve given that not every manufacturer would play ball (why would Samsung want to yield their hard earned ecosystem to upstarts who plan to uproot them?). And also the security implications too, with so many smaller players in the android game (similar to fb issue with letting their other api users have access to user messages). It does not seem possible for google to solve this problem for a long time, since they seem to rely on ad revenue to invest in their other businesses. I don’t foresee apple going down any time soon due to that one issue that google has alone.
- kkarakk 8y agowhatsapp has already replaced iMessage in most of the english speaking world. in fact i'd say anyone using iMessage outside the US is the anachronism. i had to explain the concept of how iMessage uses the internet to send messages to someone else with an iPhone instead of SMS to someone in the middle east for example whatsapp has fast caught up in features too - you can send and receive files/music clips/gifs etc. animoji/blue checkbox isn't enough of a differentiating factor to matter
- rigidglobe 8y agoWhatsApp suffers from the same issue that android has: its owned by an ad revenue company, and one that already has built a dubious reputation (warranted or not) for privacy and security. The thing is - the cultural inertia of the USA is huge. American culture has a thing about not giving a flying f what the rest of the world is doing. In that sense, if nobody can defeat iMessage on American cultural ground, it makes it hard for the other messaging guys to look cool or legit. IMHO all message networks and social networks is built solely on inertia and I don’t think the inertia of any one region of the world can overcome that of the USA. Maybe if WhatsApp can take over the entire rest of the world - but China is lost already and so the war is already over.