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As a recent iOS user coming from Android, this almost makes me want to go back. I really do miss the Smart Reply and native Google Assistant features. But alas,

As a recent iOS user coming from Android, this almost makes me want to go back. I really do miss the Smart Reply and native Google Assistant features. But alas, iMessage pressure is real in my friend's group.

gowld 7y ago
How does the pressure manifest?
- bsamuels 7y ago
  as dumb as it sounds, nobody likes to be a green bubble
  - placatedmayhem 7y ago
    It's not just green bubbles. Tapbacks are awkward and pictures and videos don't send as reliably. With my "green bubble" friends, we usually use Telegram or Signal or Keybase instead. I'd love to see a standardized IM/Text protocol instead of 1000 fragmented platforms. I've got on the order of 10 chat apps on my phone right now, all used in different contexts.
    - izacus 7y ago
      > I'd love to see a standardized IM/Text protocol instead of 1000 fragmented platforms. I've got on the order of 10 chat apps on my phone right now, all used in different contexts. Apple could easily open the protocol, but they won't. They also won't use any of the other ones so as long as you'll be using iOS, you'll be in the iMessage garden and everyone else will be in another garden.
    - ptx 7y ago
      Try Matrix[1]. It's a protocol specification with multiple open-source implementations. It has federation so that you can choose which server to use (or run your own) and still communicate with everyone else. It has end-to-end encryption (although at the moment it only works in one client, but it's coming along). [1] https://matrix.org/ https://matrix.org/
      - oehtXRwMkIs 7y ago
        Agreed, it's like signal on steroids.
    - kbenson 7y ago
      > I'd love to see a standardized IM/Text protocol instead of 1000 fragmented platforms. I'm hoping that's what RCS[1] will be (ids? And that's why I referenced it above). It's supposed to by the successor to SMS, but it's been around for quite a while and not adopted, so I'm not sure what's going on with it. Edit: It looks like as of a couple months ago it's live in the UK and France, and just those two countries.[2] 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Communication_Services https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Communication_Services 2: https://9to5google.com/2019/07/01/rcs-hands-on-not-quite-imessage-for-android/ https://9to5google.com/2019/07/01/rcs-hands-on-not-quite-ime...
      - JohnFen 7y ago
        The problem is that, as near as I can tell, RCS will eliminate much of what makes SMS an attractive thing.
    - CountSessine 7y ago
      If you have kids that you communicate with, stickers and iMessage apps like bitmoji are a big deal, and Whatsapp doesn’t have them. Whatsapp really seems to be missing the boat with tweens and teens - that’s cant be good for their future.
      - snazz 7y ago
        I spend lots of time with my teenage nephew—it’s all iMessage, Snapchat, Discord, GroupMe (surprisingly, because I’m old enough to use that!), and sometimes even Instagram DMs. Granted, he lives in the US, so that might change things.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - Hamuko 7y ago
    Must be an American problem. Never heard anyone outside of the US talk about the colour of the bubbles. Everyone uses Whatsapp here.
  - JohnFen 7y ago
    > nobody likes to be a green bubble Lots of people don't care at all. The only time I hear about this whole "green bubble bad" thing is online. In real life, I have never once encountered this sentiment. (I'm not saying this sentiment doesn't exist IRL, I'm saying that it's not universal.)
    - jyrkesh 7y ago
      Eh, don't want to make any assumptions on your age, but I'm young enough that iPhones were introduced around when I was in middle/high school. Here in the US, living in an upper-middle class area, lots of kids got them right off the bat. I've never had anyone SERIOUSLY be mad about me being the green bubble, but when you're doing large group text coordination and someone drops me in, then starts doing tapbacks and sending rich media, I get some shit. And it gets thrown out as a joke in general conversation all the time. "Oh, he's a GREEN bubble..."
      - JohnFen 7y ago
        > Here in the US, living in an upper-middle class area, lots of kids got them right off the bat. I'm sure that correct, but how common iPhones are, even amongst your age group, greatly depends on where in the US you are. In my area, iPhones are not nearly as common as they are in other areas, and there is generally little peer pressure in the grade/high schools to have them. Having a smartphone generally is expected, but few people care about whether or not it's an iPhone.
  - izzydata 7y ago
    I've never heard of this until today, but green is my favorite color. I am confused how two functioning adults can care about this. It sounds like an unreasonably childish thing to care about. If someone has different phone then you and they want you to change to appease them then tell them to deal with it.
    - dkonofalski 7y ago
      The color is simply an indicator of an inferior system. It's not the color itself that people care about. They care about the encryption, quality of media, timestamps, delivery receipts, etc.
- garysahota93 7y ago
  I've had a few friends passive aggressively mention I am the reason our group chat is MMS vs iMessage. Or even worse: I just simply got excluded from group chats. That was the saddest one because when hanging out in person, a friend will mention a conversation from the group chat and I wouldn't know what's going on and they would just awkwardly pretend it didn't happen. Or say they'd add me to the group and never actually do it. iMessage FOMO is a real thing and the social pressure (in the US at least) is insane.
  - kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
    Blue bubbles good. Green bubbles bad.
  - JohnFen 7y ago
    > the social pressure (in the US at least) is insane. This isn't a US-wide thing. This is about the priorities of a certain subculture, nothing more. Your friends just happen to be embedded in that subculture. My condolences.
    - wuliwong 7y ago
      The subculture of people who have iPhones? As much as Apple would want this to be, I don't believe there is a cohesive subculture that describes all iPhone users.
      - vitobcn 7y ago
        In my experience, in most countries (and outside the US especially) WhatsApp has already won the network effects battle, and it's the default messaging app in any smartphone. Even people with iPhone will all have WhatsApp installed.
        ubercow13 7y ago
        In western Europe maybe, not in Asia for example
kbenson 7y ago
> But alas, iMessage pressure is real in my friend's group. Man, in my extended family SMS text group, this comes up once every couple weeks. One of us will note they aren't getting a random message, or someone will send a video and the quality will be crap, and the iPhone users will all mention how if we all had iPhones, this wouldn't be a problem. Cue a few of is getting kind of triggered because it's only Apple's co-opting of SMS on their phones that those people think that's really an Android problem and not some slick marketing on Apple's end to get their users to tell other people how their SMS texting is so much better. Not that we couldn't all just switch to some third party app (or hangouts even), and then we'd all have a comparable experience, but that's entirely lost on most of them, and not worth griping about after the first or second time or you come across as that weird relative that can't just do the easy thing[1]). I can't wait for RCS messaging. I'm honestly wondering it Apple will support it, or try to segment the text messaging market even more. 1: As if buying a $750 phone is the "easy thing". Edit: Changed $1000 to $750, since that's the lowest cost I could find for a 1 year old phone, and I don't think buying multiple year old hardware is something you can expect out of someone else, even if it might be my preferred strategy).
- robertoandred 7y ago
  iPhones start at $450.
  - kbenson 7y ago
    That right, you're correct. If I want to buy a new phone that's three years old, I can pay $450 for an iPhone 7. Or $600 for a 2 year old phone, or $750, for a phone released a year ago, which is more what I would consider when buying a new phone (why would I buy a new phone that's multiple years old hardware?). So, I think $750 is a fair amount to reference, and I agree that $1000 is a bit high.
    - coding123 7y ago
      That's why I paid 475 for the OnePlus 7 (not the pro I can't stand the pop out camera). I was going in for the latest tech, I don't want 3 year old tech for that price.
bhahn 7y ago
iMessage pressure is real for me too. I was considering switching to an iPhone for a while but found air message and have been using it for a few weeks. It doesn't have all the features of iMessage, but core messaging works pretty well and I haven't felt a need to switch to an iPhone. https://airmessage.org/ https://airmessage.org/
- rolltiide 7y ago
  do you appear as an iOS user to actual iOS users? I can't tell from the website
  - kbenson 7y ago
    Given that the installation guide[1] says you need "A computer running OS X 10.10 Yosemite or higher (and a place for it to stay)" I'm pretty sure they are just relaying your messages through an actual desktop iMessage instance, so probably. I imagine a lot of Android users don't have a computer running MacOS to do this though, so while a cool solution, it probably doesn't help the majority of people. 1: https://airmessage.org/guide/ https://airmessage.org/guide/
- runako 7y ago
  This is an interesting workaround. People forget that part of the point of different colors for iMessage vs SMS was to indicate that iMessage is encrypted and SMS isn't. It's also a handy marketing thing, but there is a technical justification for making a visible distinction. AirMessage is basically a proxy that strips encryption for Android devices: "AirMessage leverages the power of your Mac computer in order to route messages to and from Apple's iMessage servers. The server is to be installed on a computer at home, and will pass messages to and from your smartphone to allow the usage of iMessage and other installed services."
  - untog 7y ago
    Does it re-encrypt them when sending, though? I would have to assume they've at least looked at doing that, otherwise it's a giant security hole.
camone 7y ago
Also as a recent iOS user, I don't understand why. Other than live captions, sound amp and family link, most new features have been on iOS for a while, and will actually improve on iOS 13 (e.g. apps have to ask for location access each time, besides the current 3 options). Seems like they're trying to catch up to iOS.
- elbrian 7y ago
  What is difficult to understand about OP wanting features that iOS does not offer?
  - nxc18 7y ago
    Its more the massive privacy, security, longevity, and performance penalty you pay switching to Android that causes concern. Android has some nifty features depending on device, but the core experience just isn’t there. (E.g. I figured chrome on Android has to be faster than Chrome on iOS - nope, my XR consistently beat a Pixel 3 side-by-side) My iPhone 6S from 2015 is still in service and fast; I gave it to my mom when I upgraded and she’s very happy with it. It still gets updates.
    - ktta 7y ago
      FYI, chrome on iOS's core is just Safari's
      - nxc18 7y ago
        I know, if anything that makes it more embarrassing for Android - Google controls that whole system and they're still not beating WKWebview on their flagship device. Going between Android and iOS, that's one of the hardest aspects that I think gets overlooked - the browser is just slower and its noticeable. I pointed out the flagship device in this case, but its no better on the lower end devices.
        The_rationalist 7y ago
JCharante 7y ago
What kind of circles is everyone in? I didn't realize that tapbacks had a name, and wondered why I'd occasionally see a message like: A: foo B: liked "foo" but I just use either Messenger, Wechat, or Snapchat. The only time I open my SMS app is to view 2FA Codes.
ModsCtrlideas 7y ago
Consider by not contributing to the Apple Ecosystem you create a better environment for developers and customers.
rkagerer 7y ago
That's ironic, this page makes me want to switch to iOS for my next phone. Aside from the annoyingness of the page... Too many things here are patched on top what ought to be core. Eg. Pausing annoying apps. IMO apps ought to default to off in the first place until you turn them on. Very little detail about these new privacy controls. Sounds like Google-centric lipstick. Dark theme is exciting; embarrassing it took so long. Hopefully I'm proven wrong...
rb808 7y ago
FB messenger really solved the cross platform group chat problem for me. Allows for video chat too to replace facetime.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  I've got ten year olds who love texting their relatives, and I'm not willing to send my kids into the Facebook meatgrinder yet.
  - derefr 7y ago
    You can be signed up for Messenger without being signed up for Facebook, I think. (Or, at least, you can deactivate a Facebook account and still use Messenger.)
    - ceejayoz 7y ago
      Sure, but that's still Facebook. I don't want Facebook having any level of access to under-13 minors' devices.
    - cookie_monsta 7y ago
      Does deactivating Facebook mean anything on the user side? I remember trying to delete my FB account (Which in their parlance is a different thing) some years ago and it was an oblique nightmare
- filoleg 7y ago
  Minor nitpick, but the quality of compression for pictures/video sent over FB Messenger is atrocious compared to that of iMessage. Like, we aren't talking just technicalities, it is very visually obvious and jarring. Same when it comes to video chat, Discord and FaceTime have waaaaay better quality and reliability.
iwasakabukiman 7y ago
> But alas, iMessage pressure is real in my friend's group. I've never had this from my friends. I read about this all the time and all I can think is, "Why would I be friends with people who care about that enough to peer pressure me into using an iPhone?"
- _fzslm 7y ago
  It sounds super common in the US. In the UK, we either settle with Messenger (ugh, but at least it's cross-platform) or WhatsApp.
- dkonofalski 7y ago
  Because there are some huge, genuinely great benefits to using it. No one really cares that much but, when the difference between the two experiences is as great as it currently is, it really affects the conversation. For example, we don't really pressure friends to buy iPhones but we legitimately have a separate conversation group for just iOS users from the main SMS group chat so we can send images, video, or other media at full quality. Most of us are pretty tech savvy too so we're not really keen on using WhatsApp or Telegram or any of the other dirty data apps.
  - snazz 7y ago
    iMessage sends messages via cell data (or WiFi) too, if that’s what you meant by “dirty data app”.
    - dkonofalski 7y ago
      No, I mean "dirty data" as in all your data is collected and there's very little transparency regarding what those apps/companies are doing with your data. I haven't exhaustively tested all these apps but I have tested a few and know that Apple doesn't send any information or data from iMessage to their servers that isn't encrypted on-device. Unlike these other apps, Apple couldn't leak your data or usage from these apps because it's never collected in the first place.
  - 7y ago
mderazon 7y ago
Is there a case for an Apple antitrust in the US due to this issue ? How is it different than MS baking IE into their OS back in the days ?

gowld 7y ago

How does the pressure manifest?

bsamuels 7y ago
as dumb as it sounds, nobody likes to be a green bubble
- placatedmayhem 7y ago
  It's not just green bubbles. Tapbacks are awkward and pictures and videos don't send as reliably. With my "green bubble" friends, we usually use Telegram or Signal or Keybase instead. I'd love to see a standardized IM/Text protocol instead of 1000 fragmented platforms. I've got on the order of 10 chat apps on my phone right now, all used in different contexts.
  - izacus 7y ago
    > I'd love to see a standardized IM/Text protocol instead of 1000 fragmented platforms. I've got on the order of 10 chat apps on my phone right now, all used in different contexts. Apple could easily open the protocol, but they won't. They also won't use any of the other ones so as long as you'll be using iOS, you'll be in the iMessage garden and everyone else will be in another garden.
  - ptx 7y ago
    Try Matrix[1]. It's a protocol specification with multiple open-source implementations. It has federation so that you can choose which server to use (or run your own) and still communicate with everyone else. It has end-to-end encryption (although at the moment it only works in one client, but it's coming along). [1] https://matrix.org/ https://matrix.org/
    - oehtXRwMkIs 7y ago
      Agreed, it's like signal on steroids.
  - kbenson 7y ago
    > I'd love to see a standardized IM/Text protocol instead of 1000 fragmented platforms. I'm hoping that's what RCS[1] will be (ids? And that's why I referenced it above). It's supposed to by the successor to SMS, but it's been around for quite a while and not adopted, so I'm not sure what's going on with it. Edit: It looks like as of a couple months ago it's live in the UK and France, and just those two countries.[2] 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Communication_Services https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Communication_Services 2: https://9to5google.com/2019/07/01/rcs-hands-on-not-quite-imessage-for-android/ https://9to5google.com/2019/07/01/rcs-hands-on-not-quite-ime...
    - JohnFen 7y ago
      The problem is that, as near as I can tell, RCS will eliminate much of what makes SMS an attractive thing.
  - CountSessine 7y ago
    If you have kids that you communicate with, stickers and iMessage apps like bitmoji are a big deal, and Whatsapp doesn’t have them. Whatsapp really seems to be missing the boat with tweens and teens - that’s cant be good for their future.
    - snazz 7y ago
      I spend lots of time with my teenage nephew—it’s all iMessage, Snapchat, Discord, GroupMe (surprisingly, because I’m old enough to use that!), and sometimes even Instagram DMs. Granted, he lives in the US, so that might change things.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- Hamuko 7y ago
  Must be an American problem. Never heard anyone outside of the US talk about the colour of the bubbles. Everyone uses Whatsapp here.
- JohnFen 7y ago
  > nobody likes to be a green bubble Lots of people don't care at all. The only time I hear about this whole "green bubble bad" thing is online. In real life, I have never once encountered this sentiment. (I'm not saying this sentiment doesn't exist IRL, I'm saying that it's not universal.)
  - jyrkesh 7y ago
    Eh, don't want to make any assumptions on your age, but I'm young enough that iPhones were introduced around when I was in middle/high school. Here in the US, living in an upper-middle class area, lots of kids got them right off the bat. I've never had anyone SERIOUSLY be mad about me being the green bubble, but when you're doing large group text coordination and someone drops me in, then starts doing tapbacks and sending rich media, I get some shit. And it gets thrown out as a joke in general conversation all the time. "Oh, he's a GREEN bubble..."
    - JohnFen 7y ago
      > Here in the US, living in an upper-middle class area, lots of kids got them right off the bat. I'm sure that correct, but how common iPhones are, even amongst your age group, greatly depends on where in the US you are. In my area, iPhones are not nearly as common as they are in other areas, and there is generally little peer pressure in the grade/high schools to have them. Having a smartphone generally is expected, but few people care about whether or not it's an iPhone.
- izzydata 7y ago
  I've never heard of this until today, but green is my favorite color. I am confused how two functioning adults can care about this. It sounds like an unreasonably childish thing to care about. If someone has different phone then you and they want you to change to appease them then tell them to deal with it.
  - dkonofalski 7y ago
    The color is simply an indicator of an inferior system. It's not the color itself that people care about. They care about the encryption, quality of media, timestamps, delivery receipts, etc.
garysahota93 7y ago
I've had a few friends passive aggressively mention I am the reason our group chat is MMS vs iMessage. Or even worse: I just simply got excluded from group chats. That was the saddest one because when hanging out in person, a friend will mention a conversation from the group chat and I wouldn't know what's going on and they would just awkwardly pretend it didn't happen. Or say they'd add me to the group and never actually do it. iMessage FOMO is a real thing and the social pressure (in the US at least) is insane.
- kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
  Blue bubbles good. Green bubbles bad.
- JohnFen 7y ago
  > the social pressure (in the US at least) is insane. This isn't a US-wide thing. This is about the priorities of a certain subculture, nothing more. Your friends just happen to be embedded in that subculture. My condolences.
  - wuliwong 7y ago
    The subculture of people who have iPhones? As much as Apple would want this to be, I don't believe there is a cohesive subculture that describes all iPhone users.
    - vitobcn 7y ago
      In my experience, in most countries (and outside the US especially) WhatsApp has already won the network effects battle, and it's the default messaging app in any smartphone. Even people with iPhone will all have WhatsApp installed.
      - ubercow13 7y ago
        In western Europe maybe, not in Asia for example

kbenson 7y ago

> But alas, iMessage pressure is real in my friend's group. Man, in my extended family SMS text group, this comes up once every couple weeks. One of us will note they aren't getting a random message, or someone will send a video and the quality will be crap, and the iPhone users will all mention how if we all had iPhones, this wouldn't be a problem. Cue a few of is getting kind of triggered because it's only Apple's co-opting of SMS on their phones that those people think that's really an Android problem and not some slick marketing on Apple's end to get their users to tell other people how their SMS texting is so much better. Not that we couldn't all just switch to some third party app (or hangouts even), and then we'd all have a comparable experience, but that's entirely lost on most of them, and not worth griping about after the first or second time or you come across as that weird relative that can't just do the easy thing[1]). I can't wait for RCS messaging. I'm honestly wondering it Apple will support it, or try to segment the text messaging market even more. 1: As if buying a $750 phone is the "easy thing". Edit: Changed $1000 to $750, since that's the lowest cost I could find for a 1 year old phone, and I don't think buying multiple year old hardware is something you can expect out of someone else, even if it might be my preferred strategy).

robertoandred 7y ago
iPhones start at $450.
- kbenson 7y ago
  That right, you're correct. If I want to buy a new phone that's three years old, I can pay $450 for an iPhone 7. Or $600 for a 2 year old phone, or $750, for a phone released a year ago, which is more what I would consider when buying a new phone (why would I buy a new phone that's multiple years old hardware?). So, I think $750 is a fair amount to reference, and I agree that $1000 is a bit high.
  - coding123 7y ago
    That's why I paid 475 for the OnePlus 7 (not the pro I can't stand the pop out camera). I was going in for the latest tech, I don't want 3 year old tech for that price.

bhahn 7y ago

iMessage pressure is real for me too. I was considering switching to an iPhone for a while but found air message and have been using it for a few weeks. It doesn't have all the features of iMessage, but core messaging works pretty well and I haven't felt a need to switch to an iPhone. https://airmessage.org/ https://airmessage.org/

rolltiide 7y ago
do you appear as an iOS user to actual iOS users? I can't tell from the website
- kbenson 7y ago
  Given that the installation guide[1] says you need "A computer running OS X 10.10 Yosemite or higher (and a place for it to stay)" I'm pretty sure they are just relaying your messages through an actual desktop iMessage instance, so probably. I imagine a lot of Android users don't have a computer running MacOS to do this though, so while a cool solution, it probably doesn't help the majority of people. 1: https://airmessage.org/guide/ https://airmessage.org/guide/
runako 7y ago
This is an interesting workaround. People forget that part of the point of different colors for iMessage vs SMS was to indicate that iMessage is encrypted and SMS isn't. It's also a handy marketing thing, but there is a technical justification for making a visible distinction. AirMessage is basically a proxy that strips encryption for Android devices: "AirMessage leverages the power of your Mac computer in order to route messages to and from Apple's iMessage servers. The server is to be installed on a computer at home, and will pass messages to and from your smartphone to allow the usage of iMessage and other installed services."
- untog 7y ago
  Does it re-encrypt them when sending, though? I would have to assume they've at least looked at doing that, otherwise it's a giant security hole.

camone 7y ago

Also as a recent iOS user, I don't understand why. Other than live captions, sound amp and family link, most new features have been on iOS for a while, and will actually improve on iOS 13 (e.g. apps have to ask for location access each time, besides the current 3 options). Seems like they're trying to catch up to iOS.

elbrian 7y ago
What is difficult to understand about OP wanting features that iOS does not offer?
- nxc18 7y ago
  Its more the massive privacy, security, longevity, and performance penalty you pay switching to Android that causes concern. Android has some nifty features depending on device, but the core experience just isn’t there. (E.g. I figured chrome on Android has to be faster than Chrome on iOS - nope, my XR consistently beat a Pixel 3 side-by-side) My iPhone 6S from 2015 is still in service and fast; I gave it to my mom when I upgraded and she’s very happy with it. It still gets updates.
  - ktta 7y ago
    FYI, chrome on iOS's core is just Safari's
    - nxc18 7y ago
      I know, if anything that makes it more embarrassing for Android - Google controls that whole system and they're still not beating WKWebview on their flagship device. Going between Android and iOS, that's one of the hardest aspects that I think gets overlooked - the browser is just slower and its noticeable. I pointed out the flagship device in this case, but its no better on the lower end devices.
      - The_rationalist 7y ago

JCharante 7y ago

What kind of circles is everyone in? I didn't realize that tapbacks had a name, and wondered why I'd occasionally see a message like: A: foo B: liked "foo" but I just use either Messenger, Wechat, or Snapchat. The only time I open my SMS app is to view 2FA Codes.

ModsCtrlideas 7y ago

Consider by not contributing to the Apple Ecosystem you create a better environment for developers and customers.

rkagerer 7y ago

That's ironic, this page makes me want to switch to iOS for my next phone. Aside from the annoyingness of the page... Too many things here are patched on top what ought to be core. Eg. Pausing annoying apps. IMO apps ought to default to off in the first place until you turn them on. Very little detail about these new privacy controls. Sounds like Google-centric lipstick. Dark theme is exciting; embarrassing it took so long. Hopefully I'm proven wrong...

rb808 7y ago

FB messenger really solved the cross platform group chat problem for me. Allows for video chat too to replace facetime.

ceejayoz 7y ago
I've got ten year olds who love texting their relatives, and I'm not willing to send my kids into the Facebook meatgrinder yet.
- derefr 7y ago
  You can be signed up for Messenger without being signed up for Facebook, I think. (Or, at least, you can deactivate a Facebook account and still use Messenger.)
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    Sure, but that's still Facebook. I don't want Facebook having any level of access to under-13 minors' devices.
  - cookie_monsta 7y ago
    Does deactivating Facebook mean anything on the user side? I remember trying to delete my FB account (Which in their parlance is a different thing) some years ago and it was an oblique nightmare
filoleg 7y ago
Minor nitpick, but the quality of compression for pictures/video sent over FB Messenger is atrocious compared to that of iMessage. Like, we aren't talking just technicalities, it is very visually obvious and jarring. Same when it comes to video chat, Discord and FaceTime have waaaaay better quality and reliability.

iwasakabukiman 7y ago

> But alas, iMessage pressure is real in my friend's group. I've never had this from my friends. I read about this all the time and all I can think is, "Why would I be friends with people who care about that enough to peer pressure me into using an iPhone?"

_fzslm 7y ago
It sounds super common in the US. In the UK, we either settle with Messenger (ugh, but at least it's cross-platform) or WhatsApp.
dkonofalski 7y ago
Because there are some huge, genuinely great benefits to using it. No one really cares that much but, when the difference between the two experiences is as great as it currently is, it really affects the conversation. For example, we don't really pressure friends to buy iPhones but we legitimately have a separate conversation group for just iOS users from the main SMS group chat so we can send images, video, or other media at full quality. Most of us are pretty tech savvy too so we're not really keen on using WhatsApp or Telegram or any of the other dirty data apps.
- snazz 7y ago
  iMessage sends messages via cell data (or WiFi) too, if that’s what you meant by “dirty data app”.
  - dkonofalski 7y ago
    No, I mean "dirty data" as in all your data is collected and there's very little transparency regarding what those apps/companies are doing with your data. I haven't exhaustively tested all these apps but I have tested a few and know that Apple doesn't send any information or data from iMessage to their servers that isn't encrypted on-device. Unlike these other apps, Apple couldn't leak your data or usage from these apps because it's never collected in the first place.
- 7y ago

mderazon 7y ago

Is there a case for an Apple antitrust in the US due to this issue ? How is it different than MS baking IE into their OS back in the days ?