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Apple reportedly expanding iMessage to compete with Facebook

36 points by prostoalex 6y ago

api 6y ago
I'd love to see iMessage for Android or even desktop iMessage for Windows and Linux. I would use iMessage more. I think it would grow Apple's network, not threaten it.
- throwawaysea 6y ago
  They make a lot of money off their hardware though, and iMessage is a key part of retaining users each upgrade cycle on their own hardware. It certainly has been an issue for me. On the other hand, I wish everyone would just use some other network as the standard, instead of something owned by Facebook or Apple or other giant Silicon Valley company. After Facebook started censoring private messenger communications between people, I just can’t trust them and am unwilling to give them a chance.
- angryasian 6y ago
  yeah, I really don't see a majority of apple users ever leaving the apple ecosystem because imessage is supported on Android and vice versa. What I do see is that Android users that aren't part of the apple ecosystem at all using it and now Apple has their foot in the door with these users.
  - bobthepanda 6y ago
    This is also not new grounds for Apple; this is the exact plot they did for iTunes to dominate digital music sales.
- viraptor 6y ago
  It would be great, but I wonder how realistic it is to expect. iMessage seems to be pretty strongly tied to the apple account identity, their internal credentials, their push servers, etc. https://www.nowsecure.com/blog/2021/01/27/reverse-engineering-imessage-leveraging-the-hardware-to-protect-the-software/ https://www.nowsecure.com/blog/2021/01/27/reverse-engineerin... They'd have to either rewrite quite a bit to be more ecosystem-independent, or somehow port all the necessary layers to work on other systems. There's a good reason nobody reverse engineered and reimplemented iMessage so far, even though it's "just a messaging app".
  - api 6y ago
    AFAIK those are all libraries that can be compiled in. It would be far less work than porting iTunes and they did that until iTunes died.
- sfifs 6y ago
  Not expanding iMessage and Facetime to other OSes when they had the chance was the single most foolish strategic decision Apple ever took. It's what allowed Whatsapp and WeChat and Line and Snapchat and Slack and Teams and Zoom even Instagram to a certain extent to happen. Not surprising given Jobs's famously monopolistic tendencies that he's passed on to the current leadership he's groomed but it did do the shareholders a major dis-service
  - atonse 6y ago
    I think it’s the best decision they made and has taken courage to stick to it. There’s actually been a network effect especially with groups of people with being a “blue bubble” vs “green bubble”. Doesn’t look like this has cost them financially at all. I even feel like whenever I have to SMS someone, it feels like going backwards. It’s not encrypted, there’s no delivery receipt, no richness, etc. I’m just amazed that Google has utterly failed to build a viable alternative on Android in 10 years (which is why all the other services have thrived there), and boy have they tried.
    - sudosysgen 6y ago
      It has cost them hugely. Outside of the US and a few other countries iMessage is basically non-existent.
      - Jtsummers 6y ago
        How does it cost them? Do you mean in that a free service isn't being used by non-Apple product owners/users? Or that it's costing them sales of their Apple products?
        sudosysgen 6y ago
        It's costing in usefulness. iMessage loses value if no one uses it, and outside of the US pretty much no one uses it, so it's useless.
aparsons 6y ago
They should have done this a long time ago. Sharing photos in a non-attachment format with close friends is a feature I wish iMessage had. I hope they borrow a little from Google+ circles. Android support will also be very welcome. Apple isn’t the greatest at usable software interfaces, but I quite enjoy the thought they put into the interactions.
- djrogers 6y ago
  > They should have done this a long time ago. Sharing photos in a non-attachment format with close friends is a feature I wish iMessage had Well, they built that into photos ages ago (shared photostreams - they’re awesome for weddings and parties), and if your phone can run iMessage, it’s also already running photos…
mandeepj 6y ago
Snapchat is literally Apple iMovie effects in an app. So, Apple definitely missed that idea.
NoPicklez 6y ago
The problem for me is that at the moment everyone I talk to is on Facebook messenger, many of them I don't even have their mobile numbers to message them through iMessage. Having added them on Facebook many years ago, rather than meeting them and asking for their mobile number. Many of my friends don't even use the Facebook app just the messenger function because it seems as though everyone is on it. iMessage has great features, but I just can't stand using multiple messaging applications if I don't need to and I'm not going to switch to iMessage by asking all my friends for their mobile numbers. It means I don't be part of the groups that have been created for years among peers and friends. I don't really see how iMessage can compete.
- HWR_14 6y ago
  The idea that I would call someone a friend and not have their mobile number, or if I didn't would feel awkward about asking for their number, is alien to me. iMessage works, and I believe in their E2E encryption. Using it is the reason I opted into the iOS ecosystem.
  - NoPicklez 6y ago
    The reason for me is that when I grew up SMS messages weren't as an early teen and instant messaging platforms such as Facebook allowed me and my friends to chat using minimal mobile data, which was much much cheaper than SMS messages. As a consequence, the majority of my friends, family and circle were on Facebook and it just so happened that I could also message them for what was essentially free. Furthermore, if I was at school and I met someone I would just add them on Facebook. Which was much easier and seamless then asking everyone for their mobile number. I never said that iMessage doesn't work, just that you can only take full advantage of its features with other Apple users. And my continued use of Facebook messenger has been because of how myself and my friends grew up using Facebook. As a result all of my friends can currently talk and collaborate on Facebook messenger where the experience is the same regardless of the device you have.
  - MiddleEndian 6y ago
    I prefer to use my computer to message people, and chat apps like Messenger work effortlessly on both PC and mobile devices. Most of my friends and I chat on Messenger or Discord (formerly Hangouts but Google is determined to kill it for some reason (and more formerly AIM/MSN/Yahoo)). My girlfriend and I probably dated a couple months (and knew each other for about a year prior) before exchanging phone numbers.
rsa25519 6y ago
> "The #1 most difficult [reason] to leave the Apple universe app is iMessage ... iMessage amounts to serious lock-in,” was how one unnamed former Apple employee put it in an email in 2016, prompting Schiller to respond that, “moving iMessage to Android will hurt us more than help us, this email illustrates why.” > “iMessage on Android would simply serve to remove [an] obstacle to iPhone families giving their kids Android phones,” was Federighi’s concern according to the Epic filing. Although workarounds to using iMessage on Android have emerged over the years, none have been particularly convenient or reliable. https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/9/22375128/apple-imessage-android-ecosystem-lock-in-epic-games-filings-app-store-dispute https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/9/22375128/apple-imessage-an...
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
  Apple may have dropped the ball with that move. Apple skipped the embrace step of embrace expand extinguish. If they had embraced all phone users by porting imessage to all phones and extended by providing an objectively better experience, for all users and use cases, they would have captured the market like 1980s Bell did. Instead I suspect that Apple is trying hard to avoid antitrust action. so apple stifles innovation and keep prices high preventing a great deal of adoption and, importantly, allowing significant competition outside their targeted, profitable, user base. Why disrupt and capture the entire market when they can slowly iterate and make fortunes while avoiding a lot of scrutiny?
tomjen3 6y ago
Unless they make it work on Android it won't matter. A messaging system that doesn't cover your entire friend group is, in effect, pointless.
rPlayer6554 6y ago
I see a lot of people taking about the network effects of imessage and how there is the "blue vs. green" bubble stigma. I think this may be a pretty American perspective. From my limited experience in Europe (admittedly in a more international region) everyone just uses WhatsApp. I also know in India everyone uses WhatsApp to text. Maybe the imessage tie in is useful in the US (which is admittedly probably Apple's primary market) but I'm not sure how much it carries over to other countries.
devoutsalsa 6y ago
I hate iMessage because it subverts SMS. This is mainly a problem with my USA friends & family, especially my parents. If I unintentionally tie my phone number to iMessagee, my parents can no longer figure out how to contact me reliably. Sending an SMS on an Android and receiving a reply on my Mac is a shit user experience.
- nojito 6y ago
  You can disable being able to be iMessaged via your phone number. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201349 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201349

36 points by prostoalex 6y ago

api 6y ago

I'd love to see iMessage for Android or even desktop iMessage for Windows and Linux. I would use iMessage more. I think it would grow Apple's network, not threaten it.

throwawaysea 6y ago
They make a lot of money off their hardware though, and iMessage is a key part of retaining users each upgrade cycle on their own hardware. It certainly has been an issue for me. On the other hand, I wish everyone would just use some other network as the standard, instead of something owned by Facebook or Apple or other giant Silicon Valley company. After Facebook started censoring private messenger communications between people, I just can’t trust them and am unwilling to give them a chance.
angryasian 6y ago
yeah, I really don't see a majority of apple users ever leaving the apple ecosystem because imessage is supported on Android and vice versa. What I do see is that Android users that aren't part of the apple ecosystem at all using it and now Apple has their foot in the door with these users.
- bobthepanda 6y ago
  This is also not new grounds for Apple; this is the exact plot they did for iTunes to dominate digital music sales.
viraptor 6y ago
It would be great, but I wonder how realistic it is to expect. iMessage seems to be pretty strongly tied to the apple account identity, their internal credentials, their push servers, etc. https://www.nowsecure.com/blog/2021/01/27/reverse-engineering-imessage-leveraging-the-hardware-to-protect-the-software/ https://www.nowsecure.com/blog/2021/01/27/reverse-engineerin... They'd have to either rewrite quite a bit to be more ecosystem-independent, or somehow port all the necessary layers to work on other systems. There's a good reason nobody reverse engineered and reimplemented iMessage so far, even though it's "just a messaging app".
- api 6y ago
  AFAIK those are all libraries that can be compiled in. It would be far less work than porting iTunes and they did that until iTunes died.
sfifs 6y ago
Not expanding iMessage and Facetime to other OSes when they had the chance was the single most foolish strategic decision Apple ever took. It's what allowed Whatsapp and WeChat and Line and Snapchat and Slack and Teams and Zoom even Instagram to a certain extent to happen. Not surprising given Jobs's famously monopolistic tendencies that he's passed on to the current leadership he's groomed but it did do the shareholders a major dis-service
- atonse 6y ago
  I think it’s the best decision they made and has taken courage to stick to it. There’s actually been a network effect especially with groups of people with being a “blue bubble” vs “green bubble”. Doesn’t look like this has cost them financially at all. I even feel like whenever I have to SMS someone, it feels like going backwards. It’s not encrypted, there’s no delivery receipt, no richness, etc. I’m just amazed that Google has utterly failed to build a viable alternative on Android in 10 years (which is why all the other services have thrived there), and boy have they tried.
  - sudosysgen 6y ago
    It has cost them hugely. Outside of the US and a few other countries iMessage is basically non-existent.
    - Jtsummers 6y ago
      How does it cost them? Do you mean in that a free service isn't being used by non-Apple product owners/users? Or that it's costing them sales of their Apple products?
      - sudosysgen 6y ago
        It's costing in usefulness. iMessage loses value if no one uses it, and outside of the US pretty much no one uses it, so it's useless.

aparsons 6y ago

They should have done this a long time ago. Sharing photos in a non-attachment format with close friends is a feature I wish iMessage had. I hope they borrow a little from Google+ circles. Android support will also be very welcome. Apple isn’t the greatest at usable software interfaces, but I quite enjoy the thought they put into the interactions.

djrogers 6y ago
> They should have done this a long time ago. Sharing photos in a non-attachment format with close friends is a feature I wish iMessage had Well, they built that into photos ages ago (shared photostreams - they’re awesome for weddings and parties), and if your phone can run iMessage, it’s also already running photos…

mandeepj 6y ago

Snapchat is literally Apple iMovie effects in an app. So, Apple definitely missed that idea.

NoPicklez 6y ago

The problem for me is that at the moment everyone I talk to is on Facebook messenger, many of them I don't even have their mobile numbers to message them through iMessage. Having added them on Facebook many years ago, rather than meeting them and asking for their mobile number. Many of my friends don't even use the Facebook app just the messenger function because it seems as though everyone is on it. iMessage has great features, but I just can't stand using multiple messaging applications if I don't need to and I'm not going to switch to iMessage by asking all my friends for their mobile numbers. It means I don't be part of the groups that have been created for years among peers and friends. I don't really see how iMessage can compete.

HWR_14 6y ago
The idea that I would call someone a friend and not have their mobile number, or if I didn't would feel awkward about asking for their number, is alien to me. iMessage works, and I believe in their E2E encryption. Using it is the reason I opted into the iOS ecosystem.
- NoPicklez 6y ago
  The reason for me is that when I grew up SMS messages weren't as an early teen and instant messaging platforms such as Facebook allowed me and my friends to chat using minimal mobile data, which was much much cheaper than SMS messages. As a consequence, the majority of my friends, family and circle were on Facebook and it just so happened that I could also message them for what was essentially free. Furthermore, if I was at school and I met someone I would just add them on Facebook. Which was much easier and seamless then asking everyone for their mobile number. I never said that iMessage doesn't work, just that you can only take full advantage of its features with other Apple users. And my continued use of Facebook messenger has been because of how myself and my friends grew up using Facebook. As a result all of my friends can currently talk and collaborate on Facebook messenger where the experience is the same regardless of the device you have.
- MiddleEndian 6y ago
  I prefer to use my computer to message people, and chat apps like Messenger work effortlessly on both PC and mobile devices. Most of my friends and I chat on Messenger or Discord (formerly Hangouts but Google is determined to kill it for some reason (and more formerly AIM/MSN/Yahoo)). My girlfriend and I probably dated a couple months (and knew each other for about a year prior) before exchanging phone numbers.

rsa25519 6y ago

> "The #1 most difficult [reason] to leave the Apple universe app is iMessage ... iMessage amounts to serious lock-in,” was how one unnamed former Apple employee put it in an email in 2016, prompting Schiller to respond that, “moving iMessage to Android will hurt us more than help us, this email illustrates why.” > “iMessage on Android would simply serve to remove [an] obstacle to iPhone families giving their kids Android phones,” was Federighi’s concern according to the Epic filing. Although workarounds to using iMessage on Android have emerged over the years, none have been particularly convenient or reliable. https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/9/22375128/apple-imessage-android-ecosystem-lock-in-epic-games-filings-app-store-dispute https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/9/22375128/apple-imessage-an...

Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
Apple may have dropped the ball with that move. Apple skipped the embrace step of embrace expand extinguish. If they had embraced all phone users by porting imessage to all phones and extended by providing an objectively better experience, for all users and use cases, they would have captured the market like 1980s Bell did. Instead I suspect that Apple is trying hard to avoid antitrust action. so apple stifles innovation and keep prices high preventing a great deal of adoption and, importantly, allowing significant competition outside their targeted, profitable, user base. Why disrupt and capture the entire market when they can slowly iterate and make fortunes while avoiding a lot of scrutiny?

tomjen3 6y ago

Unless they make it work on Android it won't matter. A messaging system that doesn't cover your entire friend group is, in effect, pointless.

rPlayer6554 6y ago

I see a lot of people taking about the network effects of imessage and how there is the "blue vs. green" bubble stigma. I think this may be a pretty American perspective. From my limited experience in Europe (admittedly in a more international region) everyone just uses WhatsApp. I also know in India everyone uses WhatsApp to text. Maybe the imessage tie in is useful in the US (which is admittedly probably Apple's primary market) but I'm not sure how much it carries over to other countries.

devoutsalsa 6y ago

I hate iMessage because it subverts SMS. This is mainly a problem with my USA friends & family, especially my parents. If I unintentionally tie my phone number to iMessagee, my parents can no longer figure out how to contact me reliably. Sending an SMS on an Android and receiving a reply on my Mac is a shit user experience.

nojito 6y ago
You can disable being able to be iMessaged via your phone number. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201349 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201349