4 ms·

> illegal besides being immoral and a literal F-U to your consumers, it can bring anti trust cases when you are as big as Apple. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

> illegal besides being immoral and a literal F-U to your consumers, it can bring anti trust cases when you are as big as Apple. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vendor_lock-in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vendor_lock-in But other than that, well, just go celebrate your $2 gain on your APPL stocks despite the fact you were prohibited to call 50% of your friends just so someone couldn't save a few bucks when buying a phone for their teenage kid. Go you!

nixy 5y ago
To be honest, it is more a F-U to your competitors' customers than to your own. I don't get why Apple creating a feature for their own ecosystem has to be made available to other ecosystems as well. It's not like Face Time is the only video calling solution out there.
- simondotau 5y ago
  The way Android users complain about the lack of Apple iMessage and Apple FaceTime on their phones, you'd be forgiven for questioning whether Android had any messaging or video calling features.
  - vetinari 5y ago
    I will tell you a secret: it's not Android users who complain about the lack of iMessage or Facetime. Most of them are not even aware of their existence. They are using Whataspp, or Viber, or whatever and go on with their lives.
- fauigerzigerk 5y ago
  >To be honest, it is more a F-U to your competitors' customers than to your own. Why? As an iPhone user, I am the one who paid for the development of FaceTime, but I can't use it because communications tools require network effects that FaceTime doesn't have. I can't even use it with my wife. I'm not saying it's somehow illegitimate or even illegal for Apple to do this, but what it tells me is that Apple cares more about hurting competitors than about providing a useful service to its own paying customers.
simondotau 5y ago
I think it's funny that Android users are so angry with Apple for not releasing iMessage and FaceTime for Android. How dare Apple not make their communications platforms even more dominant! Not having iMessage on Android is immoral! Not having FaceTime on Android is "a literal F-U" to their customers! I think it's funny because Apple left a decade-long opening for Google to build equally good Android alternatives to iMessage and FaceTime and dominate in cross-platform communication. Instead, twelve chat platforms later, I'm not entirely sure if Google has finally released something that won't be superseded next year.
- gman83 5y ago
  In Europe at least, I'm very unhappy that neither Google or Apple has managed to create any form of standard communications platform, because now instead of one of those two, everyone uses WhatsApp from Facebook, which I personally hate using but am obliged to if I want any kind of social life. If Apple had created Android versions of their messaging products, their own users wouldn't be forced into Facebook's arms. Before you say, "just don't use it", here are some examples. My kids parents/school group uses WhatsApp, same as my kids sports club to organize matches/training. I'm a volunteer for a local association -- WhatsApp group. I really have little choice in using it.
- fauigerzigerk 5y ago
  >I think it's funny that Android users are so angry with Apple for not releasing iMessage and FaceTime for Android. I don't get the impression that Android users are angry at all. It's me as an iPhone user who is pissed about never being able to use any of these supposedly fantastic services. I have never used FaceTime and probably never will if it is true that Android/Linux/Windows users cannot initiate FaceTime calls on this new FaceTime web app.
- vetinari 5y ago
  I don't really care for iMessage or Facetime, I don't use them even though I can, but > because Apple left a decade-long opening for Google to build equally good Android alternatives to iMessage is simply not true. No one but Apple can integrate SMS and messaging on iOS as Apple can; others do not have entitlements for that. You could do it on Android (and Google did for a brief period with Hangouts, and so did Signal), but you can't do it on iOS.
Grustaf 5y ago
How is it immoral to not actively support your competitor's hardware with your software and services? Of course it isn't, iMessage is not a utility, it's not a public good. You can still text or make voice calls to anyone you want, or even video calls using dozens of third party apps. They have no moral obligation at all to extend their own first party services to Android, that's an absurd idea.
- dhruvdh 5y ago
  The intention behind not letting it work for their competitors is immoral and potentially illegal. They want to do it to prevent their consumers to buy their competitors products for their family, even if their competitors product are better; just because they already have a device in the Apple ecosystem.
  - Grustaf 5y ago
    They are not "preventing" anyone from doing anything, they are simply, until now, refraining from improving their competitors devices by releasing their software for it. Of course they prefer people to buy iPhones for their kids, there is nothing wrong with that, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with not actively working to make the experience of mixed Android-iPhone families slightly better. There are literally dozens of cross platform messaging and video calling apps. Banning these would have been wrong, and possibly illegal, but they are not doing that.
    - dhruvdh 5y ago
      The email we are discussing specifically says they want to prevent customers from buying their competitors products for their friends and family.
      - Grustaf 5y ago
        I don't know if they use the word "prevent" or not, but we both know that they are not in fact trying to literally "prevent" anyone from buying an Android phone. They just don't want to give them some of the benefits of iOS if they do so. No reasonable person would call that "prevent".
avereveard 5y ago
They could have been in every school and every office by now with a cross platform solution, instead they have zoom&co eating that space. I don't think they're happy about that either.
teekert 5y ago
Prohibited? There are many many other options of course. Admittedly, FaceTime is the best I ever used (no echoes, just works, works best over low bandwidth, etc.)
stevetursi 5y ago
I agree with the arguments (usually made by Apple fans, and I don't mean that as a pejorative) that Apple is probably in their legal rights and that it makes dollars and cents business sense for them to limit iMessage to iOS as much as possible. But it's still a shitty thing to do. I have a tremendous amount of respect for companies that do things that are contrary to business objectives because they're the right thing to do. In this case, Apple chose to do the shitty thing.
- dkonofalski 5y ago
  I don't have an opinion on this either way but why is that "the right thing to do" in your mind? It seems to me like making that available on non-Apple products would give very little benefit to them or their users while introducing lots of uncertainties that may actually make the experience worse for most users. The reason most Apple features work the way they do is because of the complete vertical integration of hardware and software. Introducing unknown hardware seems like a bad idea when consistency is your whole schtick.
geon 5y ago
Calm down.

nixy 5y ago

To be honest, it is more a F-U to your competitors' customers than to your own. I don't get why Apple creating a feature for their own ecosystem has to be made available to other ecosystems as well. It's not like Face Time is the only video calling solution out there.

simondotau 5y ago
The way Android users complain about the lack of Apple iMessage and Apple FaceTime on their phones, you'd be forgiven for questioning whether Android had any messaging or video calling features.
- vetinari 5y ago
  I will tell you a secret: it's not Android users who complain about the lack of iMessage or Facetime. Most of them are not even aware of their existence. They are using Whataspp, or Viber, or whatever and go on with their lives.
fauigerzigerk 5y ago
>To be honest, it is more a F-U to your competitors' customers than to your own. Why? As an iPhone user, I am the one who paid for the development of FaceTime, but I can't use it because communications tools require network effects that FaceTime doesn't have. I can't even use it with my wife. I'm not saying it's somehow illegitimate or even illegal for Apple to do this, but what it tells me is that Apple cares more about hurting competitors than about providing a useful service to its own paying customers.

simondotau 5y ago

I think it's funny that Android users are so angry with Apple for not releasing iMessage and FaceTime for Android. How dare Apple not make their communications platforms even more dominant! Not having iMessage on Android is immoral! Not having FaceTime on Android is "a literal F-U" to their customers! I think it's funny because Apple left a decade-long opening for Google to build equally good Android alternatives to iMessage and FaceTime and dominate in cross-platform communication. Instead, twelve chat platforms later, I'm not entirely sure if Google has finally released something that won't be superseded next year.

gman83 5y ago
In Europe at least, I'm very unhappy that neither Google or Apple has managed to create any form of standard communications platform, because now instead of one of those two, everyone uses WhatsApp from Facebook, which I personally hate using but am obliged to if I want any kind of social life. If Apple had created Android versions of their messaging products, their own users wouldn't be forced into Facebook's arms. Before you say, "just don't use it", here are some examples. My kids parents/school group uses WhatsApp, same as my kids sports club to organize matches/training. I'm a volunteer for a local association -- WhatsApp group. I really have little choice in using it.
fauigerzigerk 5y ago
>I think it's funny that Android users are so angry with Apple for not releasing iMessage and FaceTime for Android. I don't get the impression that Android users are angry at all. It's me as an iPhone user who is pissed about never being able to use any of these supposedly fantastic services. I have never used FaceTime and probably never will if it is true that Android/Linux/Windows users cannot initiate FaceTime calls on this new FaceTime web app.
vetinari 5y ago
I don't really care for iMessage or Facetime, I don't use them even though I can, but > because Apple left a decade-long opening for Google to build equally good Android alternatives to iMessage is simply not true. No one but Apple can integrate SMS and messaging on iOS as Apple can; others do not have entitlements for that. You could do it on Android (and Google did for a brief period with Hangouts, and so did Signal), but you can't do it on iOS.

Grustaf 5y ago

How is it immoral to not actively support your competitor's hardware with your software and services? Of course it isn't, iMessage is not a utility, it's not a public good. You can still text or make voice calls to anyone you want, or even video calls using dozens of third party apps. They have no moral obligation at all to extend their own first party services to Android, that's an absurd idea.

dhruvdh 5y ago
The intention behind not letting it work for their competitors is immoral and potentially illegal. They want to do it to prevent their consumers to buy their competitors products for their family, even if their competitors product are better; just because they already have a device in the Apple ecosystem.
- Grustaf 5y ago
  They are not "preventing" anyone from doing anything, they are simply, until now, refraining from improving their competitors devices by releasing their software for it. Of course they prefer people to buy iPhones for their kids, there is nothing wrong with that, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with not actively working to make the experience of mixed Android-iPhone families slightly better. There are literally dozens of cross platform messaging and video calling apps. Banning these would have been wrong, and possibly illegal, but they are not doing that.
  - dhruvdh 5y ago
    The email we are discussing specifically says they want to prevent customers from buying their competitors products for their friends and family.
    - Grustaf 5y ago
      I don't know if they use the word "prevent" or not, but we both know that they are not in fact trying to literally "prevent" anyone from buying an Android phone. They just don't want to give them some of the benefits of iOS if they do so. No reasonable person would call that "prevent".

avereveard 5y ago

They could have been in every school and every office by now with a cross platform solution, instead they have zoom&co eating that space. I don't think they're happy about that either.

teekert 5y ago

Prohibited? There are many many other options of course. Admittedly, FaceTime is the best I ever used (no echoes, just works, works best over low bandwidth, etc.)

stevetursi 5y ago

I agree with the arguments (usually made by Apple fans, and I don't mean that as a pejorative) that Apple is probably in their legal rights and that it makes dollars and cents business sense for them to limit iMessage to iOS as much as possible. But it's still a shitty thing to do. I have a tremendous amount of respect for companies that do things that are contrary to business objectives because they're the right thing to do. In this case, Apple chose to do the shitty thing.

dkonofalski 5y ago
I don't have an opinion on this either way but why is that "the right thing to do" in your mind? It seems to me like making that available on non-Apple products would give very little benefit to them or their users while introducing lots of uncertainties that may actually make the experience worse for most users. The reason most Apple features work the way they do is because of the complete vertical integration of hardware and software. Introducing unknown hardware seems like a bad idea when consistency is your whole schtick.

geon 5y ago

Calm down.