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Why does Apple need to do anything at all? It's not like there aren't a gazillion iMessage alternatives, so you can't argue monopoly. There is no lock-in, there

Why does Apple need to do anything at all? It's not like there aren't a gazillion iMessage alternatives, so you can't argue monopoly. There is no lock-in, there is just lock-out. The lock-in that is being described is literally the result of building a good product that people don't want to get rid of (for whatever reason, including social pressure). But there is nothing actually locking people in to iMessage from a technological perspective. Apple built a superior service, and the price of using that service is an iPhone. Does it suck for Google and Android users? Yes. Is that the whole point? Yes. Is there anything wrong with that? I don't think so.

decafninja 5y ago
Completely agree. I'm an iPhone user, but rarely use iMessage. Most of my instant messaging actually happens on some combination of Google Chat! (or whatever they call it these days), KakaoTalk (I'm Korean) and WhatsApp. Plenty of other alternatives out there too. I think I have just one friend who I use iMessage with regularly.
kennywinker 5y ago
Apple stands between me and my carrier’s sms service, and then layers it’s own service on top of that. There is no API messaging app developers can use to do the same thing. It’s clearly monopolistic behavior to interlink your service with a basic infrastructure service. It doesn’t matter to me if a company achieves a monopoly - what matters to me is them seeking one in a way that harms users. Google is guilty of this, apple is guilty of this, hell - since there’s money to be made and no good enforcement of this - most large companies are guilty of this.
- gwright 5y ago
  > It’s clearly monopolistic behavior to interlink your service with a basic infrastructure service Not very clear at all, IMHO. Would you prefer that iMessage conversations didn't "interlink" with SMS recipients? Is that a better outcome? This is yet another example of the power of the "network affect" and the difficulty of crafting a reasonable regulatory framework. I'm just pushing back at your assertion about "monopolistic behavior" but not at the general difficulty of regulating these sorts of ecosystems.
  - kennywinker 5y ago
    > Not very clear at all, IMHO. Would you prefer that iMessage conversations didn't "interlink" with SMS recipients? Is that a better outcome? Possible non-monopolistic solutions: - an open standard for phone-number linked messaging. - Allow any messaging app to assume imessage’s role and send/receive sms messages instead of the imessage app. - separate imessage and sms into separate apps. As you pointed out, this is probably the worst option since nobody really wants this experience. As for regulation: “All general-purpose communications platforms with over 10mil users must allow and enable open access to 3rd party client developers and inter-platform communications gateways” - problem solved
    - x0x0 5y ago
      > “All general-purpose communications platforms with over 10mil users must allow and enable open access to 3rd party client developers and inter-platform communications gateways” - problem solved This is frankly delusion. What is the SLA for a feature? Who decides? How fast can they be deprecated? In the face of security bugs? In the face of active exploitation? Who controls feature additions? What if the operator doesn't want to build the feature? What about abuse? Are they allowed to remove encryption guarantees? Strip e2e encryption? etc etc etc. It's nothing like a trivial problem.
      - etchalon 5y ago
        It's not just delusion. We have an example of numerous open-standard communication platforms that existed, and then failed, because they couldn't keep up with competition. All a "Well, if you get big enough!" law would do is ensure a constant cycle of competitive death.
        kennywinker 5y ago
        > because they couldn't keep up with competition I think you mean because they couldn’t be monopolized and monetized as effectively as a proprietary solution.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- FanaHOVA 5y ago
  > Apple stands between me and my carrier’s sms service Because you chose to buy their phone. Just buy a non-Apple phone, plenty of them.
  - kennywinker 5y ago
    Right. So I switch to an android phone, and then when I have complaints about how it locks me in to using google services, or has a terrible permissions model, you tell me to just choose an iPhone… and back and forth we go.
- uncomputation 5y ago
  > Apple stands between me and my carrier’s sms service You can turn it off at any time. Settings > Messages > iMessage off How does this “harm users”? If anything it provides a service that most users appreciate heavily: read receipts, typing indicators, flexible group chats. If you want to use SMS, you can. If you want to use WhatsApp, you can. All this talk about Apple having a “monopoly” over its own ecosystem is not only incorrect but just tiresome. Apple isn’t “guilty” of anything here.
  - extropy 5y ago
    Can I have WhatsApp that fallbacks to SMS though? Genuinely curious.
    - soperj 5y ago
      On android you can do this with Signal, not sure about IOS.
      - kennywinker 5y ago
        Definitely not. There are no public api’s to send or receive sms’ (except via launching the Messages app)
  - kennywinker 5y ago
    > How does this “harm users”? I get those extras you refer to (read receipts etc) only if i have an iphone and so does the other user. Yet with an open standard i could have those with everyone. Other apps have features imessage does not - yet i can’t intermix whatsapp/snapchat/vibr/telegram etc with my sms messages - apple is holding my sms’ hostage in the imessage app when i might prefer to send sms’ and whatsapp messages from a single app Apple knows the lock-in increases the value of their devices. That’s harm - my iphone costs more.
    - ubermonkey 5y ago
      These complaints seem really entitled to me. You can download and use something else if you don't want to use Apple's Messages app. You can configure Messages to use only SMS and not do iMessage. You seem to be saying that Apple should provide a multiprotocol tool that supports a bunch of platforms and allow you to intermingle them, which is a fine thing to want, but if it's not in Apple's interest to build such a thing I don't know how you can describe their choice as "wrong" or "harmful".
- qeternity 5y ago
  > Apple stands between me and my carrier’s sms service No, you chose to put Apple between you and your carrier. Make a different choice. Apple isn't imposing itself on you. > monopolistic behavior > It doesn’t matter to me if a company achieves a monopoly Ok, so you don't actually care what the meaning of these words are, you just want to throw them around when someone does something that you don't like.
  - kennywinker 5y ago
    > No, you chose to put Apple between you and your carrier. Right, because the other option was to put google between me and my carrier - which comes with a ton of stuff i’d be upset about (e.g. terrible privacy protections) but you’d blame me for “choosing” because you don’t actually care if I have a choice you just want to blame me eye rolls
    - kergonath 5y ago
      Well, no. You can just not use iMessages. Even on an iPhone.
  - aldebran 5y ago
    There’s always someone who makes this argument “don’t use them”. This is no longer grounded in reality my friend. If there are 2 restaurants in town - one that continuously snaps pictures of my every move and the other that won’t let me drink coke the way I want to, saying eat at home always is not a solution. “Apple isn’t imposing itself on you”. Both Apple and Google don’t force people to use them but they do things that make it harder and harder to choose neither of them. In 2022 it’s not easily possible to live without Apple or Google as a consumer without severely putting yourself at a disadvantage. Regulation is needed not to create an even playing field but to stop companies from screwing consumers. This is why European and Australian warranty and quality laws for products are much better than American ones. Saying make a different choice only leads to all companies to do the bare legal minimum. In these cases upping the legal bare minimum is absolutely necessary. Americans seriously need to stop drinking this free market Cool aid. It’s not a free market. It’s highly lop sided and the consumers are at a disadvantage.
- bilbo0s 5y ago
  Apple stands between me and my carrier’s sms service In complete fairness, Apple doesn't stand between you and your sms carrier. I can't think of any company that does that actually? All companies that I am aware of pass through sms messages to the carrier sms service, and deliver messages from the carrier sms service. Most companies layer a service on top of the sms, but sms itself is meticulously unmolested in every system I'm aware of. Finally, giving devs an api to intercept and process sms messages would be naiveté in the extreme. With so much sensitive data coming through sms, it just would open too many holes. A random dev could intercept passwords, 2 Factor information, account balances, and on and on. For my part, I would be entirely against hackers having that access.
  - readams 5y ago
    That actually isn't what iMessage does. iMessage maintains a database of phone numbers that are iMessage, and then intercepts and routes the messages through Apple and not through SMS. You can see this since if you switch away from Apple after using iMessage, anyone using iPhones will not be able to message you unless you go through a procedure to remove your phone number from iMessage.
    - Terretta 5y ago
      To be clear, Apple does not intercept SMS messages. The messages people say are hijacked are from other Messages users, sent to an individual's Messages label that happens to look like their phone number. Anyone using SMS can SMS your number on your new phone, since SMS is not being hijacked, and Apple is not intercepting SMS to do anything with it. If you don't want Apple friends using that label to reach your remaining Apple devices (a normal use case!), then remove the label yourself before ditching your iphone: - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201349 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201349 - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203042 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203042 Or, remove it yourself after: - https://selfsolve.apple.com/deregister-imessage/ https://selfsolve.apple.com/deregister-imessage/
  - theta_d 5y ago
    I think OPs point is that Android allows you to use an app other than the stock app to send SMS, Apple does not.
- azinman2 5y ago
  Most countries use WhatsApp, WeChat, etc and don’t use SMS. You can turn iMessages off easily if you want the shitty carrier experience.
  - qeternity 5y ago
    American living in London - I rarely use iMessage. Almost 100% WhatsApp which is a much worse product than iMessage. The only time I use iMessage is when I speak to friends and family back home.
  - kennywinker 5y ago
    You’re not suggesting a non-monopolist solution, you’re just suggesting we give a monopoly to someone else (facebook) and abandon the idea a non-proprietary standard that could allow me to have the non-shitty experience with everyone (not just users of my platform) and degrade to sms if needed.
    - lp0_on_fire 5y ago
      There are countless other methods for communicating by text on all of these devices and I think it's a hard sell to call not being able to see emoji reactions from iphone users on android "monopolistic".
      - kennywinker 5y ago
        > There are countless other methods for communicating by text on all of these devices And only one of them (the one made by the platform vendor) can degrade to using the sms service that the hardware is capable of and I pay my carrier for.
        lp0_on_fire 5y ago
        There are many apps that can support sms on android and it's been pointed out several times in this thread that iMessage can be turned off in the Apple settings app if you prefer not to use that protocol. With that setting toggled off the iphone will use SMS exclusively. Nobody is forcing you to use this.
- ubermonkey 5y ago
  Apple is a MINORITY player in the phone market by an absurd margin. They can't do anything "monopolistic" because they do not control the market. They do control their PLATFORM, but that's within their legal rights. If you don't like how iMessages work, you can absolutely choose another phone platform, or another messaging tool on iOS. Since you have this choice, there is no "monopolistic behavior" here. Apple are not obliged to allow all comers to use their systems.
  - kennywinker 5y ago
    It all depends on how you define the market. Is the market mobile phones, or is the market iPhone messaging apps. Companies like Apple spend a lot of effort billing themselves as marketplaces - come to our app STORE - and buy apps from all these vendors. But when it comes to antimonopoly regulations, they’re quick to group themselves with everyone under the sun. Yes I can buy a google phone. And when I have a problem with something on it you’ll say “well just go buy an apple phone there’s plenty of options” and all of a sudden i’ve used up my two options.
    - ubermonkey 5y ago
      You don't get to redefine "monopoly" just because you don't like the way a minority player is doing business. ALL markets have limited choices, and yeah, it'd be nice if MSFT hadn't completely failed any time they tried to do mobile, but healthy competition exists in the mobile space now between Android and iOS. There is no applicable antitrust regulation here.
- 2muchcoffeeman 5y ago
  Is this a US thing? I largely ditched SMS years ago and I don’t really care about it. SMS is for automated messages from companies for booking reminders and package pickups. Otherwise all my message needs is done through signal, WhatsApp, etc.
gunapologist99 5y ago
How soon we have forgotten the lessons of the browser wars..
- qeternity 5y ago
  How wilfully we ignore that iOS has 25% market share...
  - gunapologist99 5y ago
    In the U.S., that number is 59%: https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/united-states-of-america https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/united-sta...
uncomputation 5y ago
I think people strangely confuse competition with monopoly nowadays. The point of competition is to drive people to use your product because it’s superior. That’s the whole benefit. Apple provides a competitive messaging service and others can provide alternatives if they think they can do better in some way. The point of monopoly is to crush competition. Apple isn’t stopping Google from developing a better messaging service. Honestly, they should put more thought into developing features than bashing competition on Twitter.
- makeitdouble 5y ago
  Except Apple is highjacking your phone number and won't let it go without a fight. Is it also how competition works to you ?
  - ubermonkey 5y ago
    You're going to need a cite here. This WAS an issue, but articles abound today from carriers and Apple on how to remove a phone number from the iMessage service.
    - makeitdouble 5y ago
      I stand corrected on the deregistration issue (I also thought it was fairly recent, but apparently it's from 2014, Apple just didn't make much noise about it https://www.theverge.com/2014/11/9/7183507/apple-tool-deregister-imessage-phone-numbers-released https://www.theverge.com/2014/11/9/7183507/apple-tool-deregi... )
  - threeseed 5y ago
    > Except Apple is highjacking your phone number and won't let it go without a fight You know you can just disable iMessage and then the service is not used.
  - Terretta 5y ago
    Fact Check: Apple does not hijack or intercept SMS messages. Apple respects the delivery label(s) you put on your Apple Messages. The messages people say are hijacked are from other Messages users, sent to an individual's Messages label that happens to look like their phone number. This label can also look like an arbitrary email address of choice that does not even have to be your Apple ID. Anyone using SMS can SMS your number on your new phone, since SMS is not being hijacked, and Apple is not intercepting SMS to do anything with it. If you don't want Apple friends using that label that looks like your number to reach your remaining Apple devices (a normal use case!), then remove the label yourself before ditching your iPhone: - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201349 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201349 - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203042 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203042 Or, remove it yourself after: - https://selfsolve.apple.com/deregister-imessage/ https://selfsolve.apple.com/deregister-imessage/
makeitdouble 5y ago
You haven't tried getting rid of iMessage after embracing it: it's a nightmare. It's like a zombie dog that will follow you whatever you do, and will keep eating messages sent to you again and again. There's an ecosystem of tutorials online to go the right step to minimize the effect (e.g. https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/three-steps-to-disable-imessage-and-not-lose-your-mind/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/three-steps-...) That doesn't look like a "Apple did no wrong" situation from any angle we look at it.
- easton 5y ago
  It isn't that bad in my experience, type "disable iMessage" into Google and this is the first result: https://selfsolve.apple.com/deregister-imessage/ https://selfsolve.apple.com/deregister-imessage/ (which offers a way to deregister your phone number if you don't have an iPhone anymore). It definitely was bad when iMessage first launched, but they probably made that site five years ago and it works to get rid of it.

decafninja 5y ago

Completely agree. I'm an iPhone user, but rarely use iMessage. Most of my instant messaging actually happens on some combination of Google Chat! (or whatever they call it these days), KakaoTalk (I'm Korean) and WhatsApp. Plenty of other alternatives out there too. I think I have just one friend who I use iMessage with regularly.

kennywinker 5y ago

Apple stands between me and my carrier’s sms service, and then layers it’s own service on top of that. There is no API messaging app developers can use to do the same thing. It’s clearly monopolistic behavior to interlink your service with a basic infrastructure service. It doesn’t matter to me if a company achieves a monopoly - what matters to me is them seeking one in a way that harms users. Google is guilty of this, apple is guilty of this, hell - since there’s money to be made and no good enforcement of this - most large companies are guilty of this.

gwright 5y ago
> It’s clearly monopolistic behavior to interlink your service with a basic infrastructure service Not very clear at all, IMHO. Would you prefer that iMessage conversations didn't "interlink" with SMS recipients? Is that a better outcome? This is yet another example of the power of the "network affect" and the difficulty of crafting a reasonable regulatory framework. I'm just pushing back at your assertion about "monopolistic behavior" but not at the general difficulty of regulating these sorts of ecosystems.
- kennywinker 5y ago
  > Not very clear at all, IMHO. Would you prefer that iMessage conversations didn't "interlink" with SMS recipients? Is that a better outcome? Possible non-monopolistic solutions: - an open standard for phone-number linked messaging. - Allow any messaging app to assume imessage’s role and send/receive sms messages instead of the imessage app. - separate imessage and sms into separate apps. As you pointed out, this is probably the worst option since nobody really wants this experience. As for regulation: “All general-purpose communications platforms with over 10mil users must allow and enable open access to 3rd party client developers and inter-platform communications gateways” - problem solved
  - x0x0 5y ago
    > “All general-purpose communications platforms with over 10mil users must allow and enable open access to 3rd party client developers and inter-platform communications gateways” - problem solved This is frankly delusion. What is the SLA for a feature? Who decides? How fast can they be deprecated? In the face of security bugs? In the face of active exploitation? Who controls feature additions? What if the operator doesn't want to build the feature? What about abuse? Are they allowed to remove encryption guarantees? Strip e2e encryption? etc etc etc. It's nothing like a trivial problem.
    - etchalon 5y ago
      It's not just delusion. We have an example of numerous open-standard communication platforms that existed, and then failed, because they couldn't keep up with competition. All a "Well, if you get big enough!" law would do is ensure a constant cycle of competitive death.
      - kennywinker 5y ago
        > because they couldn't keep up with competition I think you mean because they couldn’t be monopolized and monetized as effectively as a proprietary solution.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
FanaHOVA 5y ago
> Apple stands between me and my carrier’s sms service Because you chose to buy their phone. Just buy a non-Apple phone, plenty of them.
- kennywinker 5y ago
  Right. So I switch to an android phone, and then when I have complaints about how it locks me in to using google services, or has a terrible permissions model, you tell me to just choose an iPhone… and back and forth we go.
uncomputation 5y ago
> Apple stands between me and my carrier’s sms service You can turn it off at any time. Settings > Messages > iMessage off How does this “harm users”? If anything it provides a service that most users appreciate heavily: read receipts, typing indicators, flexible group chats. If you want to use SMS, you can. If you want to use WhatsApp, you can. All this talk about Apple having a “monopoly” over its own ecosystem is not only incorrect but just tiresome. Apple isn’t “guilty” of anything here.
- extropy 5y ago
  Can I have WhatsApp that fallbacks to SMS though? Genuinely curious.
  - soperj 5y ago
    On android you can do this with Signal, not sure about IOS.
    - kennywinker 5y ago
      Definitely not. There are no public api’s to send or receive sms’ (except via launching the Messages app)
- kennywinker 5y ago
  > How does this “harm users”? I get those extras you refer to (read receipts etc) only if i have an iphone and so does the other user. Yet with an open standard i could have those with everyone. Other apps have features imessage does not - yet i can’t intermix whatsapp/snapchat/vibr/telegram etc with my sms messages - apple is holding my sms’ hostage in the imessage app when i might prefer to send sms’ and whatsapp messages from a single app Apple knows the lock-in increases the value of their devices. That’s harm - my iphone costs more.
  - ubermonkey 5y ago
    These complaints seem really entitled to me. You can download and use something else if you don't want to use Apple's Messages app. You can configure Messages to use only SMS and not do iMessage. You seem to be saying that Apple should provide a multiprotocol tool that supports a bunch of platforms and allow you to intermingle them, which is a fine thing to want, but if it's not in Apple's interest to build such a thing I don't know how you can describe their choice as "wrong" or "harmful".
qeternity 5y ago
> Apple stands between me and my carrier’s sms service No, you chose to put Apple between you and your carrier. Make a different choice. Apple isn't imposing itself on you. > monopolistic behavior > It doesn’t matter to me if a company achieves a monopoly Ok, so you don't actually care what the meaning of these words are, you just want to throw them around when someone does something that you don't like.
- kennywinker 5y ago
  > No, you chose to put Apple between you and your carrier. Right, because the other option was to put google between me and my carrier - which comes with a ton of stuff i’d be upset about (e.g. terrible privacy protections) but you’d blame me for “choosing” because you don’t actually care if I have a choice you just want to blame me eye rolls
  - kergonath 5y ago
    Well, no. You can just not use iMessages. Even on an iPhone.
- aldebran 5y ago
  There’s always someone who makes this argument “don’t use them”. This is no longer grounded in reality my friend. If there are 2 restaurants in town - one that continuously snaps pictures of my every move and the other that won’t let me drink coke the way I want to, saying eat at home always is not a solution. “Apple isn’t imposing itself on you”. Both Apple and Google don’t force people to use them but they do things that make it harder and harder to choose neither of them. In 2022 it’s not easily possible to live without Apple or Google as a consumer without severely putting yourself at a disadvantage. Regulation is needed not to create an even playing field but to stop companies from screwing consumers. This is why European and Australian warranty and quality laws for products are much better than American ones. Saying make a different choice only leads to all companies to do the bare legal minimum. In these cases upping the legal bare minimum is absolutely necessary. Americans seriously need to stop drinking this free market Cool aid. It’s not a free market. It’s highly lop sided and the consumers are at a disadvantage.
bilbo0s 5y ago
Apple stands between me and my carrier’s sms service In complete fairness, Apple doesn't stand between you and your sms carrier. I can't think of any company that does that actually? All companies that I am aware of pass through sms messages to the carrier sms service, and deliver messages from the carrier sms service. Most companies layer a service on top of the sms, but sms itself is meticulously unmolested in every system I'm aware of. Finally, giving devs an api to intercept and process sms messages would be naiveté in the extreme. With so much sensitive data coming through sms, it just would open too many holes. A random dev could intercept passwords, 2 Factor information, account balances, and on and on. For my part, I would be entirely against hackers having that access.
- readams 5y ago
  That actually isn't what iMessage does. iMessage maintains a database of phone numbers that are iMessage, and then intercepts and routes the messages through Apple and not through SMS. You can see this since if you switch away from Apple after using iMessage, anyone using iPhones will not be able to message you unless you go through a procedure to remove your phone number from iMessage.
  - Terretta 5y ago
    To be clear, Apple does not intercept SMS messages. The messages people say are hijacked are from other Messages users, sent to an individual's Messages label that happens to look like their phone number. Anyone using SMS can SMS your number on your new phone, since SMS is not being hijacked, and Apple is not intercepting SMS to do anything with it. If you don't want Apple friends using that label to reach your remaining Apple devices (a normal use case!), then remove the label yourself before ditching your iphone: - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201349 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201349 - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203042 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203042 Or, remove it yourself after: - https://selfsolve.apple.com/deregister-imessage/ https://selfsolve.apple.com/deregister-imessage/
- theta_d 5y ago
  I think OPs point is that Android allows you to use an app other than the stock app to send SMS, Apple does not.
azinman2 5y ago
Most countries use WhatsApp, WeChat, etc and don’t use SMS. You can turn iMessages off easily if you want the shitty carrier experience.
- qeternity 5y ago
  American living in London - I rarely use iMessage. Almost 100% WhatsApp which is a much worse product than iMessage. The only time I use iMessage is when I speak to friends and family back home.
- kennywinker 5y ago
  You’re not suggesting a non-monopolist solution, you’re just suggesting we give a monopoly to someone else (facebook) and abandon the idea a non-proprietary standard that could allow me to have the non-shitty experience with everyone (not just users of my platform) and degrade to sms if needed.
  - lp0_on_fire 5y ago
    There are countless other methods for communicating by text on all of these devices and I think it's a hard sell to call not being able to see emoji reactions from iphone users on android "monopolistic".
    - kennywinker 5y ago
      > There are countless other methods for communicating by text on all of these devices And only one of them (the one made by the platform vendor) can degrade to using the sms service that the hardware is capable of and I pay my carrier for.
      - lp0_on_fire 5y ago
        There are many apps that can support sms on android and it's been pointed out several times in this thread that iMessage can be turned off in the Apple settings app if you prefer not to use that protocol. With that setting toggled off the iphone will use SMS exclusively. Nobody is forcing you to use this.
ubermonkey 5y ago
Apple is a MINORITY player in the phone market by an absurd margin. They can't do anything "monopolistic" because they do not control the market. They do control their PLATFORM, but that's within their legal rights. If you don't like how iMessages work, you can absolutely choose another phone platform, or another messaging tool on iOS. Since you have this choice, there is no "monopolistic behavior" here. Apple are not obliged to allow all comers to use their systems.
- kennywinker 5y ago
  It all depends on how you define the market. Is the market mobile phones, or is the market iPhone messaging apps. Companies like Apple spend a lot of effort billing themselves as marketplaces - come to our app STORE - and buy apps from all these vendors. But when it comes to antimonopoly regulations, they’re quick to group themselves with everyone under the sun. Yes I can buy a google phone. And when I have a problem with something on it you’ll say “well just go buy an apple phone there’s plenty of options” and all of a sudden i’ve used up my two options.
  - ubermonkey 5y ago
    You don't get to redefine "monopoly" just because you don't like the way a minority player is doing business. ALL markets have limited choices, and yeah, it'd be nice if MSFT hadn't completely failed any time they tried to do mobile, but healthy competition exists in the mobile space now between Android and iOS. There is no applicable antitrust regulation here.
2muchcoffeeman 5y ago
Is this a US thing? I largely ditched SMS years ago and I don’t really care about it. SMS is for automated messages from companies for booking reminders and package pickups. Otherwise all my message needs is done through signal, WhatsApp, etc.

gunapologist99 5y ago

How soon we have forgotten the lessons of the browser wars..

qeternity 5y ago
How wilfully we ignore that iOS has 25% market share...
- gunapologist99 5y ago
  In the U.S., that number is 59%: https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/united-states-of-america https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/united-sta...

uncomputation 5y ago

I think people strangely confuse competition with monopoly nowadays. The point of competition is to drive people to use your product because it’s superior. That’s the whole benefit. Apple provides a competitive messaging service and others can provide alternatives if they think they can do better in some way. The point of monopoly is to crush competition. Apple isn’t stopping Google from developing a better messaging service. Honestly, they should put more thought into developing features than bashing competition on Twitter.

makeitdouble 5y ago
Except Apple is highjacking your phone number and won't let it go without a fight. Is it also how competition works to you ?
- ubermonkey 5y ago
  You're going to need a cite here. This WAS an issue, but articles abound today from carriers and Apple on how to remove a phone number from the iMessage service.
  - makeitdouble 5y ago
    I stand corrected on the deregistration issue (I also thought it was fairly recent, but apparently it's from 2014, Apple just didn't make much noise about it https://www.theverge.com/2014/11/9/7183507/apple-tool-deregister-imessage-phone-numbers-released https://www.theverge.com/2014/11/9/7183507/apple-tool-deregi... )
- threeseed 5y ago
  > Except Apple is highjacking your phone number and won't let it go without a fight You know you can just disable iMessage and then the service is not used.
- Terretta 5y ago
  Fact Check: Apple does not hijack or intercept SMS messages. Apple respects the delivery label(s) you put on your Apple Messages. The messages people say are hijacked are from other Messages users, sent to an individual's Messages label that happens to look like their phone number. This label can also look like an arbitrary email address of choice that does not even have to be your Apple ID. Anyone using SMS can SMS your number on your new phone, since SMS is not being hijacked, and Apple is not intercepting SMS to do anything with it. If you don't want Apple friends using that label that looks like your number to reach your remaining Apple devices (a normal use case!), then remove the label yourself before ditching your iPhone: - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201349 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201349 - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203042 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203042 Or, remove it yourself after: - https://selfsolve.apple.com/deregister-imessage/ https://selfsolve.apple.com/deregister-imessage/

makeitdouble 5y ago

You haven't tried getting rid of iMessage after embracing it: it's a nightmare. It's like a zombie dog that will follow you whatever you do, and will keep eating messages sent to you again and again. There's an ecosystem of tutorials online to go the right step to minimize the effect (e.g. https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/three-steps-to-disable-imessage-and-not-lose-your-mind/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/three-steps-...) That doesn't look like a "Apple did no wrong" situation from any angle we look at it.

easton 5y ago
It isn't that bad in my experience, type "disable iMessage" into Google and this is the first result: https://selfsolve.apple.com/deregister-imessage/ https://selfsolve.apple.com/deregister-imessage/ (which offers a way to deregister your phone number if you don't have an iPhone anymore). It definitely was bad when iMessage first launched, but they probably made that site five years ago and it works to get rid of it.