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One thing which is really confusing is why are Android users obsessed with iMessage? Android users can send text messages to iPhones, the can call iPhone users

One thing which is really confusing is why are Android users obsessed with iMessage? Android users can send text messages to iPhones, the can call iPhone users, and they can use third party messaging apps to communicate with iPhone users. It really isn’t clear to me why so many people are so angry they cannot use iMessage on Android.

LordDragonfang 3y ago
Because I want the pictures and videos my iPhone-using parents send me to not be crunched to shit, and I'm not going through the effort of teaching non-technical users to use a different messaging client. Same with the group chats that my partner's extended family keep including me in.
- MBCook 3y ago
  Apple announced RCS support. That will provide what you want.
  - LordDragonfang 3y ago
    Right, but that's likely not coming out for another year yet, and requires everyone involved to update their phones (yet another hassle for non-technical users, they will put updates off for as long as they can). As the quote in the article says, Apple clearly recognizes the issue, and beeper mini fixes it now, not "at some point in the future".
    - cqqxo4zV46cp 3y ago
      Getting someone to update their iPhone is a matter of them not actively dismissing iOS’s repeated attempts at updating itself. This isn’t a good-faith argument.
    - badwolf 3y ago
      I've personally found Apple users are some of the quickest to install updates/upgrades in bulk/mass. I think one of the key reasons, other than apple sending push notifications that it's going to automatically install overnight, is they bundle candy/goodies to entice users to update asap - Want the new emojis so your friends stop sending you scary black boxes with an x over it? Update now.
MBCook 3y ago
You know that’s a great question. I’ve never thought to ask that but boy does it seem to come up a lot.
increscent 3y ago
I recently switched from Android to iOS just for iMessage. SMS is quite unreliable even in 2023. SMS messages don't have the same delivery guarantees as IP-based messaging services. And often I have internet access, but spotty cellular service. The thing that pushed me over the edge was that my carrier happened to block all my SMS for a day. I only found out about it later in the day, after I had missed many (unrecoverable) messages. To avoid this, I could either blindly trust some other carrier, or use IP-based messaging. In my area, all my friends use iMessage. Ideally, people would use Telegram, WhatsApp, or even Matrix, but they don't. It's not uncommon to leave someone out of a group chat just because they don't have iMessage--the alternative is a subpar MMS experience. At some point, I'll probably buy a cheap Mac Mini and run BlueBubbles, but for now it's nice to not have to worry about messaging reliability, and I get the added bonus of being able to Facetime my family members, who all use iOS.
- girvo 3y ago
  FaceTime is the real lock-in service for me. I use it for all my video and most of my audio calls, it’s second to none in terms of reliability and quality. I wish that was accessible from my work laptop!
- HKH2 3y ago
  I don't get why Americans cling so dearly to SMS.
  - inoop 3y ago
    As a European living in the US, it's been baffling to me. Everywhere else in the world people use WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, etc. This iMessage green/blue bubble nonsense just isn't a thing outside the US.
    - rtkwe 3y ago
      Apple has 56% of the US market compared to just 36% in the EU, afaik the number gets even higher as you go younger so the clique-iness is a lot stronger.
    - 3y ago
jgaxn 3y ago
The iPhone user experience for messaging with Android users (especially MMS) is awful and the Android users in the group chat get blamed for it. Having blue text bubbles show up when someone texts you can be seen in some circles as a status symbol.
- cqqxo4zV46cp 3y ago
  Let’s be clear here: Apple not yet implementing RCS aside, the experience is horrible because SMS/MMS are horrible.
  - mission_failed 3y ago
    I can send the same mms from Android to Android and Apple recipients and they receive the same media. Yet sending from Apple to both the Apple users get good quality and Android Apple deliberately sends pixelated rubbish.
    - MBCook 3y ago
      Apple to Apple is not MMS.
ciabattabread 3y ago
Fashion statement
haswell 3y ago
An android user in an otherwise iMessage only group chat tends to mess things up. Those Apple users tend to get frustrated by it and group chat exclusion is a real thing. It’s less about a specific feature set and more about inclusion and acceptance from/by peers. This is especially prevalent among the younger crowd. Think high school group dynamics playing out with phones. And then on top of that, photos/videos are terrible quality.
- cycomanic 3y ago
  I realised this the other day, a friend send me a video via mms (I'm on android) and the quality was super poor (like 90s gif like quality). I though she must have some issue with her camera or so, no next time I saw her we looked at her phone (which is an iPhone), perfectly fine video. It's just apple degrading the performance for who is not on an iPhone. I mean just imagine they'd degrade sound to nearly noise if you'd call a non-iPhone.
  - meepmorp 3y ago
    > It's just apple degrading the performance for who is not on an iPhone. The reason the video looks like ass is because MMS messages aren't meant to be very large. While (iirc) there isn't a hard limit, the recommended maximum message size is ~600KB. The only way to fit a video into that range is to compress the hell out of it.
    - hu3 3y ago
      That's the technical reason. Apple knows of such limitations and does nothing to improve the situation. In fact they ban those who try. FTA.
      - haswell 3y ago
        Apple announced RCS support in 2024, so they’re doing more than nothing. Don’t think we know yet how fully they’ll support it though.
      - 3y ago
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
trevor-e 3y ago
From Google themselves: https://www.android.com/get-the-message/ https://www.android.com/get-the-message/ Apple is arbitrarily and intentionally making it a worse experience than it needs to be.
dvngnt_ 3y ago
it's the other way around
Brian_K_White 3y ago
I think they don't like being spit on and excluded by iphone users. Iphone users don't like when there are android users in group chats. The reason the iphone users don't like it is because Apple specifically and artificially makes the experience annoying and shitty in several different ways, for the iphone users not just for the Android users.
- Pulcinella 3y ago
  Good grief! No one is spitting on people with Android phones. If you really feel this way you need to put your screen down and spend time talking to people in real life. No one is persecuting you.
  - somebodythere 3y ago
    No one is literally spitting, but Apple intentionally creates enough friction that Android users really do regularly get excluded from group chats in the US where iMessage is the convention for group chats.
    - Pulcinella 3y ago
      Chat app friction is not being spat on which is what the OP literally said. Perceived inconvenience is not persecution.
      - inoop 3y ago
        You may not have ever experienced this yourself, but it's a known cultural phenonemon. Here's a New York Times article: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/29/technology/personaltech/apple-iphone-android-bubbles.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/29/technology/personaltech/a... > Over time, the annoyance and frustration that built up between blue and green bubbles evolved into more than a tech problem. It created a deeper sociological divide between people who judged one another by their phones. The color of a bubble became a symbol that some believe reflects status and wealth, given a perception that only wealthy people buy iPhones. ... > On dating apps, green-bubble users are often rejected by the blues. Adults with iPhones have been known to privately snicker to one another when a green bubble taints a group chat. In schools, a green bubble is an invitation for mockery and exclusion by children with iPhones, according to Common Sense Media, a nonprofit that focuses on technology’s impact on families. > “This green-versus-blue issue is a form of cyberbullying,” said Jim Steyer, the chief executive of Common Sense, which works with thousands of schools that have shared stories about tensions among children using messaging apps.
Despegar 3y ago
It's just become a meme among tech enthusiasts (on Reddit, HN, etc) and tech journalists that "blue bubbles" are a real social problem. The origin of the meme was this amusing post by Paul Ford 8 years ago [1]. They took it and ran with it for their own purposes. For some it was to explain away the iPhone's success versus Android and for some interested actors like Epic it was part of their antitrust campaigning to illustrate the "lock in" effects. It however was never a social problem in the real world (more than, say, young people feeling depressed about seeing their peers' manicured lives on Instagram) or the reason why iPhones sell well (you only had to look to China, or now India, to see the success of the iPhone in places where iMessage wasn't the dominant messenger). [1] https://archive.ph/OcDaO https://archive.ph/OcDaO
- haswell 3y ago
  Even if this was a meme at some point in the past, it’s a very real issue now. I know multiple people who have switched to iPhone just for iMessage. And the kids these days won’t accept anything but the blue bubble. This is no longer a meme. Or if it is, it’s also real.
  - LargeTomato 3y ago
    I switched because people think android users are poor and I don't want to signal to others that I am poor.
    - nani8ot 3y ago
      It's a self fulfilling prophecy. Once everyone has an iPhone to not be perceived as poor, the only people still using Android will actually not be able to afford an iPhone. At least it sounds like that's what happens across the ocean.
      - lotsofpulp 3y ago
        Even the bottom income quintile in the US uses iPhones, especially young people. They are not that expensive. Knowing someone has an iPhone tells you nothing about their wealth/power. What people think it does tell them is where someone is on the cool / weird spectrum. See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38578103 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38578103
im_thatoneguy 3y ago
Because iMessage users won't let you join iMessage group chats. They don't want to lose features. So your choice is to just not be friends anymore or have an iphone device. I have an ipad just to chat with people who refuse to use anything other than imessage. I don't want anything to do with iMessage, but I have to.
- azubinski 3y ago
  This is the first time I've heard that people who put features above friendship are called friends. Well, the time has come.
  - graphe 3y ago
    I use features of programs with people who can use it. I don't want to call friends that have bad audio quality as often and I'm not as comfortable on unencrypted services. I prefer facetime for the quality. We all use something Android users can use when we want to include them, but it degrades the experience. Most people don't talk to people they don't communicate as well with.
bitwize 3y ago
Green bubbles means you won't be called back for a second date.
- zappb 3y ago
  No, the holier-than-thou attitude of typical Android users shitting on the Apple Sheep is why they don’t get called back.
- bigstrat2003 3y ago
  That's a feature, not a bug. Anyone who does that would be a miserable significant other.
esrauch 3y ago
My mother sends me videos from her phone and I literally can't see what she's trying to show me.
cphoover 3y ago
My whole family uses iMessage because it is the default client on their iphones. I'd love to partake in the family group chat. For those technically savvy enough to download an additional client like Meta's Whatsapp or Messenger... it's no problem, but for the less technically inclined (like my mother) they will just use the default client.
mission_failed 3y ago
Because Apple deliberately screws with messages to non Apple users. Every video my family sends to me is low res heavily pixelated trash, to the point that you can't even recognise faces.
- Pulcinella 3y ago
  That's cellphone carriers. MMS messages generally have to fit within 300-600KB[0] so they are horribly, horribly compressed. https://m.gsmarena.com/glossary.php3?term=mms https://m.gsmarena.com/glossary.php3?term=mms
  - tryauuum 3y ago
    sending MMS in 2023 is a crime. what next, WAP?
- paulmd 3y ago
  have them send an icloud link
system2 3y ago
I have a group chat with mainly female iPhone users. One of the users switched to Android. They created a new group without her. Bizarre but real.
bilalq 3y ago
You've heard from plenty of others on this thread, but here's another anecdotal data point: I'm in my early 30's and have been told to my face by friends I'm hanging out with that they excluded me from group chats because I have an Android phone. Sometimes there'll be two group chats where the second one is just the iPhone users subset. Some photos only get shared in that second group chat. Some messages get sent giving people a heads up about things and the sender sometimes forgets that a few people are being left out of the loop. There are real social segregation issues that happen.

LordDragonfang 3y ago

Because I want the pictures and videos my iPhone-using parents send me to not be crunched to shit, and I'm not going through the effort of teaching non-technical users to use a different messaging client. Same with the group chats that my partner's extended family keep including me in.

MBCook 3y ago
Apple announced RCS support. That will provide what you want.
- LordDragonfang 3y ago
  Right, but that's likely not coming out for another year yet, and requires everyone involved to update their phones (yet another hassle for non-technical users, they will put updates off for as long as they can). As the quote in the article says, Apple clearly recognizes the issue, and beeper mini fixes it now, not "at some point in the future".
  - cqqxo4zV46cp 3y ago
    Getting someone to update their iPhone is a matter of them not actively dismissing iOS’s repeated attempts at updating itself. This isn’t a good-faith argument.
  - badwolf 3y ago
    I've personally found Apple users are some of the quickest to install updates/upgrades in bulk/mass. I think one of the key reasons, other than apple sending push notifications that it's going to automatically install overnight, is they bundle candy/goodies to entice users to update asap - Want the new emojis so your friends stop sending you scary black boxes with an x over it? Update now.

MBCook 3y ago

You know that’s a great question. I’ve never thought to ask that but boy does it seem to come up a lot.

increscent 3y ago

I recently switched from Android to iOS just for iMessage. SMS is quite unreliable even in 2023. SMS messages don't have the same delivery guarantees as IP-based messaging services. And often I have internet access, but spotty cellular service. The thing that pushed me over the edge was that my carrier happened to block all my SMS for a day. I only found out about it later in the day, after I had missed many (unrecoverable) messages. To avoid this, I could either blindly trust some other carrier, or use IP-based messaging. In my area, all my friends use iMessage. Ideally, people would use Telegram, WhatsApp, or even Matrix, but they don't. It's not uncommon to leave someone out of a group chat just because they don't have iMessage--the alternative is a subpar MMS experience. At some point, I'll probably buy a cheap Mac Mini and run BlueBubbles, but for now it's nice to not have to worry about messaging reliability, and I get the added bonus of being able to Facetime my family members, who all use iOS.

girvo 3y ago
FaceTime is the real lock-in service for me. I use it for all my video and most of my audio calls, it’s second to none in terms of reliability and quality. I wish that was accessible from my work laptop!
HKH2 3y ago
I don't get why Americans cling so dearly to SMS.
- inoop 3y ago
  As a European living in the US, it's been baffling to me. Everywhere else in the world people use WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, etc. This iMessage green/blue bubble nonsense just isn't a thing outside the US.
  - rtkwe 3y ago
    Apple has 56% of the US market compared to just 36% in the EU, afaik the number gets even higher as you go younger so the clique-iness is a lot stronger.
  - 3y ago

jgaxn 3y ago

The iPhone user experience for messaging with Android users (especially MMS) is awful and the Android users in the group chat get blamed for it. Having blue text bubbles show up when someone texts you can be seen in some circles as a status symbol.

cqqxo4zV46cp 3y ago
Let’s be clear here: Apple not yet implementing RCS aside, the experience is horrible because SMS/MMS are horrible.
- mission_failed 3y ago
  I can send the same mms from Android to Android and Apple recipients and they receive the same media. Yet sending from Apple to both the Apple users get good quality and Android Apple deliberately sends pixelated rubbish.
  - MBCook 3y ago
    Apple to Apple is not MMS.

ciabattabread 3y ago

Fashion statement

haswell 3y ago

An android user in an otherwise iMessage only group chat tends to mess things up. Those Apple users tend to get frustrated by it and group chat exclusion is a real thing. It’s less about a specific feature set and more about inclusion and acceptance from/by peers. This is especially prevalent among the younger crowd. Think high school group dynamics playing out with phones. And then on top of that, photos/videos are terrible quality.

cycomanic 3y ago
I realised this the other day, a friend send me a video via mms (I'm on android) and the quality was super poor (like 90s gif like quality). I though she must have some issue with her camera or so, no next time I saw her we looked at her phone (which is an iPhone), perfectly fine video. It's just apple degrading the performance for who is not on an iPhone. I mean just imagine they'd degrade sound to nearly noise if you'd call a non-iPhone.
- meepmorp 3y ago
  > It's just apple degrading the performance for who is not on an iPhone. The reason the video looks like ass is because MMS messages aren't meant to be very large. While (iirc) there isn't a hard limit, the recommended maximum message size is ~600KB. The only way to fit a video into that range is to compress the hell out of it.
  - hu3 3y ago
    That's the technical reason. Apple knows of such limitations and does nothing to improve the situation. In fact they ban those who try. FTA.
    - haswell 3y ago
      Apple announced RCS support in 2024, so they’re doing more than nothing. Don’t think we know yet how fully they’ll support it though.
    - 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

trevor-e 3y ago

From Google themselves: https://www.android.com/get-the-message/ https://www.android.com/get-the-message/ Apple is arbitrarily and intentionally making it a worse experience than it needs to be.

dvngnt_ 3y ago

it's the other way around

Brian_K_White 3y ago

I think they don't like being spit on and excluded by iphone users. Iphone users don't like when there are android users in group chats. The reason the iphone users don't like it is because Apple specifically and artificially makes the experience annoying and shitty in several different ways, for the iphone users not just for the Android users.

Pulcinella 3y ago
Good grief! No one is spitting on people with Android phones. If you really feel this way you need to put your screen down and spend time talking to people in real life. No one is persecuting you.
- somebodythere 3y ago
  No one is literally spitting, but Apple intentionally creates enough friction that Android users really do regularly get excluded from group chats in the US where iMessage is the convention for group chats.
  - Pulcinella 3y ago
    Chat app friction is not being spat on which is what the OP literally said. Perceived inconvenience is not persecution.
    - inoop 3y ago
      You may not have ever experienced this yourself, but it's a known cultural phenonemon. Here's a New York Times article: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/29/technology/personaltech/apple-iphone-android-bubbles.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/29/technology/personaltech/a... > Over time, the annoyance and frustration that built up between blue and green bubbles evolved into more than a tech problem. It created a deeper sociological divide between people who judged one another by their phones. The color of a bubble became a symbol that some believe reflects status and wealth, given a perception that only wealthy people buy iPhones. ... > On dating apps, green-bubble users are often rejected by the blues. Adults with iPhones have been known to privately snicker to one another when a green bubble taints a group chat. In schools, a green bubble is an invitation for mockery and exclusion by children with iPhones, according to Common Sense Media, a nonprofit that focuses on technology’s impact on families. > “This green-versus-blue issue is a form of cyberbullying,” said Jim Steyer, the chief executive of Common Sense, which works with thousands of schools that have shared stories about tensions among children using messaging apps.

Despegar 3y ago

It's just become a meme among tech enthusiasts (on Reddit, HN, etc) and tech journalists that "blue bubbles" are a real social problem. The origin of the meme was this amusing post by Paul Ford 8 years ago [1]. They took it and ran with it for their own purposes. For some it was to explain away the iPhone's success versus Android and for some interested actors like Epic it was part of their antitrust campaigning to illustrate the "lock in" effects. It however was never a social problem in the real world (more than, say, young people feeling depressed about seeing their peers' manicured lives on Instagram) or the reason why iPhones sell well (you only had to look to China, or now India, to see the success of the iPhone in places where iMessage wasn't the dominant messenger). [1] https://archive.ph/OcDaO https://archive.ph/OcDaO

haswell 3y ago
Even if this was a meme at some point in the past, it’s a very real issue now. I know multiple people who have switched to iPhone just for iMessage. And the kids these days won’t accept anything but the blue bubble. This is no longer a meme. Or if it is, it’s also real.
- LargeTomato 3y ago
  I switched because people think android users are poor and I don't want to signal to others that I am poor.
  - nani8ot 3y ago
    It's a self fulfilling prophecy. Once everyone has an iPhone to not be perceived as poor, the only people still using Android will actually not be able to afford an iPhone. At least it sounds like that's what happens across the ocean.
    - lotsofpulp 3y ago
      Even the bottom income quintile in the US uses iPhones, especially young people. They are not that expensive. Knowing someone has an iPhone tells you nothing about their wealth/power. What people think it does tell them is where someone is on the cool / weird spectrum. See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38578103 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38578103

im_thatoneguy 3y ago

Because iMessage users won't let you join iMessage group chats. They don't want to lose features. So your choice is to just not be friends anymore or have an iphone device. I have an ipad just to chat with people who refuse to use anything other than imessage. I don't want anything to do with iMessage, but I have to.

azubinski 3y ago
This is the first time I've heard that people who put features above friendship are called friends. Well, the time has come.
- graphe 3y ago
  I use features of programs with people who can use it. I don't want to call friends that have bad audio quality as often and I'm not as comfortable on unencrypted services. I prefer facetime for the quality. We all use something Android users can use when we want to include them, but it degrades the experience. Most people don't talk to people they don't communicate as well with.

bitwize 3y ago

Green bubbles means you won't be called back for a second date.

zappb 3y ago
No, the holier-than-thou attitude of typical Android users shitting on the Apple Sheep is why they don’t get called back.
bigstrat2003 3y ago
That's a feature, not a bug. Anyone who does that would be a miserable significant other.

esrauch 3y ago

My mother sends me videos from her phone and I literally can't see what she's trying to show me.

cphoover 3y ago

My whole family uses iMessage because it is the default client on their iphones. I'd love to partake in the family group chat. For those technically savvy enough to download an additional client like Meta's Whatsapp or Messenger... it's no problem, but for the less technically inclined (like my mother) they will just use the default client.

mission_failed 3y ago

Because Apple deliberately screws with messages to non Apple users. Every video my family sends to me is low res heavily pixelated trash, to the point that you can't even recognise faces.

Pulcinella 3y ago
That's cellphone carriers. MMS messages generally have to fit within 300-600KB[0] so they are horribly, horribly compressed. https://m.gsmarena.com/glossary.php3?term=mms https://m.gsmarena.com/glossary.php3?term=mms
- tryauuum 3y ago
  sending MMS in 2023 is a crime. what next, WAP?
paulmd 3y ago
have them send an icloud link

system2 3y ago

I have a group chat with mainly female iPhone users. One of the users switched to Android. They created a new group without her. Bizarre but real.

bilalq 3y ago

You've heard from plenty of others on this thread, but here's another anecdotal data point: I'm in my early 30's and have been told to my face by friends I'm hanging out with that they excluded me from group chats because I have an Android phone. Sometimes there'll be two group chats where the second one is just the iPhone users subset. Some photos only get shared in that second group chat. Some messages get sent giving people a heads up about things and the sender sometimes forgets that a few people are being left out of the loop. There are real social segregation issues that happen.