3 ms·

Oh stop. iMesssge has long since passed the point of 'fun app' and is well into the realm of public utility. They're a victim of their own success. If our reg

Oh stop. iMesssge has long since passed the point of 'fun app' and is well into the realm of public utility. They're a victim of their own success. If our regulators weren't asleep at the wheel this would have been forcibly spun out years ago. The blue/green icon debacle should have been ruled discriminatory. Anecdotally I had to switch to iOS due to iMessage being used amongst my colleagues.

richwater 3y ago
> public utility Can we stop labeling everything that people like a "public utility"? What is ridiculous phrase. At any point in time I can open 10 chat apps and talk to my friends. There are _existing_ public utilities that have way more, _actual_ monopoly power than iMessage and federal, state and local governments do nothing - nay - support it.
- xanaxagoras 3y ago
  But public utilities are a human right!
- anotherhue 3y ago
  I hate iMessage but I’m forced to use it because I need to communicate with people who don’t understand anything else. Try and chat to a group including 50+ year olds and see how far you get without it. This feels like “Please submit documents in Microsoft Word format” all over again.
  - kashunstva 3y ago
    > with people who don’t understand anything else. or with people who _do_ understand other messaging platforms but choose to use iMessage? I fall (mostly) into the latter category. I well understand that other messaging systems exist, have accounts on a handful; but the people I communicate most with use iMessage. I'm not going to persuade them otherwise; and I'm not going to be harangued with notifications on a half-dozen different messaging apps. > 50+ year olds It's how I message with my 15 year old. And mostly how she messages with her friends. I think the usage patterns are more nuanced than old/young and simpleton/cognoscenti.
  - sbuk 3y ago
    > Try and chat to a group including 50+ year olds and see how far you get without it. I do. Regularly. Using WhatsApp.
fzeindl 3y ago
What is the use case for iMessage in interactions of colleagues. No email?
the_other 3y ago
> is well into the realm of public utility. In the US perhaps. UK here. "no-one" uses iMessage. The only people I use it with are the ones who refuse to use Signal (because I refuse to use WhatsApp). Most people here don't know or care that the green/blue bubbles mean different things. I've had to explain it repeatedly. The way iMessage locks your phone number into the Apple ID system, meaning that people using iMessage to chat with people who have changed their phone away from Apple sometimes can't get messages through. Here, it's a joke app, used under sufferance.
- karaterobot 3y ago
  > UK here. "no-one" uses iMessage. I assume you put no-one in quotes because it's not true? Of course people in the UK use iMessage! From this source, it looks like about 1 in 3 internet users age 16-64 use it. https://engage.sinch.com/blog/most-popular-messaging-apps-in-the-world/#Europe https://engage.sinch.com/blog/most-popular-messaging-apps-in...
  - the_other 3y ago
    Unpacking my quotes, I mean it like this: most people don't choose to use iMessage because of its features, and to look after their groups. They mainly use Messenger, WhatsApp, Telegram, Snapchat or Signal for that purpose. You _can't_ use iMessage outside of niche groups because of the roughly 50/50 split in iOS/Android ownership [0]. People do use iMessage, because it's the SMS app on their phone. [0]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/262179/market-share-held-by-mobile-operating-systems-in-the-united-kingdom/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/262179/market-share-held...
- joshmanders 3y ago
  > The way iMessage locks your phone number into the Apple ID system, meaning that people using iMessage to chat with people who have changed their phone away from Apple sometimes can't get messages through. You can disable iMessage on an iPhone and it just becomes SMS. You're not even forced to use it as an iPhone user.
  - 3y ago
sigzero 3y ago
> into the realm of public utility No it isn't and what Beeper is doing is wrong.
- PrimeMcFly 3y ago
  What Beeper is doing is righting a wrong.
hunter2_ 3y ago
> should have been ruled discriminatory Discriminating is completely fine unless it's done based on protected classes (which, generally speaking, are things that aren't a result of simple choices). Choosing whether to use an iPhone falls on the "discriminating is totally fine" side of things, in my book. I've never had an iPhone but the default messaging apps on my recent Android phones have told me whether or not the person I'm messaging has RCS or not. That lets me know whether I should expect them to see typing indicators and so forth. Is that also a bad thing? What if it used colors instead of a written label?
jandrewrogers 3y ago
> The blue/green icon debacle should have been ruled discriminatory. This discrimination is not arbitrary, it is critical functionality. The set of features available to blue icons is vastly broader (it goes far beyond messaging) than the features available to green icons. Some of these features cannot be practically replicated to non-Apple platforms. Blue icons also have a much higher quality of service because they don't rely on telco infrastructure for delivery. Green icon messages frequently get lost or are delivered extremely late. I use WhatsApp, Signal, and iMessage daily. Apple's iMessage (blue icon version) is the best of the bunch and it isn't particularly close. I don't think this is because there is anything special about iMessage per se, it is more that implementing complex core features across a broad range of unrelated platforms necessarily dumbs things down to the lowest common denominator, which makes for an unnecessarily rubbish experience on many platforms. iMessage goes for depth where other messaging platforms go for breadth.
- PrimeMcFly 3y ago
  You don't need to distinguish between android and iPhones users to that extent with different colors though. It absolutely was/is discriminatory.
  - pxmpxm 3y ago
    But you do, for the arguments mentioned. Native iMessage client with native iMessage functionality versus SMS with whatever garbage implementation your carrier decided to go with.
    - PrimeMcFly 3y ago
      You can distinguish between iMessage messages and SMS/RCS messages more subtly than making them a different color and going out of your way to 'other' non-iMessage users.

richwater 3y ago

> public utility Can we stop labeling everything that people like a "public utility"? What is ridiculous phrase. At any point in time I can open 10 chat apps and talk to my friends. There are _existing_ public utilities that have way more, _actual_ monopoly power than iMessage and federal, state and local governments do nothing - nay - support it.

xanaxagoras 3y ago
But public utilities are a human right!
anotherhue 3y ago
I hate iMessage but I’m forced to use it because I need to communicate with people who don’t understand anything else. Try and chat to a group including 50+ year olds and see how far you get without it. This feels like “Please submit documents in Microsoft Word format” all over again.
- kashunstva 3y ago
  > with people who don’t understand anything else. or with people who _do_ understand other messaging platforms but choose to use iMessage? I fall (mostly) into the latter category. I well understand that other messaging systems exist, have accounts on a handful; but the people I communicate most with use iMessage. I'm not going to persuade them otherwise; and I'm not going to be harangued with notifications on a half-dozen different messaging apps. > 50+ year olds It's how I message with my 15 year old. And mostly how she messages with her friends. I think the usage patterns are more nuanced than old/young and simpleton/cognoscenti.
- sbuk 3y ago
  > Try and chat to a group including 50+ year olds and see how far you get without it. I do. Regularly. Using WhatsApp.

fzeindl 3y ago

What is the use case for iMessage in interactions of colleagues. No email?

the_other 3y ago

> is well into the realm of public utility. In the US perhaps. UK here. "no-one" uses iMessage. The only people I use it with are the ones who refuse to use Signal (because I refuse to use WhatsApp). Most people here don't know or care that the green/blue bubbles mean different things. I've had to explain it repeatedly. The way iMessage locks your phone number into the Apple ID system, meaning that people using iMessage to chat with people who have changed their phone away from Apple sometimes can't get messages through. Here, it's a joke app, used under sufferance.

karaterobot 3y ago
> UK here. "no-one" uses iMessage. I assume you put no-one in quotes because it's not true? Of course people in the UK use iMessage! From this source, it looks like about 1 in 3 internet users age 16-64 use it. https://engage.sinch.com/blog/most-popular-messaging-apps-in-the-world/#Europe https://engage.sinch.com/blog/most-popular-messaging-apps-in...
- the_other 3y ago
  Unpacking my quotes, I mean it like this: most people don't choose to use iMessage because of its features, and to look after their groups. They mainly use Messenger, WhatsApp, Telegram, Snapchat or Signal for that purpose. You _can't_ use iMessage outside of niche groups because of the roughly 50/50 split in iOS/Android ownership [0]. People do use iMessage, because it's the SMS app on their phone. [0]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/262179/market-share-held-by-mobile-operating-systems-in-the-united-kingdom/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/262179/market-share-held...
joshmanders 3y ago
> The way iMessage locks your phone number into the Apple ID system, meaning that people using iMessage to chat with people who have changed their phone away from Apple sometimes can't get messages through. You can disable iMessage on an iPhone and it just becomes SMS. You're not even forced to use it as an iPhone user.
- 3y ago

sigzero 3y ago

> into the realm of public utility No it isn't and what Beeper is doing is wrong.

PrimeMcFly 3y ago
What Beeper is doing is righting a wrong.

hunter2_ 3y ago

> should have been ruled discriminatory Discriminating is completely fine unless it's done based on protected classes (which, generally speaking, are things that aren't a result of simple choices). Choosing whether to use an iPhone falls on the "discriminating is totally fine" side of things, in my book. I've never had an iPhone but the default messaging apps on my recent Android phones have told me whether or not the person I'm messaging has RCS or not. That lets me know whether I should expect them to see typing indicators and so forth. Is that also a bad thing? What if it used colors instead of a written label?

jandrewrogers 3y ago

> The blue/green icon debacle should have been ruled discriminatory. This discrimination is not arbitrary, it is critical functionality. The set of features available to blue icons is vastly broader (it goes far beyond messaging) than the features available to green icons. Some of these features cannot be practically replicated to non-Apple platforms. Blue icons also have a much higher quality of service because they don't rely on telco infrastructure for delivery. Green icon messages frequently get lost or are delivered extremely late. I use WhatsApp, Signal, and iMessage daily. Apple's iMessage (blue icon version) is the best of the bunch and it isn't particularly close. I don't think this is because there is anything special about iMessage per se, it is more that implementing complex core features across a broad range of unrelated platforms necessarily dumbs things down to the lowest common denominator, which makes for an unnecessarily rubbish experience on many platforms. iMessage goes for depth where other messaging platforms go for breadth.

PrimeMcFly 3y ago
You don't need to distinguish between android and iPhones users to that extent with different colors though. It absolutely was/is discriminatory.
- pxmpxm 3y ago
  But you do, for the arguments mentioned. Native iMessage client with native iMessage functionality versus SMS with whatever garbage implementation your carrier decided to go with.
  - PrimeMcFly 3y ago
    You can distinguish between iMessage messages and SMS/RCS messages more subtly than making them a different color and going out of your way to 'other' non-iMessage users.