7 ms·

The messaging interop point is probably DOA since Apple has stated that they will be adding RCS support to iMessage. The smartwatch point is interesting and no

The messaging interop point is probably DOA since Apple has stated that they will be adding RCS support to iMessage. The smartwatch point is interesting and not an argument I've seen made before, but it's a very good example of Apple's vendor lock-in.

baq 3y ago
Quote from the article: > The company “undermines” the ability of iPhone users to message with owners of other types of smartphones, like those running the Android operating system, the government said. That divide — epitomized by the green bubbles that show an Android owner’s messages — sent a signal that other smartphones were lower quality than the iPhone, according to the lawsuit. I read that as 'interop' is a secondary issue, if an issue at all; the actual case is the green/blue segregation. If Apple embedded a fingerprint in every interoperable message and shown blue messages for iMessage-sent content, green background for others, it'd still be a problem even if messages are otherwise identical - unless all the features truly work on both, in which case the color split is purely status signaling.
- mopsi 3y ago
  Strage to see that as an issue; SMS is clearly an inferior protocol compared to iMessage and it's useful to know when messages have been downgraded.
  - baq 3y ago
    I agree. That's why I'm saying interop is not the root of the problem. Segregation of people based on whether they are using iMessage or something else combined with inability to install iMessage on non-Apple devices causes a social problem and a significant smartphone market pressure.
  - throw0101c 3y ago
    > Strage to see that as an issue; SMS is clearly an inferior protocol compared to iMessage and it's useful to know when messages have been downgraded. Except that's not why the blue/green difference was created (at least historically). It dates back to the time where SMS messages cost money for each one sent (though plans often came with x free messages), so the green message was telling you it was (potentially) costing you money when sending/receiving messages. (US$ = greenbacks -> green = cost)
    - danaris 3y ago
      That's also ahistorical. The green bubbles came first. iMessage didn't even exist for the first few years of the iPhone's life. All messages were green. Green could not have been chosen to indicate it cost money, because there was nothing to distinguish it from. Then, in 2011 (IIRC), iMessage was introduced, and the blue bubbles were to indicate both that it doesn't cost money, and that it supports several other capabilities (which have changed over the years—IIRC, it did not start out with end-to-end encryption, so the people boldly asserting that that's the primary reason for the distinction are also wrong).
    - baq 3y ago
      The intent of the color doesn't matter. The actual effect of the color is what matters. Hopefully to the courts, anyway.
      - tensor 3y ago
        The actual effect is to know when my message is secure. No, RCS or another protocol does not mean it’s secure, even if they have some encryption. The other app can still eavesdrop after the message has reached the end. But perhaps the courts would want to weaken security. It’s definitely a thorn in their side.
        baq 3y ago
        The actual effect is ostracism of green bubbles. You literally get kicked out of social circles and get peer-pressured into buying an iPhone.
        ziddoap 3y ago
        Does this.... actually happen? To like, people over the age of 10? If so, I'd almost be thankful to Apple for letting me know who not to bother being friends with. If someone in my social circle ostracized someone else because of their phone, they (the person doing the ostracizing) wouldn't be in my social circle anymore.
  - TurningCanadian 3y ago
    iMessage is the monopoly part. They could make an App or even just an API available on other platforms but don't because they want the lock-in. > “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 > “iMessage on Android would simply serve to remove [an] obstacle to iPhone families giving their kids Android phones,” 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... Not getting on board with RCS or any other way to improve SMS/MMS until they were (implicitly) forced was motivated by that desire to lock their users in to a messaging platform that only works on Apple devices.
  - fennecbutt 3y ago
    Only because of Apple's refusal to implement RCS for feature parity. They're doing this on purpose, claiming anything else is just wool.
- pchristensen 3y ago
  Gruber gives a pretty good breakdown of the blue/green bubble history: https://daringfireball.net/2022/01/seeing_green https://daringfireball.net/2022/01/seeing_green Short version: SMS has been green since the first iPhone, blue iMessage was added later. Green was not invented to "punish the poors"
  - alt227 3y ago
    > Green was not invented to "punish the poors" No, but blue was only given to the first class citizens.
  - baq 3y ago
    It doesn’t matter. That’s how teens are using it today.
    - sib 3y ago
      So maybe someone should talk to the teens, rather than wasting taxpayer money trying punish a company for building a better product...
      - smoldesu 3y ago
        Maybe Apple shouldn't use their dominant position as a smartphone manufacturer to knowledgeably exploit human insecurity and exacerbate user woe in hope of selling families another iPhone: https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/21/24107676/buy-your-mom-an-iphone https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/21/24107676/buy-your-mom-an-...
        vmladenov 3y ago
        How long until the government mandates that Apple start directly parenting teenagers?
        sib 3y ago
        Or perhaps regulators will just require Apple to adopt Google's messaging app strategy, which is clearly much better for consumers: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/08/a-decade-and-a-half-of-instability-the-history-of-google-messaging-apps/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/08/a-decade-and-a-half-...
- jandrewrogers 3y ago
  The colors indicate the features available. Even with RCS, there will be a significant list of features available to iMessage users that are not available over RCS. No matter what Apple does there must be some mechanism to visually indicate that standard iMessage features are no longer available. What would be the alternative, pretending that these features exist and then failing silently when one client doesn't support them? The green/blue bubble thing is irrelevant. It reflects a fundamental reality of the platform technology.
  - baq 3y ago
    Technology doesn’t matter here. What matters is whether people feel pressured to buy iMessage capable devices by others. In the US the answer is yes. Elsewhere it’s WhatsApp everywhere (with its own homogenous ecosystem issues which should be regulated).
Yizahi 3y ago
That would be an interesting development, because apparently the other monopolist in this game is implementing RCS with some proprietary crap, and Apple will deliberately implement the current standard feature set. So they will continue being incompatible but now because of Google. I'll continue investing in the popcorn futures :) .
mbreese 3y ago
I’ve never understood the messaging interop angle when there are so many non-phone network based messaging apps available. It’s just always seemed the weakest of the arguments against Apple w.r.t. the iPhone. SMS/MMS/RCS standardization was historically a train wreck so it made sense to me for Apple to just support the minimum and be done with it. All of my groups chats that involve a mixture of iPhone and Android users has usually been on something like WhatsApp for this reason. The other points seem much more specific and actionable.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
babyshake 3y ago
To be fair, Apple has said a lot of things. Wasn't FaceTime supposed to be an open standard and that never happened? If they give a specific target date I'd feel more encouraged.

baq 3y ago

Quote from the article: > The company “undermines” the ability of iPhone users to message with owners of other types of smartphones, like those running the Android operating system, the government said. That divide — epitomized by the green bubbles that show an Android owner’s messages — sent a signal that other smartphones were lower quality than the iPhone, according to the lawsuit. I read that as 'interop' is a secondary issue, if an issue at all; the actual case is the green/blue segregation. If Apple embedded a fingerprint in every interoperable message and shown blue messages for iMessage-sent content, green background for others, it'd still be a problem even if messages are otherwise identical - unless all the features truly work on both, in which case the color split is purely status signaling.

mopsi 3y ago
Strage to see that as an issue; SMS is clearly an inferior protocol compared to iMessage and it's useful to know when messages have been downgraded.
- baq 3y ago
  I agree. That's why I'm saying interop is not the root of the problem. Segregation of people based on whether they are using iMessage or something else combined with inability to install iMessage on non-Apple devices causes a social problem and a significant smartphone market pressure.
- throw0101c 3y ago
  > Strage to see that as an issue; SMS is clearly an inferior protocol compared to iMessage and it's useful to know when messages have been downgraded. Except that's not why the blue/green difference was created (at least historically). It dates back to the time where SMS messages cost money for each one sent (though plans often came with x free messages), so the green message was telling you it was (potentially) costing you money when sending/receiving messages. (US$ = greenbacks -> green = cost)
  - danaris 3y ago
    That's also ahistorical. The green bubbles came first. iMessage didn't even exist for the first few years of the iPhone's life. All messages were green. Green could not have been chosen to indicate it cost money, because there was nothing to distinguish it from. Then, in 2011 (IIRC), iMessage was introduced, and the blue bubbles were to indicate both that it doesn't cost money, and that it supports several other capabilities (which have changed over the years—IIRC, it did not start out with end-to-end encryption, so the people boldly asserting that that's the primary reason for the distinction are also wrong).
  - baq 3y ago
    The intent of the color doesn't matter. The actual effect of the color is what matters. Hopefully to the courts, anyway.
    - tensor 3y ago
      The actual effect is to know when my message is secure. No, RCS or another protocol does not mean it’s secure, even if they have some encryption. The other app can still eavesdrop after the message has reached the end. But perhaps the courts would want to weaken security. It’s definitely a thorn in their side.
      - baq 3y ago
        The actual effect is ostracism of green bubbles. You literally get kicked out of social circles and get peer-pressured into buying an iPhone.
        ziddoap 3y ago
        Does this.... actually happen? To like, people over the age of 10? If so, I'd almost be thankful to Apple for letting me know who not to bother being friends with. If someone in my social circle ostracized someone else because of their phone, they (the person doing the ostracizing) wouldn't be in my social circle anymore.
- TurningCanadian 3y ago
  iMessage is the monopoly part. They could make an App or even just an API available on other platforms but don't because they want the lock-in. > “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 > “iMessage on Android would simply serve to remove [an] obstacle to iPhone families giving their kids Android phones,” 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... Not getting on board with RCS or any other way to improve SMS/MMS until they were (implicitly) forced was motivated by that desire to lock their users in to a messaging platform that only works on Apple devices.
- fennecbutt 3y ago
  Only because of Apple's refusal to implement RCS for feature parity. They're doing this on purpose, claiming anything else is just wool.
pchristensen 3y ago
Gruber gives a pretty good breakdown of the blue/green bubble history: https://daringfireball.net/2022/01/seeing_green https://daringfireball.net/2022/01/seeing_green Short version: SMS has been green since the first iPhone, blue iMessage was added later. Green was not invented to "punish the poors"
- alt227 3y ago
  > Green was not invented to "punish the poors" No, but blue was only given to the first class citizens.
- baq 3y ago
  It doesn’t matter. That’s how teens are using it today.
  - sib 3y ago
    So maybe someone should talk to the teens, rather than wasting taxpayer money trying punish a company for building a better product...
    - smoldesu 3y ago
      Maybe Apple shouldn't use their dominant position as a smartphone manufacturer to knowledgeably exploit human insecurity and exacerbate user woe in hope of selling families another iPhone: https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/21/24107676/buy-your-mom-an-iphone https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/21/24107676/buy-your-mom-an-...
      - vmladenov 3y ago
        How long until the government mandates that Apple start directly parenting teenagers?
        sib 3y ago
        Or perhaps regulators will just require Apple to adopt Google's messaging app strategy, which is clearly much better for consumers: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/08/a-decade-and-a-half-of-instability-the-history-of-google-messaging-apps/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/08/a-decade-and-a-half-...
jandrewrogers 3y ago
The colors indicate the features available. Even with RCS, there will be a significant list of features available to iMessage users that are not available over RCS. No matter what Apple does there must be some mechanism to visually indicate that standard iMessage features are no longer available. What would be the alternative, pretending that these features exist and then failing silently when one client doesn't support them? The green/blue bubble thing is irrelevant. It reflects a fundamental reality of the platform technology.
- baq 3y ago
  Technology doesn’t matter here. What matters is whether people feel pressured to buy iMessage capable devices by others. In the US the answer is yes. Elsewhere it’s WhatsApp everywhere (with its own homogenous ecosystem issues which should be regulated).

Yizahi 3y ago

That would be an interesting development, because apparently the other monopolist in this game is implementing RCS with some proprietary crap, and Apple will deliberately implement the current standard feature set. So they will continue being incompatible but now because of Google. I'll continue investing in the popcorn futures :) .

mbreese 3y ago

I’ve never understood the messaging interop angle when there are so many non-phone network based messaging apps available. It’s just always seemed the weakest of the arguments against Apple w.r.t. the iPhone. SMS/MMS/RCS standardization was historically a train wreck so it made sense to me for Apple to just support the minimum and be done with it. All of my groups chats that involve a mixture of iPhone and Android users has usually been on something like WhatsApp for this reason. The other points seem much more specific and actionable.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

babyshake 3y ago

To be fair, Apple has said a lot of things. Wasn't FaceTime supposed to be an open standard and that never happened? If they give a specific target date I'd feel more encouraged.