This is the theory that people (on HN and elsewhere) have used to argue that Apple's App Store represents a monopoly that should be broken up. It makes no more sense here than it does in that context.
Apple restricting a free service to Apple's own users is not even remotely the same as Microsoft's various forms of skullduggery and I don't know how you can make the comparison seriously.
It has never been easier to switch platforms, and the gulf between iOS and Android has never been shallower. Android users not having access to one also-ran messaging service is not some sort of fundamental injustice, and Apple is not a villain for building features that they think will appeal to their customers. It's sort of their whole business!
They made the iMessage popular by creating it. Now you as asking them to make it free to use for any competitor? Why would any company do that? They are popular for a reason.
This is such an insane take to me. Apple hasn't done anything but provide a feature that some subset of their customers in a single digit number of markets finds compelling.
Do you really think that teenagers in America wouldn't be bullying the outgroup—to the extent that they actually are frequently ostracizing their peers over this, which is not at all clear—over something else if all the bubbles were blue?
Growing up as a teenager in a time where there wasn’t iPhones it was tennis shoes. My kids dealt with it too—specifically backpacks (if I recall correctly). Point is, after we got out of high school it didn’t much matter and we got on with our lives in our off the rack shoes and no name backpacks.
We didn’t need special intervention that made all shoes Nike or all backpacks JanSport.
Making it harder for bullies to bully is always good. Yes, there would be a small net reduction in bullying if apple stopped being bully enablers. Stop defending their evil practices.
The relevant example here is that Apple supports the lowest common denominator standard: SMS. iMessage is what makes the experience "magical" on iPhones.
The total failure of any open messaging standard to capture the market seems to imply to me that control is actually pretty important to the experience of using the service!
This is a silly argument: Microsoft's bundling of IE resulted in real damage to another company (Netscape) that had a viable and independent competitor product. Beeper doesn't have an independent product: they have a hacky workaround that Apple fixed.
What Microsoft did with IE isn't really analogous to Apple refusing to let another company free ride on their infrastructure. This isn't even as egregious as patching iTunes to break the Palm Pre sync was, and the legality of that action seems pretty settled by now.
> What Microsoft did with IE isn't really analogous to Apple refusing to let another company free ride on their infrastructure.
Zoom out for a moment and take Beeper out of the picture. The issue is not Beeper specifically, it’s the underlying reasons that Beeper even exists.
If you buy an iPhone and want to interoperate with friends/family on Android, the default experience is extremely broken.
Apple’s behavior here is directly driving users away from Android, not because Apple is better, but because it’s the only way to actually use the native experience.
I don’t know if the cases are equivalent, but there’s certainly a case to be made that they’re in a similar category.
If I want to "interoperate" with friends and family who use Android, I have zero issues doing so. SMS works fine, and the default experience being "bad" is really completely unrelated to any sort of antitrust concern. If we want more features, they're an App download away.
Apple offers a product that has seen significant success in a small number of markets versus android, including the US. Dressing up what is ultimately the normal bump and tumble of competition in a market as antitrust because they're winning enough in the market(s) you care about is silly.
> …because they're winning enough in the market(s) you care about is silly
I disagree that what follows “because” is an accurate representation of what is happening, and reduces a more complex issue to an oversimplified notion of “winning”.
Microsoft was also winning in the market. How a company wins is what matters in discussions about anti-trust. If that winning is appreciably supported by anti-consumer behaviors, it becomes problematic.
I don’t know if what Apple is doing rises to the level of antitrust, but it’s certainly anti-consumer.
> Dressing up what is ultimately the normal bump and tumble of competition in a market as antitrust because they're winning enough in the market(s) you care about is silly.
Anti-consumer behavior being part of the “normal bump and tumble” is hardly a good reason to find it acceptable. Anti-trust actions have been weak or almost non-existent for years now, but again has nothing to do with whether or not the status quo is acceptable.
I don’t find those arguments compelling, and we’ll have to agree to disagree
I wouldn't categorize it as anti-consumer. Apple is not under any moral, legal, or ethical obligation to provide access to iMessage to users outside of their ecosystem. Moreover, it's crucial to note that no significant tangible harm is being inflicted on anyone unless they willingly choose not to explore more widely-used alternatives. Some individuals argue that there should be broader access, but these arguments primarily rely on appeals to emotion ("...hardly a good reason to find it acceptable") and pleas for sympathy, as your post demonstrates.
iMessage is essentially a convenience feature designed for Apple customers to communicate with one another free of charge. While some might view it as a potential loss-leader for Apple, for most of it's users it's just another feature, with a majority already utilising alternative messaging platforms.
A comparable example is BlackBerry Messenger, which initially followed a similar path. BlackBerry only opened it up to other platforms when they found themselves losing the smartphone market to both iOS and Android. In contrast, Apple does not appear to be facing the same competitive pressure, which is why they maintain their current approach to iMessage access.
Edit: In another thread, you say "They’re selling a general purpose communication device that is incapable of exchanging run of the mill content with other general purpose communication devices, and using that poor experience to drive iPhone sales." which is a demonstrably false premise. The mere existence and prevalence of more successful competitors show us this. The problem here is that there are those arguing that iMessage is the only option, when it clearly isn't.
Ultimately, whether or not iMessage is availble to Android users is immaterial. Apple are 10 years too late to the party. Add that RCS is comming to the platform (of which I am disappointed - it a half-baked solution that risks ceding control to carriers, which IMHO is a terrible idea), iMessage on Android is moot.
> I wouldn't categorize it as anti-consumer. Apple is not under any moral, legal, or ethical obligation to provide access to iMessage to users outside of their ecosystem.
Apple is intentionally degrading the experience of sending messages to non-Apple devices for the explicit purpose of driving iPhone sales. This is anti-consumer, full stop.
"They must provide access to iMessage outside of the ecosystem" unnecessarily restricts the possible ways that Apple can address this issue, and is only one of many solutions to the problem.
My point and stance is not that Apple should be forced to implement iMessage on Android, but that the intentional and artificial restrictions baked into the Apple <-> Non-Apple experience is unacceptable to me as a customer.
I've commented at length about this elsewhere in the thread, but they could:
- Implement RCS (which they're finally and reluctantly doing due to regulatory pressure, but we have no idea how much they'll hamstring it, and it's borderline ridiculous that they haven't done something yet. Too little too late)
- Allow 3rd party apps to surface messages in a unified interface like they do with other iOS capabilities (e.g. the unified voice call experience from various non-Apple apps/services)
> In another thread, you say "They’re selling a general purpose communication device that is incapable of exchanging run of the mill content with other general purpose communication devices, and using that poor experience to drive iPhone sales." which is a demonstrably false premise.
The premise is demonstrably true, and can be experienced by trying to send someone a text containing an image or video using the phone's native capabilities.
I think it's worth reiterating here that Apple has explicitly restricted the messaging experience while allowing other categories of app (Mail, Contacts, Calendars, Phone calls) to natively interact with 3rd party services from a single interface. The argument that "just use another chat app" would be a lot stronger if Apple actually supported other chat apps in their native experience.
Zoom out and stop focusing on "iMessage on Android", and it becomes extremely obvious how anti-consumer this stance is based on comparing it to Apple's own design philosophy and other capabilities across iOS.
> iMessage on Android is moot.
On this I tend to agree. But this doesn't get Apple off the hook, or make the dark patterns acceptable.
As I've said elsewhere, Apple may have every right to do this, but customers have every right to be pissed about it, especially because there are ways to solve this that don't require Apple to open the floodgates to iMessage.
> If you buy an iPhone and want to interoperate with friends/family on Android,
Then use a cross platform messaging app. FB Messenger, WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord. I have all of them on my phone.
> the default experience is extremely broken.
It’s not broken. Apple devices have a low-friction “hot path” for communicating with other apple devices. That’s it. Want to use it? Get an apple device.
Apple isn’t obliged to make its messaging app work for everyone, on all platforms.
> It’s not broken. Apple devices have a low-friction “hot path” for communicating with other apple devices. That’s it. Want to use it? Get an apple device.
As an Apple user who likes Apple products (I just really dislike this iMessage stance), I don’t agree. When I open the app that allows me to communicate with other users via phone number, and when that experience can’t handle sending a photo in the year 2023, the experience is broken.
I’m glad they’re implementing RCS support (which seems to be their acknowledgement that there is an issue to solve), but the fact that they chose to wait until 2024 is unacceptable.
> Apple isn’t obliged to make its messaging app work for everyone, on all platforms.
That’s not what I’m arguing. The desire for iMessage is a symptom, and I’m not saying they should be forced to make iMessage work everywhere. The problem is that non-iMessage support on the phone is atrocious. They’re selling a general purpose communication device that is incapable of exchanging run of the mill content with other general purpose communication devices, and using that poor experience to drive iPhone sales.
There are many ways to solve this that don’t require Apple to make its messaging app work for all platforms. They’ve already solved this for other categories like VOIP apps, which enjoy a unified OS-level experience.
> when that experience can’t handle sending a photo in the year 2023, the experience is broken
It’s Apples fault SMS is an archaic protocol? Wow, I truly learn something new every day.
> The problem is that non-iMessage support on the phone is atrocious.
I have fb messenger, WhatsApp, telegram and discord on my phone. I don’t find having to use these “atrocious”, they’re just different apps. Atrocious would be the awful “this messenger does all chats, but awfully” experience of early Android devices, that was a dumpster fire of confusing contact details and lost messages. Also, it’s not like Android is immune from these issues: your complaint is that SMS/MMS is archaic and needs an upgrade, not that we need to make iMessage bend over backwards to support everything else.
I guess I just don’t see the argument why iMessage explicitly needs to shoulder the burden here.
> It’s Apples fault SMS is an archaic protocol? Wow, I truly learn something new every day.
Why would this only be about SMS? RCS has existed for 15 years. It has its issues, but it’s not as if there hasn’t been an option. Apple will finally add some level of support next year (yikes), but as evidenced by the Beeper brouhaha, it’s unacceptably late to the party.
> your complaint is that SMS/MMS is archaic and needs an upgrade
No, it’s really not. My complaint is that there’s been an upgrade to SMS/MMS for many years that would make the iMessage limitations irrelevant, but Apple has refused to address the issue. There has been too much focus on iMessage itself, and not enough on the underlying behaviors they’re forcing and the obvious intent behind this.
> I guess I just don’t see the argument why iMessage explicitly needs to shoulder the burden here.
I honestly don’t care if Apple makes iMessage work on Android. There are numerous options that solve this issue without crossing that line. RCS next year is a step in the right direction. They could also follow their own design philosophy and allow apps to surface their messages in a unified interface like they do for most other iOS capabilities.
I can receive a discord call and it shows up next to my normal phone calls. This kind of UX would solve the issue without requiring Apple to touch iMessage.
But they won’t, because this isn’t about security or some undue burden to support android devices; it’s a calculated decision to degrade the user experience when messaging non-iPhone devices for the purpose of driving sales.
This has even been confirmed by discovery documents from recent lawsuits.
The colors functionally denote the features available in the chat. In group chats, having a single non-iMessage user devolves the features available to the group chat to the SMS level. You also lose E2E and high res pictures and video.
The different colors of bubbles are a consequence of iMessage's origin as a protocol that supplanted SMS/MMS messaging while allowing the older protocols as seamless fallbacks; WhatsApp, Signal et al never had a requirement like that, and consequently never had to deal with different feature sets among their users (at least, not to the same extent).
I mean, Musk said that years ago on a podcast (and has maintained that position since): "I think the most profound thing is that if you buy a Tesla today, I believe you are buying an appreciating asset – not a depreciating asset." (1)
It is obviously false, but his case was that all Teslas would be working as robotaxis for their owners. "Insane lie or megalomania?" is the defense, as ever.
The current subscription price is $1.50 a month or $10 a year, so presuming the same profit the cost would have to jump to a bit more than $5 a month or $53 a year. Apollo also had a lifetime tier that would have to go away, because it was priced without knowing that future costs would be so much higher.
This also entails getting rid of the free tier and imposing usage limits on the remaining subscribers since a few people could easily blow out the average and drive up costs.
There are definitely people willing to pay those costs (I count myself as one of them, as well), but the lack of apps like Apollo being successful at that price point probably means that it is not a sustainable business.
