The long fight to make Apple’s iMessage compatible with all devices has raged with little to show for it. But Google (de facto leader of the charge) and other mobile operators are now leveraging the European Union’s Digital Market Act (DMA), according to the Financial Times. The law, which goes into effect in 2024, requires that “gatekeepers” not favor their own systems or limit third parties from interoperating within them. Gatekeepers are any company that meets specific financial and usage qualifications, including Google’s parent company Alphabet, Apple, Samsung and others.
On the tech side, Android users also get lower-quality photos and videos when they’re sent through iMessage.
Android users don’t receive anything at all through iMessage; the whole conversation becomes SMS/MMS. I suppose getting major, relevant tech details is hard for an outlet like Engadget.
I think you’re just being pedantic here.
I’m pretty sure they meant when messages are sent using the iMessage app - from the point of view of iPhone user distinction between iMessage protocol and SMS/MMS doesn’t matter.
The app is called Messages. The entire point of the article is to discuss iMessages versus SMS so I absolutely do think it’s important to get the distinction right in this case.
when they’re sent through iMessage.
Android users don’t receive anything at all through iMessage
Your whole argument is based on failing to distinguish sending from receiving. You understand those are different things, right?
There is nothing to distinguish here. iMessage is the protocol and messaging platform. An iMessage sent remains as an iMessage when received. Android users are not sent and do not receive iMessages. They are sent SMS/MMS and they receive SMS/MMS. If all of the iMessage servers exploded right now, nothing at all would change in Apple to Android messaging because iMessage was never involved.
iMessage is the protocol and messaging platform.
You’re forgetting the most important thing it is to users: an app. An app that sends messages. Messages that can be received by Android devices because iMessage automatically sends over SMS.
An iMessage sent remains as an iMessage when received.
This might be true from a certain technical perspective, depending on what you mean by “an iMessage”, but it’s certainly not true from a user perspective. The user sends a message from the iMessage app and doesn’t care much whether it’s delivered by iMessage or SMS. Messages sent by iMessage are automatically degraded when sent over SMS if they contain media or use iMessage-specific features. Ergo a message is sent by iMessage and received by an Android device as an SMS message.
If all of the iMessage servers exploded right now, nothing at all would change in Apple to Android messaging because iMessage was never involved.
iMessage the app is always involved.
You’re forgetting the most important thing it is to users: an app.
iMessage is not an app. It has never been an app. It is one of the ways a message can be sent/received in the Messages app. And yes, users of the Messages app are extremely aware of the distinction between sending an iMessage versus an SMS or MMS.
Spot on. The iPhone’s Messages app sends messages as iMessages, SMS, or MMS depending on context. And it makes it obvious. Every iPhone user knows blue vs green. It’s not sneaky or anything.
There is no apple iMessage app.
This is the Apple Message app. Its description in the store makes its functionality very clear.
Low quality SMS. There are lots of things Apple could do to improve the experience of texting people without iMessage, lots of things built into the SMS standard that they do t implement.
Edit: wow thought this was commonly known. Basically Apple hasn’t adopted industry standard SMS improvements. There’s a whole campaign to try to get them to. Here’s an article explaining https://www.android.com/get-the-message/
Although, I get the argument and sure go ahead and do it.
I have to laugh at Google calling for the regulation of Apples monopoly but are happy to maintain their monopolies.
It’s be like Apple calling out Bowers & Wilkins for high prices.
Or Bezos calling for more piss breaks for Walmart staff.
Glass houses and stones.
That’s how corporations think. For them the law is just a set of weapons against their competitors.
All I want is to be able to message people using discord through Signal. Or from Messages to Whatsapp. And just be able to send and receive decent quality videos between iMessage and non-imessage users.
It’s so annoying having to juggle so many different messaging apps just to talk to people.
Why can’t it be like email?
Google and company can go fuck themselves on this one, and I’m usually the first one to bash on Apple for selling overpriced status symbols.
I’m frankly amazed at how much importance Google gives iMessage, when it’s not the number 1 messaging app anywhere in the world. Hell, even if you assume Apple halved its report of monthly active users in Europe, that’s 90 million people in Europe. Significant, but less than 25% of the total population of the EU
Outside USA and Canada, you’ll be hard pressed to find people who give a damn about iMessage, because most are using a different, cross compatible app anyway, like Whatsapp or Telegram, even across most European countries.
Why would you be against standardizing messaging over the net? How is that a bad thing?
because iMessage is probably the number 1 reason for iphone purchase in USA
this will obviously help google gain market share in the us
SMS would basically be dead if Apple adopted RCS, that’s why it’s important. SMS needs to die.
Oh, now you want Europe’s strong arm? Google? Now? Fuck off, you yankee!
EDIT: Also, we European literally don’t care. Everyone is using Whatsapp or Telegram. There’s no “Blue vs green bubble” war here in Europe, only America can get angry on such idiocy.
Let’s be clear - only a subset of Americans care about the bubbles. And it’s annoying to the rest of us too.
The iMessage approach is the obvious solution, Google had a competitor over 10 years ago and killed it. Signal took the same approach and killed SMS just this year.
It’s frustrating, because US has the particular problem of SMS being ubiquitous because it became zero-additional-cost for most people by about 2005. The same mindset that keeps people on SMS also creates the blue-bubble nonsense: ease of use and not having to think about it. Signal was making inroads on this, makes me wonder why they stopped supporting SMS.
I have friends who say “I don’t want to have to think about where to message someone”. Oh, ffs, do you struggle with calling their home/work/cell, or choosing to email or send a letter?
So yea, it’s not America vs the rest of the world, it’s us vs the complacent/unaware.
But nobody in Europe uses iMessage.
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Ted Lasso? That TV series created by check notes Apple?
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I presume apple users do occasionally…
I guess this is a way for google to force apple to open the protocol since they can’t just open it in the EU, so it affects the US too. But the EU don’t have to listen to google… if imessage is such a minor player they may just leave it alone.
We use it when WhatsApp has server problems every once in a while or for a round of GamePigeon.
Ironically, in Europe you’d be “missing out” on most group conversations if you’d insist on using iMessage, as most of your buddies probably have an Android phone with WhatsApp installed.
Google is so fucking pathetic these days. They can’t out program them so they cry to the EU instead
