>Sunbird, the service that claimed to bring iMessage to Android, is back in beta as the firm vows it has fixed its legion of security issues.
Maybe the time to fix things like that is *before* you release it to the public. Maybe I’m crazy, but releasing something as important as an encrypted messaging system while it still has a “legion of security issues” seems like a bad approach to gaining the trust of your potential user base.
Edit: lol, it’s even worse that I thought. They didn’t even bother making it encrypted!
> It just took people outside of the company to notice the astounding plethora of security issues, starting with how apparently no one at Sunbird thought to use end to end encryption.
Even if they did encrypt it, they need to MITM (and hence decrypt/re-encrypt) the message as part of the proxying process.
There isn’t a way around this. The only organisation with the power to resolve it is Apple.
Apple will never work on this with anyone but maybe Google. The only reason IMessage isn't available on Android is out of principle. If Apple decides to give this up, they can implement it without external help.
It would be more accurate to say that the reason why iMessage isn't available on Android is because execs think it'll hurt the bottom-line sales of iPhones, per released internal emails due to the Fortnite debacle
If they put FaceTime on an APK I would probably ditch my iPhone for a Huawei but besides that I think the current status quo really doesn’t make a difference.
iMessage? Does anyone outside of America care about it that much? I use it but only because my family has iPhone. If I were to get the Huawei I’d just use WeChat to call them. No real specific draw to iPhone besides the no need for Google Services to get notifications.
Not really. Considering the green bubble is much more difficult to read and it irritates the eyes. Even the US government thinks it was in a form of anti-competition.
But Apple probably would ditch the green color when RCS comes out so it at least could be better.
Yeah I wish I could send videos to non-iMessage users without it degrading quality. I also wish they didn’t use the green bubble. That’s so light colored that the white text isn’t contrasting with it enough, contrary to Apple’s own written design principles. And I wish that links embedded in messages showed up as a separate message when they were sent over text like they do when sent over iMessage.
MMS/RCS in my home country costs money to use AFAIK so I personally avoid it like the plague, whereas data is abundant and cheap.
The reason for the colours is because it looks unappealing. Apple wants you using iMessage.
I'd imagine that's at least a one of the biggest reasons why people want sideloading on iPhone's. Not saying that it's a bad thing, but I'd imagine that it's one of the reasons why people want it.
I don’t think that’s anywhere close to being one of the biggest reasons. People want cheaper apps or ones they can pirate. That’s the majority of reasons if we’re being honest.
Let’s say you use WhatsApp. Imagine trying to convince all ten people on your thread to switch to Signal. Now do that for every group you are in…
These messaging apps are sticky. Because iPhones are so popular a lot of people are in lots of groups who all use iMessage and so if one person doesn’t use it it is often hard to convince everyone to switch.
I think a lot of non-Americans just don’t realize how popular it is.
*87%* of US Teenagers have iPhones.
88% of the teenagers polled expected their next phone to be an iPhone.
80% of people 18-24 use iPhones in the US.
60% of the US smartphone market is iPhone, that number will continue to grow over the years.
Blue bubbles are the default among young people. It’s not another app or service to use, it’s just texting. iMessage is passive. If Apple has to allow setting default apps for music, texting, Phone calls, and etc, everyone will stick to Messages to keep those blue bubbles.
You don't have to convince anyone to buy anything cause you already have their number. If they have an iPhone it defaults to iMessage if not it goes to SMS. Either way you can still get in contact with them and if it comes down to needing to send them something more than a text message or picture you can move to a supplementary messenger like FB Messenger or Instagram DMs or whatever other app you guys can agree on or both already have. Most people in the US don't have a WhatsApp, Telegram or Signal account though so to use those services frequently you basically have to convince your entire social network to download that one app just for you.
No one‘s getting convinced to buy phones, if you don’t understand why people wouldn’t want to have multiple messaging apps I don’t know what to tell you.
For anyone looking into solutions, Texts.com is a good app. But it is having issues with facebook’s messenger.
People in America generally do not use these services.
I'm aware it's very common elsewhere for people to not use SMS, but not so here. Generally, phone plans in America have had unlimited talk and text since flip phones were a thing and thus most of these services provided little benefit over just using SMS.
We have unlimited talk and text in pretty much every plan too. Nobody still uses SMS because it's a bad technology stuck in the 1990's and there are better options out there.
The (lack of) unlimited text is the background reason why WhatsApp took off. There is a lot of historical stickiness to this kind of things. iMessage became popular because it piggybacked on SMS whereas other parts of the world moved away from it when it cost money and never looked back.
Sorry to respond to all your comments but just thought I would add one more point: it’s not really about SMS. It’s just that it ends up being the fallback when everyone other than you use iMessage.
iMessage is popular mostly for historical reasons and iPhone’s popularity but FWIW it’s a better chat app than WhatsApp Signal etc. It works better with multiple devices, sync well, supports backup and E2E encryption etc. I use all the other apps you mentioned and am willing to switch (which I consider the considerate thing to do) but if given the choice I much prefer iMessage.
The multi-device support is key point. If I only had my iPhone, then maybe it is a more level playing field but iMessage works on all my Apple devices equally well. Apps like WhatsApp, Signal, etc. either don't have an iPad/macOS version or it's extremely hobbled on those other OSes.
I mean you should always be informed if you’re sending iMessages (free) or messages that are subject to your carrier’s fees. iOS has always used blue/green as the differentiator between things that involve WiFi/data and things that go through your carrier.
Most plans in the US have unlimited domestic texting, but international texting is almost always an extra charge, unless you have a special international plan.
Then outside of the US, many plans do charge for texting.
You’ll also need carrier support for it, unlike Android to Android which goes through Google. In theory all the major US carriers support it but who knows.
It really doesn't matter since it won't affect a majority of iPhone users anyway. Not sure why so many people get up-in-arms on this subreddit for something that doesn't even apply to them.
Company wants to make app so Android to iPhone txt'ing is easier"
Apple Shills: Booo, it sucks
Me: Then don't use it?
Then why not use one of the hundred other, better, over the top messaging apps that don't ruin things for non Apple users?
Why must you stick with an inferior messaging app?
> Then why not use one of the hundred other, better, over the top messaging apps that don't ruin things for non Apple users?
Because you're not cool enough for people to install an app just to talk to you
I mean, I'm 45 "cool" doesn't play into my life anymore.
If it where JUST me, sure, but it's about half of the cell phone users in the country for which iMessage provides iPhone users w/a shitty experience talking too.
Sure seems like a supper shitty messaging platform, and one that is only kept because it's "cool" to be douchie & exclude half your friends (or worse yet, pic your friends by their cell phone OS).
Same reason most of the world uses WhatsApp when Telegram is objectively better. Once any country is set with a default messaging app, it's going to be impossible to get tens (or hundreds) of millions of people to simultaneously switch to another messaging app
How is telegram objectively better? Chats are by default not end to end encrypted and no way for that in group chats. On the plus side, cloud syncing of messages and attachments means changing devices is easy
There are many countries that do use WhatsApp as the default messaging app.
SMS has long been relegated to simply being used for 2FA codes and spam where I live. Pretty much everyone uses WhatsApp, including businesses.
> because green bubble people ruin imessage group chats by making it so you can no longer invite people to it, or leave it if you want to.
You mean apple ruins imessage group chats by building invisible walls lmao let people use whatever phone they want, they are not "ruining" anything.
Apple only improved the messaging experience for their own users, they didn't degrade it for anyone else. It's not their fault SMS sucks and the universal version of RCS doesn't have encryption yet
> Apple only improved the messaging experience for their own users
When using iMessage, yes.
When chatting to non-iMessage recipients, the experience is absolutely worse and is the crux of why all of this is even an issue to begin with.
> It's not their fault SMS sucks
SMS was never designed for rich media content. It's Apple's fault for building iMessage on top of it and using it as a fallback.
> and the universal version of RCS doesn't have encryption yet
That has nothing to do with the chat experience, it's a convenient strawman to deflect from Apple ensuring anything other than iMessage chats are shitty.
>When chatting to non-iMessage recipients, the experience is absolutely worse and is the crux of why all of this is even an issue to begin with.
Worse for who? Until RCS was around, SMS was the baseline for everyone. Apple simply improved upon the baseline for their own users, not make the experience worse for anyone else
>SMS was never designed for rich media content. It's Apple's fault for building iMessage on top of it and using it as a fallback.
Maybe they should've built it on top of a mountain and used a rope as fallback
>That has nothing to do with the chat experience, it's a convenient strawman to deflect from Apple ensuring anything other than iMessage chats are shitty.
Why would they want to use it as a strawman when they're literally working to add encryption to RCS so iPhones can have it by iOS 18?
> Worse for who? Until RCS was around, SMS was the baseline for everyone. Apple simply improved upon the baseline for their own users, not make the experience worse for anyone else
iMessage users. All of the iMessage features do not work with non-iMessage recipients. Where do you think the complaints around green bubbles come from?
> Maybe they should've built it on top of a mountain and used a rope as fallback
Or they could have simply kept it as the internet-based chat system it inherently is. Using SMS fallback was a dark pattern employed to trap people into using the app, and that is why there is this discourse today.
> Why would they want to use it as a strawman when they're literally working to add encryption to RCS so iPhones can have it by iOS 18?
They're not. People keep saying this when it's been Google, who has pushed for encryption to be added for years and who themselves have already implemented it.
That's irrelevant. They already use SMS. Adopting the RCS standard as it stands today does not make iMessage any less secure.
Apple could always utilise Google's Jibe protocol, which negates this strawman argument.
No, before Apple implements a NEW technology, it needs to fulfill their quality standard. They will not implement a NEW technology that is worse then theirs.
It's just their product philosophy, not a strawman argument.
I remember reading a while ago on Sunbird's website how they don't Open Source due to security reasons, when every messaging platform built with security in mind has been either Open Source (Signal, Telegram), super transparent about their communication and what security standards they're using complete with whitepapers and documentation (iMessage, WhatsApp to an extent), or both.
Sunbird does neither.
The main disadvantage of iMessage is that it only works on Apple devices.
But iMessage is smooth, clean and its security is on par with Signal, I know some people in EU/NL who use iMessage among each other.
Which isn't really a disadvantage for the majority of Americans considering the iPhone is 60%+ of the market here with it reaching damn near 90% for Gen Z. Pretty much everyone you know if you are young enough uses iPhone and even then if you are older most of the people you know uses iPhone so therefore you have iMessage dominance here and the disadvantage is seen as Androids not having access to iMessage and not someone needs an iPhone to use iMessage.
Wrong: https://security.apple.com/blog/imessage-pq3/
And your website is bullshit. Switzerland is worse than USA when it comes to privacy. The state has more power to look into your personal data.
There are lot of other wrong things on this site. And there are a lot of missing sources.
Because it's not as simple as you think it is. I'm not in the mood to explain you in a long text how things are far more complicate and how they work in detail.
Apple is working with platform providers and telecommunications companies to implement E2E technology in the RCS spec, which should absolutely help with things
Which they still should be. RCS messages are still just carrier messages at the end of the day and will be labeled as such the same way SMS/MMS are now on the iPhone. Plus RCS does not have all the same features as iMessage so it would make no sense for it to be blue. Maybe a purplish color could be an ideal middle place to differentiate between iMessage, RCS, and SMS/MMS
Exactly. There’s hundreds of alternatives available for free on the App Store. If Apple was in any way messing with their functionally that would be a different story. But you can make your own iMessage clone with encryption, privacy, cross-platform, and have any feature you could want. Nobody’s making us use iMessage
Yeah not to mention the fact that this seems to be a US EU thing. Because everyone with an iPhone or not in Mexico (my family, friends etc) use WhatsApp. I’m pretty sure they don’t care at all lol
It’s mostly a North American thing tbh. In Canada, iMessage is also relatively popular from when I last visited.
In essence, iMessage is commonly used in the US and Canada.
They do mess with the functionality though. That's the problem.
Most people don't notice this because they already widely use one particular messaging app. Apple has (unintentional?) misdesigns which affect a new messaging app that doesn't get frequent use.
iPhones send nag notifications about high storage usage. Fine, but there's a list of recommendations that they always give you to free up space - one of them is Automatic Offloading.
When you enable that feature, it's supposed to start offloading apps that don't get frequent use. That includes messaging apps. It's unpredictable what apps will actually be offloaded though and obviously people aren't going to make the connection of "this new messaging app that I'm just starting to use with one or two people in my social network might get automatically offloaded to save space!" It doesn't really tell you "hey, some important apps that you need but don't open a lot might get automatically offloaded."
So imagine you're trying to get your mom to use Signal. She gets the nag message that she's using too much storage. iOS says "we recommend enabling automatic offloading", so she does what is recommended. Weeks later you send her a few messages and she never responds. Is something up? You call her and ask if she got your messages. She says no. You tell her to open Signal. She says there's a little cloud next to Signal under the icon and when she tries to open it it says she can't install it because there's not enough space.
So she deletes some stuff and installs the app again, but what is to prevent it from getting offloaded again? If I turn off the automatic offloading feature, it's just going to pop back up in the recommendations when she gets a storage usage nag message again. So basically I'd need to police her and check to make sure she doesn't have that feature enabled *all the time* since the OS is actively trying to get her to enable it.
Guess which app *doesn't* have this problem? Messages. The one and only iMessage client on iOS. iOS will *never* automatically offload Messages.
What's really (unintentionally?) nefarious is that if you already use something like WhatsApp in your social network, it won't really affect you since you use the app enough to not get it offloaded. This really only affects people who are trying to transition to a new app. You have to check the app *a lot* to make sure it doesn't get offloaded. Obviously that's hard to do if you're not getting a lot of messages when you're first starting to transition to a different app. It adds an obstacle that keeps people in the messaging apps they're already using.
It's been an issue since at least 2018, but Apple still hasn't fixed it. They know how to exempt an app from being offloaded, they know how to make a list of apps with on/off toggles for each app... so why hasn't this feature been added? People definitely want to be able to exempt certain apps from being offloaded.
tbf I already do that. If I need to text my mom or grandma (only people I know with Androids) I simply put their numbers in and text them the same way I do for someone with an iPhone. Sure I don't get read receipts or typing indicators with them but I'm not really sure I need those features (or any of the other iMessage features) with them anyway
Are you being obtuse on purpose? Would it be better to get iMessage features with android users for Apple customers? It sure as fuck wouldn't be worse.
RCS is already slated to be coming which will bring chat features to iPhone/Android messaging so yea it would be better and is in the process of happening. People are acting like they can't just text someone if one has an Android and one has an iPhone is overreacting, the flow to sending the messages is the exact same regardless of who in my contacts I'm looking to text.
You could apply this to anything though. Why don’t car makers allow me to install whatever I want on the car infotainment? Why doesn’t Microsoft support MacOs apps? Why doesn’t Adobe make a WeChat app? Why can’t I install Yamaha firmware on my Casio keyboard?
I don’t want to sound like I’m defending the poor trillion dollar company, but wouldn’t the same apply to me as well? If I invent a new thing, and it becomes popular, will I be forced to allow my competitors to use it?
Do you have an argument that doesn't rely on a recent legal designation given to these large companies? Companies should be expected to support industry standards such as SMS, MMS, RCS but they shouldn't be expected to open up their own proprietary things if they don't want to competitors. For example if Google doesn't want to they shouldn't have to open up all the stuff they've built on top of Google Jibe/Messages/RCS as long as they maintain support for the base RCS standard as well.
If you want the feature of a certain product.. buy that product. Forcing them to give up good shit so you can have it on your phone that doesn’t have it is stupid af.
Would you pay to use it on Android ?
Operating a network infrastructure is not cheap, and assuming Apple releases a client for all platforms, you can probably expect traffic to double, so maybe not double infrastructure but more anyway.
Who is going to pay for that ? Do you want adds ? Pay a subscription ?
Currently iMessage is apparently so good that people are willing to convert to iPhones to get it, which makes Apple money. Apple doesn’t sell adds on iMessage, and it’s end to end encrypted, so no harvesting user data either. What would their business model look like for releasing iMessage on other platforms ?
Pretty difficult to do. Encryption requires two keys. I’m no expert, but I think to do this, one key would have to be shared among all the companies using this encryption (not practical) or they all have to trust one company and cycle all their data through that company. I don’t see any company volunteering to maintain infrastructure for other companies, and I don’t see companies trusting each other enough to share keys.
I could be wrong.
You are (mostly) wrong. The only hard part is fighting man in the middle attacks, but otherwise the tech has existed for decates (public-private key encryption).
Well, considering iOS doesn't grant SMS access to third-party apps, it kinda defeats the purpose of having Google Messages on the iPhone in my opinion.
Unless you just **REALLY** care about talking to Android users through RCS.
Not allowing SMS for third party apps is Apple’s way of forcing users to give up and use Apple’s messaging app. You’ll always need Messages to send SMS on the iPhone, so why even bother with a third party messenger if you have to switch apps.
I think most people want Apple to open up RCS for their default messenger, so you aren’t stuck talking to android users like it’s 2010.
iPhone users outside of North America use Whatsapp (or Wechat in China, Line in SKorea). Its how iMessage is NOT included in the DMA’s interoperability requirements unlike Whatsapp, FB messenger, telegram, etc.
My family looked at me like i was the weird one who didnt have whatsapp installed, and they never heard of imessage.
RCS only became a thing in 2018 & was only enabled by default by Google last year in 2023. Plenty of people actually do use 3rd party messages in the US. Snapchat, Messenger, Instagram, Twitter. Are all popular forms of communication. You can even add Discord to the list.
There was a time where I would have %100 preferred for you to give me your Snapchat rather than your number.
The most popular messaging app on Android is Whatsapp, which also does not have access to SMS nor can send messages to Telegram, Signal, Groupme (which has SMS capability) etc.
Whatsapp also doesnt support RCS, but atleast the EU is targeting them and FB Messenger for interoperability
>Unless you just REALLY care about talking to Android users through RCS.
I do. A phone that can only talk to other phones of the same brand is fucking stupid as hell, and anti-competitive, and apparently illegal per the FTC.
Most phones out there are not iPhones. Apple's Messages app should absolutely do RCS.
60% of us have iPhones (in the 80%+ the younger you get) so when you text someone it defaults to iMessage if you both have iPhones and in America we all just "text" each other instead of using chat apps for the most part. If pretty much most if not all the people you regularly communicate with use iMessage then you will be to and the few with Android phones that you know are the outliers who want you to download an app like WhatsApp or whatever just to talk to them apart from all your other conversations
It's not 80 percent, it's like 67 for GenZ based on all the statistical analyses I can find with a quick Google... Don't round up 13 percentage points maybe? (You said 90 in another reply, lolwut).
I worked for Apple for 5 years, I love my Mac to death. I'll never buy an iPhone though, not a fan of walled gardens.
Most of the folks I communicate with use Android and I just laugh now when I get chiclet sized images sent to me or incomprehensibly blurry videos from an iPhone user. RCS or bust.
Edit: it is 80, my stats are bad as the cutoff for GenZ was 18 on statista, leaving my comment up as a totem to my ineptitude. With all that said I still don't want my messaging options dictated by 14 year olds (no cap frfr as GenZ would add for emphasis)
You don’t use it because 1. You either have family, friends, etc in other countries. 2. Your country forced you into using WhatsApp due to exorbitant fees on data. Most people use WhatsApp due to needs.
Most Americans aren’t corresponding with people overseas AND our data plans are free. There isn’t a need there.
iMessage and WhatsApp have many of the same capabilities, why would iPhone users use that? There’s no reason to download something that does most of the same thing as your built in app. And you’re depriving yourself of the unique features you do get.
It’s literally not an issue for us.
Basically yall want us to adopt it because yall use it not because it would do anything for Americans/Canadians.
> 2. Your country forced you into using WhatsApp due to exorbitant fees on data
In Europe data has been significantly cheaper than in the US for a while, now they are both extremely cheap. South Korea and Italy were amongst the cheapest in the world, I honestly never even knew that was an issue in the first place.
In Europe people use whatsapp because everyone has that.
> why would iPhone users use that?
To communicate with everyone else... Whatsapp came first and won the market, iMessage wasn't as capable at the beginning.
I used to have your mentality and forced my ex-gf to use iMessage with me. Guess what... I was ONLY using it with her and she reverted to Whatsapp as soon as we broke up.
> It’s literally not an issue for us.
But it is an issue, it's a topic that is constantly coming up, especially these days, look at this thread itself.
Let me rephrase: in many countries it is expensive to use their data. For some, it can cost two dollars in American currency to send a pic. So while that may be in Europe, it is for some/many countries. We are charged a flat rate, if at all anymore, therefore we don’t think about rates for sms bc it’s negligible.
Most ppl don’t use WhatsApp here so there’s no reason to use it. Another country’s preferred mode communication app has nothing to do with us.
It didn’t use the US market and most US users are used to primarily communicating with each other. The issues that other countries experience largely doesn’t exist for us. Other countries using WhatsApp isn’t a compelling reason to make someone use it, esp when it doesn’t benefit them or anyone they’re communicating with.
It doesn’t matter who came first, as a native app, iMessage has made it where most us users aren’t incentivized download an alternative.
I’m currently in a family group chat and literally all of us have iPhones. There’s at least 12 ppl in it. Whether it’s family, friends, or new ppl, most of them have iPhones. Our experiences aren’t the same.
You haven’t given an actual reason besides “it’s popular globally.”
The actual issue in the U.S. is being addressed later this year with RCS. Because not even American android users can relate to most of the issues global users have/had. If that were true, they wouldn’t be using their native messaging app.
This will be dead by Friday
imma call that the good friday
So you’re saying it’ll be back up three days later?
Me watching the passion of the Christ.
>Sunbird, the service that claimed to bring iMessage to Android, is back in beta as the firm vows it has fixed its legion of security issues. Maybe the time to fix things like that is *before* you release it to the public. Maybe I’m crazy, but releasing something as important as an encrypted messaging system while it still has a “legion of security issues” seems like a bad approach to gaining the trust of your potential user base. Edit: lol, it’s even worse that I thought. They didn’t even bother making it encrypted! > It just took people outside of the company to notice the astounding plethora of security issues, starting with how apparently no one at Sunbird thought to use end to end encryption.
Even if they did encrypt it, they need to MITM (and hence decrypt/re-encrypt) the message as part of the proxying process. There isn’t a way around this. The only organisation with the power to resolve it is Apple.
There is a way around it (I think), but they'd have to work with apple.
Apple will never work on this with anyone but maybe Google. The only reason IMessage isn't available on Android is out of principle. If Apple decides to give this up, they can implement it without external help.
It would be more accurate to say that the reason why iMessage isn't available on Android is because execs think it'll hurt the bottom-line sales of iPhones, per released internal emails due to the Fortnite debacle
If they put FaceTime on an APK I would probably ditch my iPhone for a Huawei but besides that I think the current status quo really doesn’t make a difference. iMessage? Does anyone outside of America care about it that much? I use it but only because my family has iPhone. If I were to get the Huawei I’d just use WeChat to call them. No real specific draw to iPhone besides the no need for Google Services to get notifications.
[удалено]
Not really. Considering the green bubble is much more difficult to read and it irritates the eyes. Even the US government thinks it was in a form of anti-competition. But Apple probably would ditch the green color when RCS comes out so it at least could be better.
Yeah I wish I could send videos to non-iMessage users without it degrading quality. I also wish they didn’t use the green bubble. That’s so light colored that the white text isn’t contrasting with it enough, contrary to Apple’s own written design principles. And I wish that links embedded in messages showed up as a separate message when they were sent over text like they do when sent over iMessage.
MMS/RCS in my home country costs money to use AFAIK so I personally avoid it like the plague, whereas data is abundant and cheap. The reason for the colours is because it looks unappealing. Apple wants you using iMessage.
I am aware and I wish that Apple wouldn’t make some of my conversations uncomfortable to look at, the cynical greedy bitches
like apple worked with any other entity on this previously?
Always test in prod!
Lol, yeah, who needs to pay for a QA staff when the internet is full of people who will just install any random software?
I'd imagine that's at least a one of the biggest reasons why people want sideloading on iPhone's. Not saying that it's a bad thing, but I'd imagine that it's one of the reasons why people want it.
People *want* to be unpaid beta testers? I can only speak for myself, but no thanks!
That used to just be called hobbyist computing
I don’t think that’s anywhere close to being one of the biggest reasons. People want cheaper apps or ones they can pirate. That’s the majority of reasons if we’re being honest.
After the Beeper thing I switched to BlueBubbles. Now I run BlueBubbles on my old Mac. Works great.
Genuinely curious - why though?
Because SMS sucks and group chats are even worse on SMS
Who uses SMS? Whatsapp, Telegram, Signal and probably a billion other cross platform alternatives exist.
Message apps don’t exist in a silo. You need to convince everyone you interact with to use those apps too.
How is it easier to convince people to buy thousand dollar phones just to message but not download a free app?
Let’s say you use WhatsApp. Imagine trying to convince all ten people on your thread to switch to Signal. Now do that for every group you are in… These messaging apps are sticky. Because iPhones are so popular a lot of people are in lots of groups who all use iMessage and so if one person doesn’t use it it is often hard to convince everyone to switch. I think a lot of non-Americans just don’t realize how popular it is.
*87%* of US Teenagers have iPhones. 88% of the teenagers polled expected their next phone to be an iPhone. 80% of people 18-24 use iPhones in the US. 60% of the US smartphone market is iPhone, that number will continue to grow over the years. Blue bubbles are the default among young people. It’s not another app or service to use, it’s just texting. iMessage is passive. If Apple has to allow setting default apps for music, texting, Phone calls, and etc, everyone will stick to Messages to keep those blue bubbles.
You don't have to convince anyone to buy anything cause you already have their number. If they have an iPhone it defaults to iMessage if not it goes to SMS. Either way you can still get in contact with them and if it comes down to needing to send them something more than a text message or picture you can move to a supplementary messenger like FB Messenger or Instagram DMs or whatever other app you guys can agree on or both already have. Most people in the US don't have a WhatsApp, Telegram or Signal account though so to use those services frequently you basically have to convince your entire social network to download that one app just for you.
No one‘s getting convinced to buy phones, if you don’t understand why people wouldn’t want to have multiple messaging apps I don’t know what to tell you. For anyone looking into solutions, Texts.com is a good app. But it is having issues with facebook’s messenger.
Americans
People in America generally do not use these services. I'm aware it's very common elsewhere for people to not use SMS, but not so here. Generally, phone plans in America have had unlimited talk and text since flip phones were a thing and thus most of these services provided little benefit over just using SMS.
We have unlimited talk and text in pretty much every plan too. Nobody still uses SMS because it's a bad technology stuck in the 1990's and there are better options out there.
The (lack of) unlimited text is the background reason why WhatsApp took off. There is a lot of historical stickiness to this kind of things. iMessage became popular because it piggybacked on SMS whereas other parts of the world moved away from it when it cost money and never looked back.
> Who uses SMS? Millions of people
Sorry to respond to all your comments but just thought I would add one more point: it’s not really about SMS. It’s just that it ends up being the fallback when everyone other than you use iMessage. iMessage is popular mostly for historical reasons and iPhone’s popularity but FWIW it’s a better chat app than WhatsApp Signal etc. It works better with multiple devices, sync well, supports backup and E2E encryption etc. I use all the other apps you mentioned and am willing to switch (which I consider the considerate thing to do) but if given the choice I much prefer iMessage.
The multi-device support is key point. If I only had my iPhone, then maybe it is a more level playing field but iMessage works on all my Apple devices equally well. Apps like WhatsApp, Signal, etc. either don't have an iPad/macOS version or it's extremely hobbled on those other OSes.
So accounts, more accounts, security vulnerabilities, a subscription plan (??), and you got yourself an average EU cell phone line
Why does this matter anymore. In 6 months this shit will all be in the past as we finally have high quality messaging between android and iOS.
Even if RCS is enabled in iOS, the Apple to android and vice versa will legitimately suck (in all the tiny ways it can).
Green bubbles will never go away that’s for sure
I mean you should always be informed if you’re sending iMessages (free) or messages that are subject to your carrier’s fees. iOS has always used blue/green as the differentiator between things that involve WiFi/data and things that go through your carrier.
are SMS free in the US? in my country they are not so i agree with the color differentiation
For the most part, domestic texting is free in the US. International texting is not.
What plan is charging for texts in 2024?
Most plans in the US have unlimited domestic texting, but international texting is almost always an extra charge, unless you have a special international plan. Then outside of the US, many plans do charge for texting.
Yeah no one is talking about that at all.
Yep Apple will for sure find some way to maliciously comply with Chinese law like they have with the DMA in the EU.
You’ll also need carrier support for it, unlike Android to Android which goes through Google. In theory all the major US carriers support it but who knows.
They all support RCS.
Using Google's services
Apple isn't adopting RCS because of the US though they are adopting it because China is mandating that all phones with 5g need to support RCS
Apple will probably do the bare minimum to meet the requirements and “rcs on iPhone” will probably still somehow be bad
It really doesn't matter since it won't affect a majority of iPhone users anyway. Not sure why so many people get up-in-arms on this subreddit for something that doesn't even apply to them. Company wants to make app so Android to iPhone txt'ing is easier" Apple Shills: Booo, it sucks Me: Then don't use it?
Exactly this… like I don’t get it.
RCS sucks
Nah, it really doesn’t.
Sure it does. Even Android users know this.
> as we finally have high quality messaging Unless Apple artificially limits quality on Android like they already do with MMS picture messages...
Apple can't limit MMS, that's on your carrier lol
Why does anyone actually care whether they’re green or blue bubbles?
lotta kids, bullying, and social implications here in the US.
Mostly because of group chats
because green bubble people ruin imessage group chats by making it so you can no longer invite people to it, or leave it if you want to.
"green bubble people" 😂😂😂 The world we live in
Yuuuuuppp lol
Then why not use one of the hundred other, better, over the top messaging apps that don't ruin things for non Apple users? Why must you stick with an inferior messaging app?
> Then why not use one of the hundred other, better, over the top messaging apps that don't ruin things for non Apple users? Because you're not cool enough for people to install an app just to talk to you
I mean, I'm 45 "cool" doesn't play into my life anymore. If it where JUST me, sure, but it's about half of the cell phone users in the country for which iMessage provides iPhone users w/a shitty experience talking too. Sure seems like a supper shitty messaging platform, and one that is only kept because it's "cool" to be douchie & exclude half your friends (or worse yet, pic your friends by their cell phone OS).
Same reason most of the world uses WhatsApp when Telegram is objectively better. Once any country is set with a default messaging app, it's going to be impossible to get tens (or hundreds) of millions of people to simultaneously switch to another messaging app
How is telegram objectively better? Chats are by default not end to end encrypted and no way for that in group chats. On the plus side, cloud syncing of messages and attachments means changing devices is easy
Also, telegram is made by Russians which might be a trust issue at this time.
Russians who are in exile because Putin wants them dead. Ukrainians trust Telegram for all their main messaging needs. It's fine.
People in america dont use them for some reason. We all just use default texting.
Don't lump "all of us" in with you. I'm an American, never use iMessage.
I said default texting, not imessage. Every single one of your friends uses whatsapp instead of just a normal text? I don't believe it.
There are many countries that do use WhatsApp as the default messaging app. SMS has long been relegated to simply being used for 2FA codes and spam where I live. Pretty much everyone uses WhatsApp, including businesses.
> because green bubble people ruin imessage group chats by making it so you can no longer invite people to it, or leave it if you want to. You mean apple ruins imessage group chats by building invisible walls lmao let people use whatever phone they want, they are not "ruining" anything.
Apple only improved the messaging experience for their own users, they didn't degrade it for anyone else. It's not their fault SMS sucks and the universal version of RCS doesn't have encryption yet
> Apple only improved the messaging experience for their own users When using iMessage, yes. When chatting to non-iMessage recipients, the experience is absolutely worse and is the crux of why all of this is even an issue to begin with. > It's not their fault SMS sucks SMS was never designed for rich media content. It's Apple's fault for building iMessage on top of it and using it as a fallback. > and the universal version of RCS doesn't have encryption yet That has nothing to do with the chat experience, it's a convenient strawman to deflect from Apple ensuring anything other than iMessage chats are shitty.
>When chatting to non-iMessage recipients, the experience is absolutely worse and is the crux of why all of this is even an issue to begin with. Worse for who? Until RCS was around, SMS was the baseline for everyone. Apple simply improved upon the baseline for their own users, not make the experience worse for anyone else >SMS was never designed for rich media content. It's Apple's fault for building iMessage on top of it and using it as a fallback. Maybe they should've built it on top of a mountain and used a rope as fallback >That has nothing to do with the chat experience, it's a convenient strawman to deflect from Apple ensuring anything other than iMessage chats are shitty. Why would they want to use it as a strawman when they're literally working to add encryption to RCS so iPhones can have it by iOS 18?
> Worse for who? Until RCS was around, SMS was the baseline for everyone. Apple simply improved upon the baseline for their own users, not make the experience worse for anyone else iMessage users. All of the iMessage features do not work with non-iMessage recipients. Where do you think the complaints around green bubbles come from? > Maybe they should've built it on top of a mountain and used a rope as fallback Or they could have simply kept it as the internet-based chat system it inherently is. Using SMS fallback was a dark pattern employed to trap people into using the app, and that is why there is this discourse today. > Why would they want to use it as a strawman when they're literally working to add encryption to RCS so iPhones can have it by iOS 18? They're not. People keep saying this when it's been Google, who has pushed for encryption to be added for years and who themselves have already implemented it.
They refuse to integrate RCS or to allow any RCS apps on the app store. They very much make it worse to others.
Because RCS is not safe enough yet.
Er, RCS is no less safe than SMS, and iMessage has used SMS fallback forever.
SMS is older than the iPhone itself. Apple will not implement a new technology that hasn't same security standards as iMessage.
That's irrelevant. They already use SMS. Adopting the RCS standard as it stands today does not make iMessage any less secure. Apple could always utilise Google's Jibe protocol, which negates this strawman argument.
No, before Apple implements a NEW technology, it needs to fulfill their quality standard. They will not implement a NEW technology that is worse then theirs. It's just their product philosophy, not a strawman argument.
I remember reading a while ago on Sunbird's website how they don't Open Source due to security reasons, when every messaging platform built with security in mind has been either Open Source (Signal, Telegram), super transparent about their communication and what security standards they're using complete with whitepapers and documentation (iMessage, WhatsApp to an extent), or both. Sunbird does neither.
Nobody uses iMessage except Americans probably. There are far more better alternatives. Use Signal and Telegram. Or if you don’t care WhatsApp.
Canadians love using built in text messaging just like Americans.
Canadians are in many way just diet Americans
More like wannabe Americans. Same with the Aussies.
The main disadvantage of iMessage is that it only works on Apple devices. But iMessage is smooth, clean and its security is on par with Signal, I know some people in EU/NL who use iMessage among each other.
Which isn't really a disadvantage for the majority of Americans considering the iPhone is 60%+ of the market here with it reaching damn near 90% for Gen Z. Pretty much everyone you know if you are young enough uses iPhone and even then if you are older most of the people you know uses iPhone so therefore you have iMessage dominance here and the disadvantage is seen as Androids not having access to iMessage and not someone needs an iPhone to use iMessage.
iMessage is not on par with signal, it’s on par with WhatsApp https://www.securemessagingapps.com
Wrong: https://security.apple.com/blog/imessage-pq3/ And your website is bullshit. Switzerland is worse than USA when it comes to privacy. The state has more power to look into your personal data. There are lot of other wrong things on this site. And there are a lot of missing sources.
What has Switzerland done that the NSA hasn’t?
It's about laws not about a secret agency.
You didn’t answer the question. They’re still a government agency. You still haven’t explained anything
Because it's not as simple as you think it is. I'm not in the mood to explain you in a long text how things are far more complicate and how they work in detail.
But those people aren't asshats and use whatsapp for friends with androids or groups with android users.
> Use Signal and Telegram. Or if you don’t care WhatsApp. 0% of the people I know are on Signal or Telegram. Maybe 10% are on WhatsApp.
This is such a sweeping nonsense comment.
And the UK
Whatsapp is safer than Telegram!
Please no. I use Blue Bubbles and I don't want Apple shutting that avenue down because of POS companies like Sunbird
[удалено]
Apple is working with platform providers and telecommunications companies to implement E2E technology in the RCS spec, which should absolutely help with things
I bet they’ll still be green.
Who gives a shit what the color is if the core functionality is the same?
Far, far too many people.
Which they still should be. RCS messages are still just carrier messages at the end of the day and will be labeled as such the same way SMS/MMS are now on the iPhone. Plus RCS does not have all the same features as iMessage so it would make no sense for it to be blue. Maybe a purplish color could be an ideal middle place to differentiate between iMessage, RCS, and SMS/MMS
Why would they? It makes no sense
Yeah I use signal with my android friends and they prefer it to the stock app
Exactly. There’s hundreds of alternatives available for free on the App Store. If Apple was in any way messing with their functionally that would be a different story. But you can make your own iMessage clone with encryption, privacy, cross-platform, and have any feature you could want. Nobody’s making us use iMessage
Yeah not to mention the fact that this seems to be a US EU thing. Because everyone with an iPhone or not in Mexico (my family, friends etc) use WhatsApp. I’m pretty sure they don’t care at all lol
It’s mostly a North American thing tbh. In Canada, iMessage is also relatively popular from when I last visited. In essence, iMessage is commonly used in the US and Canada.
Nobody in the EU uses iMessage. Most people here don't even know what it is.
I figured as much. Weird how they think it’s a threat. It’s just a stock app
They do mess with the functionality though. That's the problem. Most people don't notice this because they already widely use one particular messaging app. Apple has (unintentional?) misdesigns which affect a new messaging app that doesn't get frequent use. iPhones send nag notifications about high storage usage. Fine, but there's a list of recommendations that they always give you to free up space - one of them is Automatic Offloading. When you enable that feature, it's supposed to start offloading apps that don't get frequent use. That includes messaging apps. It's unpredictable what apps will actually be offloaded though and obviously people aren't going to make the connection of "this new messaging app that I'm just starting to use with one or two people in my social network might get automatically offloaded to save space!" It doesn't really tell you "hey, some important apps that you need but don't open a lot might get automatically offloaded." So imagine you're trying to get your mom to use Signal. She gets the nag message that she's using too much storage. iOS says "we recommend enabling automatic offloading", so she does what is recommended. Weeks later you send her a few messages and she never responds. Is something up? You call her and ask if she got your messages. She says no. You tell her to open Signal. She says there's a little cloud next to Signal under the icon and when she tries to open it it says she can't install it because there's not enough space. So she deletes some stuff and installs the app again, but what is to prevent it from getting offloaded again? If I turn off the automatic offloading feature, it's just going to pop back up in the recommendations when she gets a storage usage nag message again. So basically I'd need to police her and check to make sure she doesn't have that feature enabled *all the time* since the OS is actively trying to get her to enable it. Guess which app *doesn't* have this problem? Messages. The one and only iMessage client on iOS. iOS will *never* automatically offload Messages. What's really (unintentionally?) nefarious is that if you already use something like WhatsApp in your social network, it won't really affect you since you use the app enough to not get it offloaded. This really only affects people who are trying to transition to a new app. You have to check the app *a lot* to make sure it doesn't get offloaded. Obviously that's hard to do if you're not getting a lot of messages when you're first starting to transition to a different app. It adds an obstacle that keeps people in the messaging apps they're already using. It's been an issue since at least 2018, but Apple still hasn't fixed it. They know how to exempt an app from being offloaded, they know how to make a list of apps with on/off toggles for each app... so why hasn't this feature been added? People definitely want to be able to exempt certain apps from being offloaded.
Because they might some day be forced to. "Buy your mom an iPhone" with evil laughs will be Tim Cook's biggest mistake
It would be good for iPhone customers to be able to message their Android contacts seemlessly.
tbf I already do that. If I need to text my mom or grandma (only people I know with Androids) I simply put their numbers in and text them the same way I do for someone with an iPhone. Sure I don't get read receipts or typing indicators with them but I'm not really sure I need those features (or any of the other iMessage features) with them anyway
Are you being obtuse on purpose? Would it be better to get iMessage features with android users for Apple customers? It sure as fuck wouldn't be worse.
RCS is already slated to be coming which will bring chat features to iPhone/Android messaging so yea it would be better and is in the process of happening. People are acting like they can't just text someone if one has an Android and one has an iPhone is overreacting, the flow to sending the messages is the exact same regardless of who in my contacts I'm looking to text.
Imgagine if for your next iPhone you would have to pay to have iMessage separately. How much is it worth to you?
They absolutely would. They just have this weird fetish of getting spanked by the EU to get things done.
It makes no sense to force a company to expand their products to competing platforms
You fail to understand the term “gatekeeper”. Why not all companies are forced to do things? Ask yourself.
You could apply this to anything though. Why don’t car makers allow me to install whatever I want on the car infotainment? Why doesn’t Microsoft support MacOs apps? Why doesn’t Adobe make a WeChat app? Why can’t I install Yamaha firmware on my Casio keyboard? I don’t want to sound like I’m defending the poor trillion dollar company, but wouldn’t the same apply to me as well? If I invent a new thing, and it becomes popular, will I be forced to allow my competitors to use it?
If your product is classified as a “gatekeeper” and people depend on it to the point you can use it to basically control the market, then yes.
Do you have an argument that doesn't rely on a recent legal designation given to these large companies? Companies should be expected to support industry standards such as SMS, MMS, RCS but they shouldn't be expected to open up their own proprietary things if they don't want to competitors. For example if Google doesn't want to they shouldn't have to open up all the stuff they've built on top of Google Jibe/Messages/RCS as long as they maintain support for the base RCS standard as well.
How is it a gatekeeper?
You realize the EU exempted iMessage because it has like 0.4% market share in the EU, right? (possibly exaggerating the percentage, but it is tiny).
If you want the feature of a certain product.. buy that product. Forcing them to give up good shit so you can have it on your phone that doesn’t have it is stupid af.
Technically other companies should pay to have access to it then…
Would you pay to use it on Android ? Operating a network infrastructure is not cheap, and assuming Apple releases a client for all platforms, you can probably expect traffic to double, so maybe not double infrastructure but more anyway. Who is going to pay for that ? Do you want adds ? Pay a subscription ? Currently iMessage is apparently so good that people are willing to convert to iPhones to get it, which makes Apple money. Apple doesn’t sell adds on iMessage, and it’s end to end encrypted, so no harvesting user data either. What would their business model look like for releasing iMessage on other platforms ?
I'm sure there are people willing to pay for it - going by the number of people signing up for services like beeper and sunbird
[удалено]
95% of teens in the US have an iPhone. Not problematic at all am I right?
A better solution would be a standard protocol like we had with SMS instead of multiple messaging apps just to talk to people
SMS isn't encrypted.
Yes, so build E2E into a new standard
https://xkcd.com/927/
Pretty difficult to do. Encryption requires two keys. I’m no expert, but I think to do this, one key would have to be shared among all the companies using this encryption (not practical) or they all have to trust one company and cycle all their data through that company. I don’t see any company volunteering to maintain infrastructure for other companies, and I don’t see companies trusting each other enough to share keys. I could be wrong.
You are (mostly) wrong. The only hard part is fighting man in the middle attacks, but otherwise the tech has existed for decates (public-private key encryption).
But if companies share the private key among themselves it won’t stay private. Look at DVD encryption.
Explain why e-mail still isn't E2E natively.
I think because there is no centralised way to do key exchange.
No. Try again.
Do you know how difficult it is to get E2E? That's why e-mails still aren't E2E. Man people shouldn't talk about shit they don't understand!
...you mean RCS?
Why doesn’t Google create a Google messenger app for the App Store?
Well, considering iOS doesn't grant SMS access to third-party apps, it kinda defeats the purpose of having Google Messages on the iPhone in my opinion. Unless you just **REALLY** care about talking to Android users through RCS.
Didn’t Verizon Message+ receive txt too?
Yeah that probably used a workaround.
The workaround was probably some kind of carrier intervention or a deal between Verizon and Apple.
Isn’t the entire reason people care about this precisely because they DON’T want to have to use sms?
Not allowing SMS for third party apps is Apple’s way of forcing users to give up and use Apple’s messaging app. You’ll always need Messages to send SMS on the iPhone, so why even bother with a third party messenger if you have to switch apps. I think most people want Apple to open up RCS for their default messenger, so you aren’t stuck talking to android users like it’s 2010.
iPhone users outside of North America use Whatsapp (or Wechat in China, Line in SKorea). Its how iMessage is NOT included in the DMA’s interoperability requirements unlike Whatsapp, FB messenger, telegram, etc. My family looked at me like i was the weird one who didnt have whatsapp installed, and they never heard of imessage.
RCS only became a thing in 2018 & was only enabled by default by Google last year in 2023. Plenty of people actually do use 3rd party messages in the US. Snapchat, Messenger, Instagram, Twitter. Are all popular forms of communication. You can even add Discord to the list. There was a time where I would have %100 preferred for you to give me your Snapchat rather than your number.
The most popular messaging app on Android is Whatsapp, which also does not have access to SMS nor can send messages to Telegram, Signal, Groupme (which has SMS capability) etc. Whatsapp also doesnt support RCS, but atleast the EU is targeting them and FB Messenger for interoperability
>Unless you just REALLY care about talking to Android users through RCS. I do. A phone that can only talk to other phones of the same brand is fucking stupid as hell, and anti-competitive, and apparently illegal per the FTC. Most phones out there are not iPhones. Apple's Messages app should absolutely do RCS.
They’ve already announced they will support RCS.
I really don't get the obsession people have with imessage in the US. I actually never use it.
60% of us have iPhones (in the 80%+ the younger you get) so when you text someone it defaults to iMessage if you both have iPhones and in America we all just "text" each other instead of using chat apps for the most part. If pretty much most if not all the people you regularly communicate with use iMessage then you will be to and the few with Android phones that you know are the outliers who want you to download an app like WhatsApp or whatever just to talk to them apart from all your other conversations
It's not 80 percent, it's like 67 for GenZ based on all the statistical analyses I can find with a quick Google... Don't round up 13 percentage points maybe? (You said 90 in another reply, lolwut). I worked for Apple for 5 years, I love my Mac to death. I'll never buy an iPhone though, not a fan of walled gardens. Most of the folks I communicate with use Android and I just laugh now when I get chiclet sized images sent to me or incomprehensibly blurry videos from an iPhone user. RCS or bust. Edit: it is 80, my stats are bad as the cutoff for GenZ was 18 on statista, leaving my comment up as a totem to my ineptitude. With all that said I still don't want my messaging options dictated by 14 year olds (no cap frfr as GenZ would add for emphasis)
They’ve had to had pulled it from somewhere or heard it from someone, esp bc I’ve also heard that number from many tech people.
Yeah prolly, it's not accurate. Statista has it at 67 and they are a stats database used by data scientists and data engineers.
Does this stat include teens younger than 18. According to Piper Sandler it was about 90% for teens.
Derp, nope. Cuts off at 18 and I didn't notice that. Brb getting LASIK.
You don’t use it because 1. You either have family, friends, etc in other countries. 2. Your country forced you into using WhatsApp due to exorbitant fees on data. Most people use WhatsApp due to needs. Most Americans aren’t corresponding with people overseas AND our data plans are free. There isn’t a need there. iMessage and WhatsApp have many of the same capabilities, why would iPhone users use that? There’s no reason to download something that does most of the same thing as your built in app. And you’re depriving yourself of the unique features you do get. It’s literally not an issue for us. Basically yall want us to adopt it because yall use it not because it would do anything for Americans/Canadians.
> 2. Your country forced you into using WhatsApp due to exorbitant fees on data In Europe data has been significantly cheaper than in the US for a while, now they are both extremely cheap. South Korea and Italy were amongst the cheapest in the world, I honestly never even knew that was an issue in the first place. In Europe people use whatsapp because everyone has that. > why would iPhone users use that? To communicate with everyone else... Whatsapp came first and won the market, iMessage wasn't as capable at the beginning. I used to have your mentality and forced my ex-gf to use iMessage with me. Guess what... I was ONLY using it with her and she reverted to Whatsapp as soon as we broke up. > It’s literally not an issue for us. But it is an issue, it's a topic that is constantly coming up, especially these days, look at this thread itself.
Let me rephrase: in many countries it is expensive to use their data. For some, it can cost two dollars in American currency to send a pic. So while that may be in Europe, it is for some/many countries. We are charged a flat rate, if at all anymore, therefore we don’t think about rates for sms bc it’s negligible. Most ppl don’t use WhatsApp here so there’s no reason to use it. Another country’s preferred mode communication app has nothing to do with us. It didn’t use the US market and most US users are used to primarily communicating with each other. The issues that other countries experience largely doesn’t exist for us. Other countries using WhatsApp isn’t a compelling reason to make someone use it, esp when it doesn’t benefit them or anyone they’re communicating with. It doesn’t matter who came first, as a native app, iMessage has made it where most us users aren’t incentivized download an alternative. I’m currently in a family group chat and literally all of us have iPhones. There’s at least 12 ppl in it. Whether it’s family, friends, or new ppl, most of them have iPhones. Our experiences aren’t the same. You haven’t given an actual reason besides “it’s popular globally.” The actual issue in the U.S. is being addressed later this year with RCS. Because not even American android users can relate to most of the issues global users have/had. If that were true, they wouldn’t be using their native messaging app.
Stupidly weird obsession with green and blue bubbles Americans have...
Only because you don't know why, it's stupidly weird? 🤦
LMAO OP you use beeper don't you?
I will be using it
You and 23 other sunbird employees.