[martinald]

Agreed - though at least in my contacts in the UK, everyone uses WhatsApp (and whatsapp groups) instead of FB. People used to make a FB event for a party now make a WhatsApp group which everyone gets invited into.

I think what Facebook is very very good at is tracking the market and identifying potential competitors and buying them up.

My previous thoughts (and still are) was that FB would become a media holding company, similar to Comcast or Fox/News Corp.

The problems I now see for them is they are really starting to piss off regulators, who will probably not look kindly to future acquisitions, especially larger ones.

They also have a problem that WhatsApp is IMO cannibalising their core 'social media' offerings and I can't see how they can commercialise that product without eroding the privacy and/or simplicity aspects which make it so popular.

In hindsight I think Apple locking iMessage to iPhone was a mistake. If they'd released an Android version Apple would have surpassed WhatsApp in non-US markets where iPhone penetration is lower, and would have dominated the messaging space like it does in the US, as they'd be preinstalled on every iPhone to seed the market.

[samat]

iMessage (and more importantly, FaceTime) is the single most important reason why I buy apple devices for my whole extended family, so that we can communicate without ads, with privacy and with proper security in place.

So that's pretty decent market strategy on Apple's end, i'd say.

[rhexs]

I'd kill for a way to use iMessage on my Windows desktop, so Apple is doing a great, albeit frustrating, job selling the Apple ecosystem.

Wish I could at least use icloud.com. Even went as far as to look into how hard it would be to use VMWare to get a OS X desktop going. 4 GB and a processor core would be worth it, but unfortunately it looks difficult.

[eksemplar]

Well, yes and no. The iMessage app is really, really awesome when you’re sitting with your Mac. Until you want to message someone with an android phone. :p

[mcast]

If you enabled Handoff in your iPhone, you can text SMS numbers on your Mac.

[mikestew]

but unfortunately it looks difficult.

More difficult than just getting the VM up and running, IIRC. Something, something, hardware security key to get iMessage working. Or something. Anyway, there are workarounds with which others report having success, but at that my point my interest ran out.

[krageon]

You could get an old macbook that still runs iMessage, hook a KVM switch up to it and use it as if it was local (through a connection over a VPN or something). It sounds like a lot of work, but if you really must have it...

[thestorm_jpeg]

In the most recent builds of Windows 10, there is a new Windows Phone app what enables you to link your iOS device. Not sure if that's exactly what you are looking for but you can use iMessage on your Windows Desktop. Good luck!

[enzanki_ars]

The Windows Phone app only works well with Android devices. Messaging sync with iOS is not supported yet according to their website, and I doubt the Windows can ever get the iOS API access needed to make it work.

[singularity2001]

> Wish I could at least use icloud.com

why can't you? or you mean for iMessage?

[rhexs]

Oh yeah, sorry about the confusion. iMessage through iCloud.com

[stevewodil]

You can do it in virtual box but there's no graphics drivers, so it's not the most pleasant user experience.

You wanna buy my MacBook pro from me? Lol

[firmgently]

I feel like this makes it sound worse than it is. I run El Capitan in a VM on a 6 year old ThinkPad with a 3rd-gen i5 and it's fine. I use Safari with developer tools to debug web stuff and I've not noticed any unpleasantness. I don't use iMessage so maybe it's particularly graphics-intensive or depends on a lot of GPU acceleration (would seem strange in a chat app). Video chat might be affected I suppose? Anyway it may well be worth trying so I didn't want people to be unduly put off.

[stevewodil]

What resolution do you run the VM at?

Also it's possible that El Capitan has graphics acceleration in VM's, whereas the later versions of macOS definitely do not

[technofiend]

Bottom-end WiFi iPads are in the $300 range now. You might find one cheaper on swappable, ebay, etc.

[gaius]

think what Facebook is very very good at is tracking the market and identifying potential competitors

Well, they did that with Onavo didn’t they? Snooping VPN traffic to see who else their users were using. It remains to be seen if they can be as astute without that backdoor.

[onyva]

Agreed about iMessage. Didn’t mind deleteting my Facebook and Instagram accounts (with couple of hundreds of followers) but WhatsApp is almost a requirement in some respects (work, school, family over seas). Would love to get rid of it ASAP for a product from a source I can trust... wish Mozilla were in the messaging business...

[FabHK]

What's wrong with Wire or Signal?

[dimillian]

People. Nobody using it. My mom is not on it. What the point?

[cft]

All my programmer / enterpreneural friends are on Signal / Telegram. All business communication is there.

[parliament32]

Ditto, I was pleasantly surprised to see a huge number of people at work / industry acquaintances already on it when I switched it to my default SMS app. I love how SMS/Signal are seamlessly together in one app if you choose to combine them.

[pseudalopex]

Signal requires a mobile phone number. The iPhone app isn't bad, but it's buggier than Messages and doesn't rotate. The desktop app has the usual Electron problems.

[TAForObvReasons]

iMessage arguably serves as lock-in for the iPhone user base. If it were supported on android, many people would switch to the less expensive Android + iMessage ecosystem, likely enough to really make a dent in their cash cow

[isostatic]

There are many reasons to move off iphone (not least the lack of earphones), but imessage is so integrated with SMS that I don't know anyone who considers it different on any level other than geeks knowing it intellectually. On the other hand there are benefits to the ecosystem - find my iphone for example. Personally I, and wife, and motherinlaw, are on SEs because my mother's android phone is crap. It's just stopped ringing again -- last time required a software update.

iphones still Just Work. In my experience of people with half a dozen Androids over the last 6 years, they are Just Shit. People buy them because they are cheap, not because they are good. People buy iphones because they are good, not because of messaging lockin.

However that aside, across android and iphone, people constantly use whatsapp though because of groups and simplicity.

[zolthrowaway]

>People buy them because they are cheap, not because they are good.

This is quite the overarching generalization. Especially on a site like HN where there are tons of financially well off people choosing to use Android. Do some people buy Androids because they are a cheaper alternative to iPhones, sure. Do some people buy Androids because they don't like things like Apple intentionally slowing devices down, like having access to things like Termux, the ability to flash their own ROMs and root, etc? Absolutely. I don't even want to make this an Apple vs Android thing, but please don't reduce a valid choice down to people's financial situation.

[scarface74]

Statistically the average selling price of an Android phone is $200. Even Samsung’s ASP is $250.

An “overarching generalization” doesn’t mean there aren’t outliers. But most people aren’t buying Android phones so they can flash ROMs and run Termux.

On the other hand, the “slowing down phones” meme is outdated - it was a choice between slowing them down and then shutting off completely. All batteries degrade over time.

[davrosthedalek]

It was a choice between telling the users that they do and don't telling them. They chose... poorly.

[zolthrowaway]

I don't want to argue about Android vs iOS at all. You should buy what you like, I just provided a couple reasons why I use Andoid. I'm assuming your numbers are worldwide since you did not provide a source. If they're US centric, I'd be very surprised. Living in the US, I know plenty of people with Pixel 3s and S9s. These people did not buy these expensive flagship Android phones because they were cheap. There are plenty of valid reasons to buy them.

[scarface74]

We have real numbers for the US also as far as people who bought Google Pixels.

https://www.recode.net/2017/10/4/16418170/google-pixel-marke...

If Samsung were selling high end Android phones in volume, how many cheap crappy phones are they selling for the ASP of all of their phones to be $250?

The high end Android market is minuscule.

[criddell]

I don't know how many expensive phones Samsung sells, but Google hardly sells any Pixels at all. Last time I checked, they made up less than 1% of Android handset sales.

[Tom4hawk]

Simple, effective, cheap and ecological solution: make phones with batteries that can be swapped easily by anyone.

Radical concept, isn't it?

[scarface74]

So in the case of Android, you would have phones with replaceable batteries running old OS’s that the manufacturer abandons unpatched security holes.

Give me a phone that can run the latest OS for five years that I can take to the Apple store and get the battery place for $79 ($29 until the end of the year) any day.

Besides, the processors that are in most low end and midrange Android phones are so horrible compared to 4 year old iPhones, I can’t imagine them keeping up with new software.

[newscracker]

> Do some people buy Androids because they don't like things like Apple intentionally slowing devices down

Please read up on this point in detail instead of going by sensational headlines. You’d get a more comprehensive picture about how batteries work the same on iPhones and Android phones, and why Apple put in some software changes.

[dbingham]

My partner switched to a Pixel because she got tired of having to restore her old iPhone from backup every 6 months when it complained it was running out of space - inspite of the fact that she wasn't doing anything that should be gobbling up space.

I've been android forever, and my experience of Android phones has been they are solid for about 3 - 4 years, and then they start showing their wear. But I'm pretty hard on them. There are lots of significant drops that occur in that time. Drops that would shatter most iPhone screens.

[newscracker]

> when it complained it was running out of space - inspite of the fact that she wasn't doing anything that should be gobbling up space.

The reason could’ve been found by going into Settings and looking at the storage usage. The only case that annoys me on iOS is the download of a new version of iOS without permission and taking up space. But even that can be deleted from the same place in Settings (though this behavior shouldn’t be there in the first place).

[dbingham]

Trust me, she tried that. She tried pretty much everything. There was nothing listed in settings as taking up the storage. She took it various apple repair shops and they couldn't find anything wrong with it. They were the ones who told her to just periodically do backups and factory resets.

[hunta2097]

The problem for me is that there is a large spectrum of devices, some of them are shit. Especially if you don't do your research.

Ive had Apple-like longevity out of all my family's Samsung "S" and Sony Xperia devices.

If you met my daughter (destroyer of USB cables) you would know that the fact her Xperia has survived 2 years is some small miracle on its own.

Just avoid LG, HTE and off brand crap - they eventually have issues.

[freehunter]

That seems to be the way these conversations always go:

1 "iPhones are too expensive, people should buy cheaper Android phones"

2 "I buy cheap Android phones and the quality is terrible"

3 "You can get good quality Android phones, you just have to pay iPhone prices for them"

Every time a conversation about price vs quality comes up, the conversation starts at the price, goes into the quality, and then ends up at the same price and quality as the competition.

[matwood]

This is the exact conversation I have had with myself and others multiple times. If I'm going to pay a lot of money, I'll just stick with my iPhone.

The Google Nexus line really could have changed things. It was inexpensive, a great phone, and ran vanilla Android. I moved from an iPhone to the Nexus 5. It had some quirks, but for the price it was great. Then Google started chasing the iPhone money, and pushed me back to iOS.

[freehunter]

I had a Palm Pre then was with Windows Phone for a bit, but the only Android phone I've owned was a Nexus 4. I liked it (for the price) and would have stayed with the Nexus line if the prices had stayed in the Nexus price range. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the hardware, I actually still use the Nexus 4 today to test my app on older Android versions.

But by the time I needed a new phone, the Nexus 6 was twice the price of the Nexus 4. For that price, I switched to the iPhone.

[parliament32]

I went from the Nexus to the Pixel line and I couldn't be happier. The main thing I noticed is that the Pixels pull you further into the Google ecosystem (the assistant, hard-integrated Google calendar/weather, etc) while the Nexus phones tried to be a "pure" (read: vendor independent) experience.

Depends on where you are but here iphones are the new "grandma" phone -- phones you can get for $0 and are idiotproof. They're simply not fashionable anymore.

[GFischer]

Not true. Me and my family are on Xiaomis, they're on a different level.

I have a company-issued S8 and an iPhone, and I wouldn't trade them for my Xiaomi.

Best part is, they cost less than half of an equivalent iPhone, have better battery and amazing performance.

I used to buy Samsungs (and Nokias earlier before they suicided).

I have an iPad and it's a great piece of hardware, but I don't stand the Apple ecosystem (iTunes in particular is a piece of crap).

Currently waiting for the Pocophone F1 to be distributed by the local carrier. Another slam dunk by Xiaomi.

[pimeys]

You just need to unlock Xiaomis and install Lineage OS. The unlocking process is the most ridiculous I have seen, requiring a windows tool that works only after you've tried their Android version a week. And the tool requires some black magic to even work. The Xiaomi OS talks to many Chinese tracking servers all the time regarding to Blokada reports.

I have a Mi Mix 2 and I love the phone. Just be aware of the unlocking procedure before buying one of their phones.

[davrosthedalek]

I agree with 1 and 2, but really, you don't have to spend iPhone level prices, just don't buy the cheapest phone you can get.

[freehunter]

I wouldn't say LG and HTC are the cheapest phones you can get. The parent comment recommended Samsung S series or the Sony Xperia series, which are $700-$900 phones which is squarely in iPhone territory.

[cm2187]

I still have to sync my music on my iphone using itunes on windows, and I beg to differ on the "it Just Works"...

[nirmalc]

Ditto . "Just works " doesn't seem to apply when itunes is in picture

[newscracker]

That music thing is quite annoying. I can add books from Dropbox or other places into Books app but not add music from anywhere into the Music app? Long ago I heard this restriction was put in place to reduce music piracy, but over the years I’ve concluded that Apple wants people to buy music from it (or subscribe to Apple Music), and doesn’t give a damn about what users may want.

[lol768]

>In my experience of people with half a dozen Androids over the last 6 years, they are Just Shit.

As some of the other commenters alluded to, there really are a huge variety of different devices. I'd be curious as to whether the folks you knew were buying e.g. Google's Nexus or Pixel devices which IME have generally felt higher quality to use, or whether they were Samsung/HTC/Huwaei-branded devices.

[ams6110]

I've used Motorola "Moto G" phones since I've had smartphones. My current phone is from 2015. They are low-cost, but seem well made. Never had any problems with the hardware. I've been happy with them. The downside is they don't get updates over the long term.

I could afford an iPhone, or a flagship Android phone, but the value proposition isn't there for me. Mobile just isn't a very important thing for me. I use it for basic communication with family and friends, navigating/maps and that's about it.

[scarface74]

Are there any devices that have five years worth of OS upgrades?

[toast0]

If you spend $200 on a phone instead of $1000, you get five years of OS upgrades by getting a new phone every year. If you luck out and one of your phones does have upgrades, you can skip a year.

Because the Android ecosystem doesn't have a strong upgrade ability, app developers generally target a wide variety of OS versions, so when you do get cut off from app updates, it's really ancient versions, like gingerbread.

[scarface74]

You don’t have to spend $1000 on an iPhone. You can get an iPhone 7 right now for $449 and if history is any guide, it will still be getting OS updates for at least 3 more years probably more.

Seeing that my iPhone 6s bought in 2015 for $750 is still faster than most modern Android phones, I don’t think OS upgrades are going to be a problem.

App developers being forced to support older OS’s is not a good thing for the platform. iOS Developers can target the latest OS and all of its features and still support 5 year old phones.

[ryandrake]

I love how this thread is acting like 5 years of software compatibility is a lot. It shows how low our expectations are in the world of handheld computing. I have computers from as far back as 2000 that I can still run Linux on and use productively. I wouldn’t even consider buying a technology product if I thought I’d be replacing it in a year. 5 years should be a minimum.

[davrosthedalek]

While I agree that this is nice, many people upgrade their phones every 2-3 years anyway, just because of the hardware/battery. For them, this is not a selling point.

[nmcfarl]

I do think that people buy new phones when they break, or become unusable. And that does seem to be 2-3 years on Android, but iPhones last longer - and with battery replacement, which this year has made very popular, they last even longer. iPhone 4,5 and 6's are still the majority of iphones in my extended family and less techy friends - and they were bought new.

Anyhow - the main reason I even commented was that people in the antique iPhone camp /regularly/ say they'll never go to Android cause the phones don't last. I really think people would like to keep their phones for as long as their laptops. And iPhones are the way to do that and that it is a selling point.

[scarface74]

Most of my upgrades except for the 5 were not hardware related - directly.

The first iPhone I bought was a 4 in 2010. I “upgraded” to a 4s because I got a much better deal through my employer to use Verizon and the 4 had separate GSM/CDMA versions. My son used the 4 from the time I switched from Verizon to T-Mobile until 2013 and upgraded up until iOS 7.

My next upgrade was to the 5 and again it was because of a change of carriers and Verizon wouldn’t unlock the GSM part of the phone for domestic use. The 5/5C were the last 32 bit iPhones.

I consider the first 64-bit iPhone to be like the first Core 2 Duos. At that point the phone was “good enough” and fast enough for most people.

My first 64 bit phone was the 6s in 2015. My son is still using it now with an Apple battery case. I would have kept it, but I needed a larger screen (iPhone 8 plus) to watch text heavy technical videos and the battery life is much better. I don’t see any reason unless I physically damage this phone that I won’t keep it for another 4 years.

I’ll probably replace my 9.7” iPad before I replace my phone and I don’t see myself doing that anytime soon.

[me551ah]

If you buy a cheap Android phone you are going to get cheapness. In my experience the kind of experience you have with an android device is pretty much driven by the cost of the phone.

I personally own a Sony Xperia XZ ( which is now over 3 years old), but it had a price comparable to an iPhone when i bought it with better specs.

1. Better front camera ( 13 megapixels ) and the rear one has a 25 mp sensor which captures great photos.

2. 192khz/24bit audio. Being an audiophile I hate the fact that apple does not support hi res audio. This phone had a headphone jack and is really good at playing flac music or hi-fi audio from Tidal.

3. Well designed - The back is made out of alkaleido which sounds like a marketing gimmick term, but it really does change colour in a subtle but nice way. iPhones haven't changed much in design over the years and they don't really look as attractive as they did previously.

4. Google cardboard - Android has some good VR applications which run on google cardboard. Heck you can even use TrinusVR on Android and VR stream games wirelessly from your PC . Can an iPhone do that?

[krageon]

Apple hardware works well only with Apple hardware. Every day you pretend otherwise you will be reminded that your life is bad unless you bend over and accept the fact that you'll get annoyed by your own hardware constantly until you relent. People buy Android phones because the promise there is, at least, that you might get a device that belongs to you.

[vinay427]

> On the other hand there are benefits to the ecosystem - find my iphone for example.

What does this have to do with an ecosystem? Lots of other devices on the market support similar or superior features.

[matwood]

I think you are over simplifying the situation in assuming that if iMessage was open there would be a mass exodus from the iOS platform. The people looking for the cheapest phone solution have already switched to Android (or were always Android). iMessage may serve as some lock-in, but there are many other reasons that people prefer iOS and Apple devices.

[Sharlin]

As another datapoint, iMessage is probably the least useful thing to me in the whole ecosystem. Apple has nowhere enough market penetration around here (N Euro) for it to be useful as anything more than an SMS app.

[freehunter]

I live in the US but have many friends from northern Europe and I've noticed the same thing. The only thing I use WhatsApp for is communicating with my European friends, and every single one of them prefers it over text or iMessage even though they all have iPhones.

[izacus]

Probably because it lets you communicate with everyone without being That Asshole who judges you over brand of electronics you bought.

[JustSomeNobody]

I seriously don't think that that is true. Sure, you'd find some people who would. But not the majority. iMessage is great, but it's not the reason people buy iPhones. It is one of the reasons.

[IggleSniggle]

The irony there is I keep iMessage turned off since I want a platform agnostic, lowest common denominator (as in social availability) messaging system, and I can get that with SMS via a Google Voice number.

[fosco]

isn't whatsapp owned by facebook? and instagram (in parent comment) why do people differentiate them from facebook?

to me you are still using facebook just an 'app' under facebook.

I feel this is akin to saying I use gmail but not google.

am I wrong here?

[distances]

The difference is in encryption. WhatsApp has end-to-end, while other FB products obviously do not. Also, the current lack of ads. It's an improvement even if not a perfect solution.

[fosco]

I think what I'm saying is specifically it is facebook whatsapp like it is google gmail or apple messaging.

it appears that people often refer to this as different companies and they are not.

it being e2e encrypted does not change who owns, makes decisions on where the future of it goes, and if it will continue to exist in 5 years. it is still facebook and not 'whatsapp' by itself above and in many areas people refer to whatsapp and instagram as different entities and they are not, I'm concerned with people acting like it is.

[ams6110]

It seems to me that Apple could deploy iMessage and FaceTime versions for Android whenever they wanted to. The only reason they aren't is probably that they don't want to cannibalize sales of their own hardware.

[zimpenfish]

That would surely have to imply they trusted the creators of the Android OS to be as security- and privacy-concerned as the iOS creators, no?

[krageon]

This is a company, and as such their core driving force is money. If you are framing them as having different driving forces that will make their behavior on occasion seem really weird.

[basch]

>My previous thoughts (and still are) was that FB would become a media holding company, similar to Comcast or Fox/News Corp.

Facebook should become a compute platform like AWS/Azure that specalizes in compute services for social services, including but not limited to authentication, spam detection, censorship/moderation tools, social graph, storage, bandwidth, localization, learning, ranking.

[dade_]

They just need a leader with ethical qualities. They have always been lacking there, and birds of a feather...

[JustSomeNobody]

iMessage on Android would be huge. Do that, then introduce a meetup feature and I swear half the people I know who "have to use Facebook" would delete their account. FB would shrivel up in five years.

[parliament32]

I feel like this would go about as well as BBM's Android release a few years back. Non-iphone users would use it for a bit then switch back off as the novelty of "yet another ecosystem messaging app" wears off.

The proper way to do this is to convince people to switch to an app that integrates other messaging platforms as well: people switch to Signal and stay on it because they send all their normal SMSes run though the app as well. Then as their friends switch to Signal their conversations are painlessly migrated, everything looks the same, you just get a bonus "lock" icon.