[lrem]

Alternatives to what exactly?

A lot of people have reached the point of needing an iPhone. Nope, Android won't do, because it's not an iPhone. Too much friction and learning curve to ever use anything else than an iPhone. Game over.

[smoldesu]

Do people really fetishize the blue bubble this much?

[lrem]

What is "the blue bubble"?

[kaladin-jasnah]

Idiocy where people ridicule you for not having iMessage (and its features) because you have an Android phone and someone sends you messages on iMessage, it shows up as green for them, which creates a sense of inferiority in their eyes. (Android doesn't support iMessage unless you use something like AirMessage which requires a Mac, and iMessage to iMessage shows messages sent in blue, but SMS to iMessage, which is what Android users can use, shows a green message when iMessage users send messages).

It is a clever marketing ploy where Apple users make Android users feel bad for using a product because the colour of their messages is different.

Anecdotally (and randomly), I've seen "the blue bubble" can put additional pressure on males to get iPhones since "women use iPhones more, so I don't stand a chance if I have the green bubble."

I hate iMessage. Because of the blue bubble phenomenon, there are a lot of people in the US with iPhones just out of the need (pressure) to use iMessage. iPhones are ridiculously popular with American teenagers (probably over 90% usage in rich areas) and I've heard it isn't necessarily about iPhones being better. No, it is literally about iMessage and winning the social approval of their peers.

Since they have iMessage, suddenly you need to too. And so on.

I don't believe marketing or features or whatnot is what makes the iPhone popular. No, it is the crushing social pressure of iMessage.

F*ck iMessage.

[grupthink]

After this ridiculous FaceTime bug [1] in 2019, I've disabled FaceTime permanently. Now, hackers are using zero-click exploits on iMessaging by crafting malformed images/pdfs thereby breaking the media notification parser, breaking out of the sandbox, breaking out of BlastDoor, hooking into the Springboard.app which has entitlements that grant access to everything on an iOS device. Jeff Bezos and Joshua Wong have experienced first hand how broken iPhone's security is.

I have an iPhone and iPad, and recently have been experiencing phantom rings. My iPhone/iPad would ring simultaneously for half a second and then flash "Unknown Audio" (instead of "Unknown Caller" or the caller ID). And, for phone calls, there's supposed to be a green phone icon, but these calls have blue phone icons. And the notifications don't stay in the notification screen. They're gone after the ring. I can't tell whether my phone's on the fritz or my data is being exfiltrated. Last weekend, I received 3 phantom calls in a span of 5 minutes. My phone can't be trusted for FaceTime calls and iMessages. Fucking irony.

We cannot grant absolute trust to any one entity. Do not fully trust Apple. Do not fully trust Google. Do not fully trust not your government. Granting them absolute trust grants them absolute power that can be corrupted against you absolutely. Even though Google is a privacy invasive company, at least Google doesn't have power over Android to the extent that Apple has power over iOS. Android users can still side-load the Navalny app because Google built this weakness into their system. Apple's complete authoritarian power over iOS means users don't have power to choose. Prefer to use apps/services like Signal that cannot kowtow to authoritarian regimes because these kinds of apps/services have little power that they can themselves abuse.

But actually, fuck apps, fuck serfdom. Prefer the open web. Prefer distributed systems. Self host.

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/28/18201383/apple-facetime-b...

[cjonas]

My wife and I actually experience something similar that had a real impact on our social life's. Android and group iMessage do not play nice. The groups get "sharded" for seemly no reason. As a result, our friends stop added us to group messages and we were no longer in the loop for social gathering and "causal banter".

One of those instances where if I had an iphone, I actually think I would have developed closer relationship in the group. It's very off-putting to think about the impact of brand choice.

[cma]

Wait until AR glasses are big, where it I'll start happening in person. Can't see the object everyone is pointing to, manipulating, and talking about? Wrong brand.

Since black people have Android more often, Apple is basically bringing back segregation.

[kaladin-jasnah]

Class segregation (by economic level and within genders mayhaps), and racial segregation. And one could argue with the OPs "sharding" it is already in effect now.

[lrem]

Now I'm very thankful Apple never got that kind of adoption in Europe.

[helloworld11]

Truly, what kind of emotionally insecure absurdity would you have to be shamefully allowing into your mind to give the least shit about the color of your message texts and your phone type? I can't imagine taking seriously anyone who shames me for something so vapid. Why even bother hating iMessage and etc? Why not just.... Not give a shit either way? In a very young girl or boy it's just maaaaybe slightly understandable (until a bit of good parenting intervenes to put it into perspective for the silliness it is) but for any functional adult? Ridiculous.

[smoldesu]

Fully automated luxury space segregation.

https://www.houkconsulting.com/2020/07/blue-green-bubbles-im...