[Karunamon]

It’s not quite that petty.

It’s not that the background of the message is the wrong color, it’s that having an SMS user added to an iMessage chat degrades the functionality away from what iMessage supports down to what SMS supports.

[kop316]

From what I understand, one can't even change the title of the chat if it is SMS/MMS versus iMessage. That is a client side issue that Apple chooses not to allow, so I would argue, yes it is that petty.

I know it is a client side issue because in Chatty, I quite literally wrote the functionality to change titles of group chats.

[Dracophoenix]

Degrading to the lowest common denominator is what an interoperable standard is supposed to accomplish. The alternative is for iMessage to entirely decline SMS usage in group chats.

[Karunamon]

Technically that's accurate, but that does nothing for the social stigma of being that one guy who makes the chat suck for everyone else just by being present

[kop316]

> social stigma of being that one guy who makes the chat suck for everyone else just by being present

I have been trying to parse this. You do understand that for some people (like me), I explicitly DO NOT want an iPhone, right? It isn't I cannot afford it, I do not want it. The reason the chat "sucks for everyone else" is because Apple doesn't open up the protocol. Don't blame me for not wanting an iPhone.

[bombcar]

Even so if you're not on "iPhone" you get a bunch of "Bob laughed at TEXT" kind of things, which can be annoying.

I wonder how much Apple would make (and how much they'd lose) if they had a paid iMessage app for iCloud subscribers.

[greiskul]

Back when Microsoft used to adopt interoperable standards and make modifications to it to kill the standard, people here rightfully called that behaviour evil. Apple get's a pass for doing the same for SMS.

[Dracophoenix]

There's nothing inherently evil to EEE. Plenty of software and standards have benefited from it (e.g. Linux, Ethernet, USB, PCIe, Thunderbolt, Bluetooth). The question as whether EEE is "bad" is a matter of motive. Edit: Is it being done solely because there's money to be made in locking down the tech to certain platforms or because there's a superior or more convenient solution?

iMessage has been on phones for 11 years and so far Apple hasn't gone out of its way to pull the plug on SMS. Apple doesn't seem to have an active desire to extinguish it either. Other companies have put a more serious effort in that regard: Google has RCS, Signal has its own unfederated protocol, and various companies have their own messaging platforms (e.g. Telegram, Discord, WhatsApp).

[indymike]

So having an inferior participant degrades everyone?