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by lotsofpulp 1399 days ago
It is for 80% of people. I am already mid 30s, but I assume the only people who care are young people who use it as an in group vs out group signifier. Which, if not green and blue chats, would be something else.

Everyone else simply uses WhatsApp if everyone does not have iMessage.
1 comments
meragrin_ 1399 days ago
It is also an issue for Android users in general. In large group chat instantiated by an iPhone user, Android users may be unable to respond. My mother has encountered that on numerous occasions.
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lotsofpulp 1399 days ago
That might be a temporary technical issue, but I presume adults would just call each other and switch to Whatsapp so as to not make it a social issue like teens might by continuing to exclude someone.
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vineyardmike 1398 days ago
Nah. I’m a “real adult” (in a wealthy American city) who makes plans like an adult and isn’t driven by childish cliques and in-group behavior but I have 100% excluded android users or asked someone to manually relay messages to them when they got dropped from an iPhone group chat.

SMS is botched and finding an overlapping app across 15 people is impossible. How are you supposed to coordinate that if you can’t even use SMS groups? How do you find a common app? You’d need one or two people doing person to person investigation to figure it out. At that point, it’s easier just to find the one person who’s phone doesn’t work and relay messages to them. Half the people don’t want to download a new app. Another half don’t trust Facebook apps. Another half think email is too slow (and too easy to exclude someone).

The general social sentiment is that the android users did this to themselves by choosing a cheap phone or choosing to care more about “not letting apple be in control”.

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meragrin_ 1399 days ago
> That might be a temporary technical issue,

It's temporary technical issue if Apple were to support RCS; otherwise, it is a long term issue. It is due SMS limits. This is why Google is trying to pressure Apple into supporting RCS. Apple certainly won't loosen control of iMessage.

> I presume adults would just call each other

We are talking about a large group chat. Easily 15+ people. Calling is not really an option for replying there.

> switch to Whatsapp

Not going to happen. We are talking about people who only recently became comfortable with messaging. Trying to throw them into a new application would take too long and cause too much frustration. The better answer is for Apple to support RCS.

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