Apple would claim that you pay for the iMessage service as part of the purchase price of hardware and software. From this perspective it's not blocking interoperability, it's blocking theft.
Whether that argument holds is for governments and courts to decide, ultimately.
I agree. The obsession with "blue bubbles" is something I only hear about from tech writers. No one I communicate with in the real world has ever mentioned it. Supposedly teenagers care about this, but that seems like a poor basis for anti-trust action.
At the same time, I miss the era of rich third party client ecosystems for things like AIM or MSN messenger. Blocking interoperability is a bummer for innovation.
Android vs iPhone is definitely a thing people in their 20s and 30s even use to judge others. I have polled quite a few family/friends, and it is near unanimous that it is a dealbreaker in dating, mostly because they assume there is a higher likelihood they will not mesh with the type of person the non iPhone user is.
>but that seems like a poor basis for anti-trust action.
Whether that argument holds is for governments and courts to decide, ultimately.