[snakeyjake]

How is this an actionable anti-trust issue?

iMessage doesn't even register as a messaging platform in the minds of most users globally.

In the US is it dwarfed by at least three other platforms.

Globally, do any of the other top ten (Apple is nowhere near the top ten) messaging apps allow third parties to spoof their service?

The purpose of anti-trust is to increase competition and prevent unlawful monopolies. Apple is a flea on the tail of an ox when it comes to messaging, as capable of influencing the market as I am.

[r3trohack3r]

> iMessage … messaging platform

For me, personally, it’s an SMS app not general messaging. And on iOS there is absolutely no competition for SMS by design.

I suspect iMessage would enjoy far less adoption if the iMessage features were a separate application from the SMS features, or if a 3rd party app could assume the role of handling SMS (I.E. Signal).

If Signal were allowed to handle SMS on an iPhone, ditching iMessage would be one of the first things I’d do when setting up my device.

On iOS, if I want to send a message to a phone number using a cross-platform protocol that (nearly?) all cellphones understand by default without coordinating a separate communication channel out-of-band, my option is: iMessage. That is not organic, it’s Apple using its position as the device manufacturer to force all competition out of the SMS space, and then offering a “progressive enhancement” on top of an open protocol that nobody else can compete with or interopt with.

[dwaite]

Slight correction - you can't (or rather, shouldn't) override the SMS handling on an android phone.

Instead what an app like Signal does is request all the permissions it can from the SMS/MMS handling service of the phone - to read and send SMS entries, and to get events on an incoming SMS, and then request to be the default handler of the `sms` custom URI scheme.

But you can have any number of SMS clients at once. It is likely if Apple Messages ever came to Android, it would do the same thing - otherwise, the fallback behavior (when talking to an android user without the app installed, for example) would be sub-par.

[acaloiar]

I'm not a lawyer.

But I do believe there's reason to consider Apple's policy relative to iMessage clients monopolistic. Apple's behavior is not significantly different from Microsoft's, which instigated US v. Microsoft [1]. That case largely took issue with Microsoft's mandatory bundling of IE with Windows and the extent to which Microsoft created an inorganic monopoly. In addition to how Microsoft's monopoly came to be one, the judge also took issue with Microsoft's methodology in quashing threats to that monopoly. One could claim that Apple is taking similar quashing action relative to Beeper now.

Microsoft of course appealed the judgement, and prevailed. But they prevailed only because the judge had broken his code of conduct in discussing the case with media; not because Microsoft's behavior was not monopolistic.

I don't believe global or domestic iMessenger usage is relevant.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....

[threeseed]

> I'm not a lawyer.

This is very obvious because you have a poor grasp of the facts.

a) The issue with Microsoft was that it had a monopoly in operating systems. At the time it was about ~95% market share. Gates woke up one morning, decided web apps were a threat to this, saw Netscape as their major competitor and decided to eliminate them. It didn't try to compete with them. It went straight for elimination by bundling IE and coercing OEMs e.g Compaq to not bundle Netscape. Using a monopoly in one market to force a monopoly in another is exactly what the laws were designed to prevent.

b) Global and domestic iMessage usage is relevant. In fact it is the whole point. You need to demonstrate that there is an absence or distortion of a market for anti-trust laws to be applied.

c) Apple is not trying to eliminate Beeper, they have no monopoly in anything and there is clear evidence of a fair and functioning market by the presence of WhatsApp, Messenger, Telegram, Signal etc.

[acaloiar]

a) The issue with Microsoft was that it had a monopoly in operating systems. At the time it was about ~95% market share. Gates woke up one morning, decided web apps were a threat to this, saw Netscape as their major competitor and decided to eliminate them. It didn't try to compete with them. It went straight for elimination by bundling IE and coercing OEMs e.g Compaq to not bundle Netscape. Using a monopoly in one market to force a monopoly in another is exactly what the laws were designed to prevent.

I don't dispute these facts. And I don't think they dispute my comment. By mentioning US v. Microsoft, I pointed out that there are similarities between Microsoft in the 90s and Apple today.

> b) Global and domestic iMessage usage is relevant. In fact it is the whole point. You need to demonstrate that there is an absence or distortion of a market for anti-trust laws to be applied.

Thank you for the correction.

> c) Apple is not trying to eliminate Beeper, they have no monopoly in anything and there is clear evidence of a fair and functioning market by the presence of WhatsApp, Messenger, Telegram, Signal etc.

Unless one can believe that Apple is both willing to block Beeper and not eliminate it, then Apple is trying to eliminate Beeper as a Messenger competitor. From their statement: "We took steps to protect our users by blocking techniques that exploit fake credentials in order to gain access to iMessage."

I think Apple has a reasonable argument for doing so. Though, in a world where Apple controls the only App Store where iOS users are blocked from downloading alternative SMS applications, they do hold a monopoly over both how iOS users install applications, and the only SMS application available on iOS: Messenger. Non-iOS users who want to message iOS users with the same quality of service as iMessages may only do so by installing 3rd party software. Otherwise they need to implicitly agree to having messages treated as second class, to Apple's likely enrichment. I think reasonable people can perceive some amount of anti-competitive intent in Apple's action. Should Apple be able to block 3rd parties from using the iMessage service infrastructure? Possibly, but it's hard to argue that doing so is pro-competition.

I think most of the concern over Apple's refusal to admit 3rd party iMessage clients will be eliminated if and when they make good on their promise to support RCS next year.

[hifreq]

Agreed. Every single platform/device has apps that are exclusive to it. It's mind-boggling to me that people are so obsessed with Messages. I can't play thousands of Steam games on my Mac. My friends who have PCs play those games together, have fun, chat online. Should Steam be forced to "open their protocol" whatever that means?..

[blep_]

Steam does run on Macs. The individual games do not.

[hifreq]

I never said it doesn't.

> I can't play thousands of Steam games on my Mac

This is the point I am making. There are certain apps and features that are exclusive to certain devices. I can 't play the vast majority of Steam games on my Mac. Should Steam (and all game companies involved, including Valve) be forced to enable support for MacOS for all their games because Mac users have FOMO?

[blep_]

... Steam isn't the thing that doesn't support MacOS. I don't know why you're mentioning Steam.

But yes, console and OS exclusives are a plague and people should stop making them.

[thomastjeffery]

Apple has a literal complete monopoly on operating systems. Every iPhone must either run iOS or be cracked (jailbreak). That's not the whole story, though: Microsoft's anti-competitive behavior was not monopolizing the OS market. It was using that monopoly to promote IE.

> Apple is not trying to eliminate Beeper

They are literally eliminating one of their products. That's anti-competitive.

> they have no monopoly in anything and there is clear evidence of a fair and functioning market by the presence of WhatsApp, Messenger, Telegram, Signal etc.

You just moved the goalposts out of the stadium. Anti-competitive behavior doesn't need to overwhelm every segment of a market to be anti-competitive behavior.

[threeseed]

a) That's not how it works. You need to have a functioning market in order to have a monopoly.

b) Apple is not interfering with the ability of Beeper to sell their product or add new features. They are simply closing loopholes in their product.

c) I never said that anti-competitive behaviour needs to overwhelm every segment. In fact I said the complete opposite when I referred to market distortion.

[hraedon]

This is a silly argument: Microsoft's bundling of IE resulted in real damage to another company (Netscape) that had a viable and independent competitor product. Beeper doesn't have an independent product: they have a hacky workaround that Apple fixed.

What Microsoft did with IE isn't really analogous to Apple refusing to let another company free ride on their infrastructure. This isn't even as egregious as patching iTunes to break the Palm Pre sync was, and the legality of that action seems pretty settled by now.

[haswell]

> What Microsoft did with IE isn't really analogous to Apple refusing to let another company free ride on their infrastructure.

Zoom out for a moment and take Beeper out of the picture. The issue is not Beeper specifically, it’s the underlying reasons that Beeper even exists.

If you buy an iPhone and want to interoperate with friends/family on Android, the default experience is extremely broken.

Apple’s behavior here is directly driving users away from Android, not because Apple is better, but because it’s the only way to actually use the native experience.

I don’t know if the cases are equivalent, but there’s certainly a case to be made that they’re in a similar category.

[hraedon]

If I want to "interoperate" with friends and family who use Android, I have zero issues doing so. SMS works fine, and the default experience being "bad" is really completely unrelated to any sort of antitrust concern. If we want more features, they're an App download away.

Apple offers a product that has seen significant success in a small number of markets versus android, including the US. Dressing up what is ultimately the normal bump and tumble of competition in a market as antitrust because they're winning enough in the market(s) you care about is silly.

[haswell]

> …because they're winning enough in the market(s) you care about is silly

I disagree that what follows “because” is an accurate representation of what is happening, and reduces a more complex issue to an oversimplified notion of “winning”.

Microsoft was also winning in the market. How a company wins is what matters in discussions about anti-trust. If that winning is appreciably supported by anti-consumer behaviors, it becomes problematic.

I don’t know if what Apple is doing rises to the level of antitrust, but it’s certainly anti-consumer.

> Dressing up what is ultimately the normal bump and tumble of competition in a market as antitrust because they're winning enough in the market(s) you care about is silly.

Anti-consumer behavior being part of the “normal bump and tumble” is hardly a good reason to find it acceptable. Anti-trust actions have been weak or almost non-existent for years now, but again has nothing to do with whether or not the status quo is acceptable.

I don’t find those arguments compelling, and we’ll have to agree to disagree

[sbuk]

I wouldn't categorize it as anti-consumer. Apple is not under any moral, legal, or ethical obligation to provide access to iMessage to users outside of their ecosystem. Moreover, it's crucial to note that no significant tangible harm is being inflicted on anyone unless they willingly choose not to explore more widely-used alternatives. Some individuals argue that there should be broader access, but these arguments primarily rely on appeals to emotion ("...hardly a good reason to find it acceptable") and pleas for sympathy, as your post demonstrates.

iMessage is essentially a convenience feature designed for Apple customers to communicate with one another free of charge. While some might view it as a potential loss-leader for Apple, for most of it's users it's just another feature, with a majority already utilising alternative messaging platforms.

A comparable example is BlackBerry Messenger, which initially followed a similar path. BlackBerry only opened it up to other platforms when they found themselves losing the smartphone market to both iOS and Android. In contrast, Apple does not appear to be facing the same competitive pressure, which is why they maintain their current approach to iMessage access.

Edit: In another thread, you say "They’re selling a general purpose communication device that is incapable of exchanging run of the mill content with other general purpose communication devices, and using that poor experience to drive iPhone sales." which is a demonstrably false premise. The mere existence and prevalence of more successful competitors show us this. The problem here is that there are those arguing that iMessage is the only option, when it clearly isn't.

Ultimately, whether or not iMessage is availble to Android users is immaterial. Apple are 10 years too late to the party. Add that RCS is comming to the platform (of which I am disappointed - it a half-baked solution that risks ceding control to carriers, which IMHO is a terrible idea), iMessage on Android is moot.

[FridgeSeal]

> If you buy an iPhone and want to interoperate with friends/family on Android,

Then use a cross platform messaging app. FB Messenger, WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord. I have all of them on my phone.

> the default experience is extremely broken.

It’s not broken. Apple devices have a low-friction “hot path” for communicating with other apple devices. That’s it. Want to use it? Get an apple device.

Apple isn’t obliged to make its messaging app work for everyone, on all platforms.

[haswell]

> It’s not broken. Apple devices have a low-friction “hot path” for communicating with other apple devices. That’s it. Want to use it? Get an apple device.

As an Apple user who likes Apple products (I just really dislike this iMessage stance), I don’t agree. When I open the app that allows me to communicate with other users via phone number, and when that experience can’t handle sending a photo in the year 2023, the experience is broken.

I’m glad they’re implementing RCS support (which seems to be their acknowledgement that there is an issue to solve), but the fact that they chose to wait until 2024 is unacceptable.

> Apple isn’t obliged to make its messaging app work for everyone, on all platforms.

That’s not what I’m arguing. The desire for iMessage is a symptom, and I’m not saying they should be forced to make iMessage work everywhere. The problem is that non-iMessage support on the phone is atrocious. They’re selling a general purpose communication device that is incapable of exchanging run of the mill content with other general purpose communication devices, and using that poor experience to drive iPhone sales.

There are many ways to solve this that don’t require Apple to make its messaging app work for all platforms. They’ve already solved this for other categories like VOIP apps, which enjoy a unified OS-level experience.

[FridgeSeal]

> when that experience can’t handle sending a photo in the year 2023, the experience is broken

It’s Apples fault SMS is an archaic protocol? Wow, I truly learn something new every day.

> The problem is that non-iMessage support on the phone is atrocious.

I have fb messenger, WhatsApp, telegram and discord on my phone. I don’t find having to use these “atrocious”, they’re just different apps. Atrocious would be the awful “this messenger does all chats, but awfully” experience of early Android devices, that was a dumpster fire of confusing contact details and lost messages. Also, it’s not like Android is immune from these issues: your complaint is that SMS/MMS is archaic and needs an upgrade, not that we need to make iMessage bend over backwards to support everything else.

I guess I just don’t see the argument why iMessage explicitly needs to shoulder the burden here.

[stouset]

> I'm not a lawyer.

> But I do believe there's reason to consider Apple's policy relative to iMessage clients monopolistic.

In order for antitrust laws to apply, it’s not enough to exhibit monopolistic behavior. You actually have to be a monopoly and use this behavior to achieve and/or retain it.

[tzs]

That's not the whole story in the United States. Antitrust law prohibits monopolization, which is monopoly power couple with anticompetitive practices, but it also prohibits various practices from companies that do not have monopoly power.

For example the Sherman Act prohibits attempted monopolization. You run afoul of that for anticompetitive conduct and a specific intent to monopolize if there is a dangerous probability that will achieve monopoly power.

The Clayton Act added restrictions on price discrimination, exclusive dealing, tying, and mergers and acquisitions that substantially reduce competition or tend to create monopolies.

[RobotToaster]

> You actually have to be a monopoly

Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a felony — Sherman Act, Section 2

[lowbloodsugar]

> But they prevailed only because the judge had broken his code of conduct in discussing the case with media;

You seem to think this was a terrible, terrible accident on the part of the judge, rather than just one of the many mechanisms by which the powerful evade laws to protect the weak. That is, a deliberate terrible terrible "mistake".

[tapoxi]

Aren't 70% of American teenagers on iPhone because of the iMessage network effects? The whole "green bubble" shaming issue.

[snakeyjake]

>The whole "green bubble" shaming issue.

Even if that's a real thing and not an imaginary or minor phenomenon hyped up for clicks, it is hardly anti-trust-worthy.

70% of American teenagers may have access to iMessage due to it being on their phones but there is a 0.0% chance that, in aggregate, iMessage is in their top five most-used messaging apps.

[cmiles74]

I can't speak to the anti-trust issue but it is a real thing. My daughter couldn't join the group chat used by her (all iPhone) cheerleading team. We ended up missing last minute changes to practice locations more than once.

And, of course, there was some teasing from the other team members about how my daughter's parents were too cheap to buy them a proper phone.

[spease]

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their SMS but by the content of their character."

[hnfong]

... "by the content of their messages".

[tibbydudeza]

We had the same issue when Blackberry ruled the roost at school and the go to question was what is your BBM PIN.

Eventually we gave up and bought two Curve's.

Never discount peer pressure.

[hifreq]

I can't play many games on my MacBook, so can't play and hang out with friends who all have Xbox/PS5. What should I do?

[hcurtiss]

I have teen girls in Oregon. iMessage is decidedly the number one messaging app. The others aren't even close. There's no universe where my daughters use anything but iPhones. For better or worse, their friend group deliberately excludes those who cannot use the full functionality of iMessage. In case you've forgotten, teen girls are not terribly "equity" minded, particularly when it comes to tech.

[tibbydudeza]

Teen girls and clique's - tell me about it as a parent of two daughters.

[tmiku]

I'm not sure why you're so confident in that 0.0% assertion. iMessage is integrated with the default/ubiquitous messaging app on iPhones, and I think it's reasonable to assume that teenagers are messaging mainly other teenagers who are likely to have iPhones (and thus using iMessage).

What do you think is beating out iMessage here apart from SMS? Snapchat, WhatsApp, various social net DMs? The biggest non-iMessage usage numbers I can imagine still don't exceed what I'd expect from iMessage, just based on its ubiquity in that demographic.

[airstrike]

> Even if that's a real thing and not an imaginary or minor phenomenon hyped up for clicks, it is hardly anti-trust-worthy.

I'm in a group chat with (former) coworkers who repeatedly (albeit playfully) shame the one group member who forces us all to use green bubbles. It's a real thing

[TerrifiedMouse]

This whole green bubble equal shame thing is 100% on people.

The reason there are 2 different colors is so people can tell when they are using SMS because SMS are capped / cost money in most of the world - while iMessage messages are unlimited and free.

[airstrike]

> This whole green bubble equal shame thing is 100% on people.

Easy, then! Let's just fix people

[jpc0]

Sounds like you need a new group of people around you.

You honestly see Apple as the aggressor in that situation and not those people?

[airstrike]

> Sounds like you need a new group of people around you

...

> You honestly see Apple as the aggressor in that situation and not those people?

Where did I call Apple an aggressor? Stick to the facts, please.

[jpc0]

Your comment came across as defending the position that Apple is in the wrong for not allowing iMessage to be accessible from all platforms, my crude definition of "the aggressor" my apologies if that is not how you meant your comment to come across.

[Miner49er]

Do you have data to back this up? I would be shocked if iMessage wasn't the most used messaging app by US teens or consumers in general.

[jdlshore]

I would guess Discord is more popular, based on my teens’ usage.

[Miner49er]

Maybe, but they probably text you through iMessage.

[joshmanders]

This just in, teen prefers to message with friends via Discord, but uses iMessage to message parents who are also on iMessage and not discord. We must file an anti-trust lawsuit against Apple, stat!

Do you realize how ridiculous this reasoning is?

[RobotToaster]

> it is hardly anti-trust-worthy.

why?

[canucker2016]

from Piper Sandler's 2023 Fall survey of US teens ( https://www.pipersandler.com/teens ):

"87% of teens own an iPhone; 88% expect an iPhone to be their next phone; 34% own an Apple Watch"

No idea how many bought them specifically for iMessage...

[stevehawk]

we should caveat all of this with "USA teenagers" as Apple does not have nearly these adoption levels anywhere else in the world.

[canucker2016]

"...2023 Fall survey of US teens ... "

[mthoms]

Canada is somewhere else in the world. As are Japan, Norway, Denmark and Australia.

[Justsignedup]

its more than a shame. emoji, gifs and images are a core part of teens' communications (I have one, I know all too well), and iMessage's green bubble is also a guarantee that these things won't work, so its not just a shame, it is a hard road block.

Fortunately a lot of teens moved to discord.

[Jtsummers]

Based on all the messages I get from my work colleagues (mostly android users much more into memes and things than I am), gifs and emojis and other features work just fine these days with MMS messaging on iPhone.

[canucker2016]

When iMessage has to send a pic or vid to a group that contains non-iMessage recipients, iMessage will fallback to MMS and may need to recompress the pic/vid to get under the MMS media limit.

MMS, introduced in 2002, has much lower limits for pictures/video than if the messaging apps were to send the media over data/internet.

Also these MMS media limits aren't hardcoded, the limits are set by the sending and receiving carriers.

see https://www.androidpolice.com/why-text-message-videos-look-b...

[fsckboy]

videos taken on your or their phones don't show up postage stamp sized and blurry/bricky any more? that's usually how a green bubble drags an iphone group down

although the "liked your message" type stuff is also annoying.

[lazycouchpotato]

Google thankfully added a workaround/fix for that. "Liked your message" shows up as a reaction on Google Messages.

https://techcrunch.com/2022/03/10/googles-message-app-can-no...

In fact, the role's been reversed - the iPhone user now gets the "liked your message" text message while on Google Messages it shows up as a reaction.

[jtriangle]

So "monopoly" as a single entity controlling a single market is a simplistic view of the issue at hand. Anti-trust is far broader than that, where any anticompetitive action can be subject to anti-trust lawsuits/regulatory action.

So the legal argument would be that, because Apple allows for a single messaging app, and interacting with that app requires an iphone, they're effectively preventing messaging app competition.

Apple has a very, very talented legal team though, so, for this to even see argument in court someone's going to have to realllly have to want it, and be able to fund it.

[dickersnoodle]

>So the legal argument would be that, because Apple allows for a single messaging app, and interacting with that app requires an iphone, they're effectively preventing messaging app competition.

That is weapons-grade horseshit. You can put WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Signal on your iPhone and message to your heart's content. (I know, because I've had the first two on my phone before and they did not get killed in their sleep by Apple's native messaging app).

[laserlight]

> Apple allows for a single messaging app

Do you mean that Apple doesn't allow third-party SMS apps? Because there are lots of messaging apps on iOS.

[evilduck]

They don't know what they mean, because there isn't a legal precedent for narrowly defining monopolies to facets of a single company's stores and platforms. It's just wishful thinking phrased authoritatively.

[cmiles74]

IMHO, the argument is that Apple does not allow any third party messaging app to send message to the built-in messaging application (Apple Messages) on the iPhone. That is Apple ships one messaging app that is the default and may not be removed, and they also do not allow any interoperability with that one messaging application.

Apple Messages is not an SMS application; it's an internet messaging application that falls back to SMS messages when communicating with any non-iOS device. There are some situations where there may be no data network and, maybe, it falls back to sending an SMS message to another iOS device but this is pretty rare.

[grishka]

> Globally, do any of the other top ten (Apple is nowhere near the top ten) messaging apps allow third parties to spoof their service?

The one I know a lot about — Telegram — has official public protocol docs and is fully open to third-party clients: https://core.telegram.org

[progval]

> iMessage doesn't even register as a messaging platform in the minds of most users globally.

It doesn't matter what the users think. However, the EU Commission agrees with you here, as it explicitly decided that iMessage doesn't fall under the DMA: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_... ("gateway" is one of the three conditions to be a gatekeeper, see https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A... )

[fomine3]

My opinion from the beginning

* Platform dependent messanger is a terrible idea, but perhaps anyone have right to implement legal terrible idea.

* Why the US people widely adopt terrible idea? It's terrible as designed.

* Although, since it's widely adopted in the US, it should be opened, maybe. EU won't help because they don't adopt terrible idea.

[Miner49er]

What dwarfs iMessage in the US? I would assume that it is the most used messaging platform in the country.

[sbuk]

Facebook Messenger - approx 140 million users, then WhatsApp at approx 75 million. iOS has approx 136 million users (not sure if that includes iPad). So "dwarfs" might be a bit extreme. However, its extremely unlikely that all the iOS users use iMessage and none use either Facebook or WhatsApp. Statista has the figures, but I'm not going to pay $149 per month to find out more!

Source: Googling around, so take it for what it is!

[quantumsequoia]

Many Americans have Facebook/WhatsApp accounts they haven't used in years. I'd be skeptical they surpass iMessage in terms of volume of messages

[sbuk]

It's not about having accounts. Again, the data source (which I admit could be wrong/misleading) all say active users, which I take mean users actively sending messages using FB messenger. The sources, by the way, are companies that sell services that market to consumers using these services, so it's in their interest to know usage stats and patterns. Admitedly finding information around iMessage usage is harder, which is why I went with number of active iOS devices. Yes, it's sketchy AF, but I'm not going to pay Statista $149 in a vain attempt to pyrricly win internet points.

[Miner49er]

With this numbers I would still guess that iMessage has WhatsApp beat.

I would also guess it does more volume then FB Messenger, even if it technically has less users.

[sbuk]

How? 140 > 136! And the figure reported are active users. I accept it's back-of-the-napkin, not trustworthy sources, but even so, your math just doesn't make sense.

[Miner49er]

I'm just speculating that iMessage users use the app more then FB messenger users use FB messenger. I don't think there's anyway to know, so I definitely might be wrong.

[Miner49er]

Not allowing interop makes it harder for new competitors, because no one is going to use a messaging app that no one else uses.

[rezonant]

> In the US is it dwarfed by at least three other platforms.

Do you have a source for this?

[cmiles74]

How is Apple Messages not the #1 most popular messaging application on the iPhone? I know many people that use an iPhone and they all use Apple Messages. I know because I have an Android phone and this is the only way to communicate with them.

[rezonant]

There seems to be a huge disconnect from people who are in countries where texting is not dominant. In the US (and apparently the UK) that is not the case, and iMessage and texting more broadly are overwhelmingly dominant from all indicators I've seen.

[TeMPOraL]

> How is this an actionable anti-trust issue?

How is this less of an issue than Microsoft integrating Internet Explorer with Windows back in the day?

The shit Google and Apple seem to be getting away with these days would make regulators of yore spin in their graves.

[gafage]

It is less of an issue because of market share. MS crushed Netscape with IE. imessage is not used in the EU

[TeMPOraL]

Does this mean that existence of Android allows both Google and Apple to mutually shield themselves from antitrust accusations? They basically get to do what they want, and argue "us refusing to give you X is not antitrust-relevant, because there's the other 50% of the market that refuses to give you X in an entirely different way".

[gafage]

This has nothing to do with android. iphone comes with an app store and that app store contains lots of messenger applications. Users overwhelmingly download one or several messenger applications from the store and use them instead of imessage. What's the similarity to IE here? IE had over 90% of browser share at some point.

[TeMPOraL]

Integration. None of the alternative messaging apps are first parties on iOS. Just like IE, for a moment, was the only first-party browser on Windows.

[TerrifiedMouse]

I believe MS didn’t get nail on integrating IE into Windows - at least in the US - they got nailed on threatening to increase Windows prices for OEMs (which will ruin them in the competitive OEM market) that bundled Netscape, i.e. abusing their Windows monopoly to harm a competitor.

WhatsApp, Signal, Facebook Messenger are all free to download on iOS - heck it’s offered for download at Apple’s expense; since it’s from their App Store servers.

[threeseed]

But being first party on iOS has had no impact on the market.

Messages is not even in the top 5 used messaging apps globally.

[gafage]

I don't see any practical difference between whatsapp and imessage. iphone has so many apis such as callkit that make apps that use them feel like first parties. I think the only real difference is that you can use the built-in messages to read and send sms... which nobody uses anymore.

[Xenoamorphous]

> In the US is it dwarfed by at least three other platforms

Maybe because it comes preinstalled?

[sroussey]

This makes no sense.

“Because it comes preinstalled it is dwarfed by at least three other platforms”??

[cstrahan]

Which other 3 platforms come preinstalled?

Edit: wait, are you talking about iMessage being preinstalled? If so, how does iMessage being preinstalled make it dwarfed by other non-preinstalled platforms? Are you suggesting it’s human nature to use third party apps, or maybe you mistook the meaning of “dwarfed by”?

[cmiles74]

I am very curious what three other messaging application are available on iOS and have more market share than Apple Messages! Nearly every member of my family has an iPhone and they all use Apple Messages.

[threeseed]

WhatsApp, WeChat, Messenger, Telegram, Snapchat, QQ:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/258749/most-popular-glob...

[Miner49er]

We're talking US, not global.

[Psyonic]

Whatsapp, Signal, Telegram

maybe Discord, FB Messenger

[Miner49er]

There's no way WhatsApp is more widely used in the US then iMessage. Same with Signal and Telegram.

[hifreq]

It's a ridiculous comparison. How do you calculate "more widely" usage? I use Messages for all SMS messages. I've had maybe 5 group chats in Messages over the last 10 years, all groups are organized in WhatsApp or Signal. So what is more widely used in my case?

Messages is the default SMS app on iPhones. 130M iPhones in the US does mean there are 130M Messages users. So what? Some teenagers are angsty because of green bubbles? FFS do we not have bigger problems to deal with?

[cmiles74]

I don't think the core motivation in this discussion (or the monetary motivation from Beeper) is due solely to "angsty teenagers." Clearly there are adults out there, with money to spend, who would prefer to send an iMessage to an iPhone owner rather than an SMS message.

While I find it annoying to constantly hear from my mother and other members of my family how messages from me are "a hassle" or "always getting missed" or "never show up in the group chat", I am not willing to spend the money on something like Beeper. But some people are spending the money, it looks like there is a market there.

[Miner49er]

Do you live in the US though?

Messaging is done extremely differently in the US. All those group chats on Whatsapp or Signal would be done in iMessage because most Americans don't have Whatsapp or Signal, and Android users would likely just be left out of them.

[cmiles74]

I started looking around, I can find charts that show messaging app market share on iOS but none of them include Apple Messages. For sure Apple doesn't share these numbers, it looks like no one else has gone through the trouble to collect them.

[sbuk]

They do supply the number of active iOS devices, though it doesn't necessarilly mean that they are all active iMessage users. 136 million iPhones in the US, ~140 million active Facebook Messenger users in the the US.

[hifreq]

We can assume that there are close to zero iPhone owners who don't use Messages, considering that almost half of the US population has an iPhone. This calculation fails to account for the critical aspect: Messages is the default SMS app, it's not just a group chat. Comparing it to WhatsApp is just incorrect.

[AnthonyMouse]

> Globally, do any of the other top ten (Apple is nowhere near the top ten) messaging apps allow third parties to spoof their service?

The top messaging services are SMS and email. Do these allow different companies to interoperate with each other? Yes, of course.

And so should all messaging apps, regardless of how many other messaging apps there are, because they all have a network effect. They're segmented into their own markets by the act of restricting interoperability.

There is no carrier with a monopoly on SMS but Apple is trying to maintain a monopoly on iMessage. Why should that be allowed for anyone? Restricting interoperability -- i.e. competition -- is not a legitimate business practice.

[peyton]

I dunno, fixing the market to be “company X’s own services” doesn’t seem to be in the spirit of antitrust laws. Should I be allowed to sell gasoline at Shell’s gas stations?

[AnthonyMouse]

You should be able to sell your gasoline to customers with Ford's cars, regardless of whether or not Ford has their own gas stations.

But why are we reaching for a car analogy? Should gmail or google.com be able to block Firefox and force you to use Chrome? Not make use of some feature Chrome has, but just purposely block Firefox even if it supports that feature or its users are content to use the service without it.