[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.

[haswell]

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

Why would this only be about SMS? RCS has existed for 15 years. It has its issues, but it’s not as if there hasn’t been an option. Apple will finally add some level of support next year (yikes), but as evidenced by the Beeper brouhaha, it’s unacceptably late to the party.

> your complaint is that SMS/MMS is archaic and needs an upgrade

No, it’s really not. My complaint is that there’s been an upgrade to SMS/MMS for many years that would make the iMessage limitations irrelevant, but Apple has refused to address the issue. There has been too much focus on iMessage itself, and not enough on the underlying behaviors they’re forcing and the obvious intent behind this.

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

I honestly don’t care if Apple makes iMessage work on Android. There are numerous options that solve this issue without crossing that line. RCS next year is a step in the right direction. They could also follow their own design philosophy and allow apps to surface their messages in a unified interface like they do for most other iOS capabilities.

I can receive a discord call and it shows up next to my normal phone calls. This kind of UX would solve the issue without requiring Apple to touch iMessage.

But they won’t, because this isn’t about security or some undue burden to support android devices; it’s a calculated decision to degrade the user experience when messaging non-iPhone devices for the purpose of driving sales.

This has even been confirmed by discovery documents from recent lawsuits.