[CharlesW]

> I know it seems absurd, but as an android user I really do get cut out of group message convos due to not being on imessage.

I'm a U.S. iPhone user on many "green bubble" (standards-based) group chats, as are my wife and kids. I don't think we're outliers in this respect. If you're getting pushback on this, consider that this may say more about your social circle.

[jcomis]

Lol, this response always happens in the discussion of Android and imessage. It's great that it works for you, but I don't think this is the case for most given the level of discussion on this topic across the web here, reddit, etc. I totally agree standard messages work fine. But nothing is really standard anymore. Videos for example are the typical culprit in degrading the experience: If I'm in a group chat and someone sends a video it gets reduced to such low quality you often can't even tell what it is. Same with facetime, large amounts of photos, the list goes on. Recently stuff like message reactions were fixed, but still cause hiccups.

[godelski]

> Videos for example are the typical culprit in degrading the experience

My dad does this to me all the time. For those that don't know, the videos we receive are 320x240p. Talk about potato... No matter how many times I tell him, he still does it. It's quite deliberate from Apple. For example, I have a video that I received which is 0.1MP (262kb) but an image I received that is 1536x2048 or 3.1MP (548kb). Why are my images double the size of the videos? I find it hard to buy an argument about bandwidth when doubling the video size would make it substantially more visible (though still quite annoying). I can't think of how this is anything but deliberate. Even if it isn't, clearly it's going to be taken that way.

[CharlesW]

> Videos for example are the typical culprit in degrading the experience…

So you send links, or use use alternatives like Discord, Messenger, WhatsApp, Telegram, etc.

[shortformblog]

> If you're getting pushback on this, consider that this may say more about your social circle.

It can’t be the multi-trillion-dollar company that’s terrible, it must always be the people in your life.

[The_Colonel]

It's shi*y human behavior, but it shouldn't be encouraged by the technology.

[nvy]

>If you're getting pushback on this, consider that this may say more about your social circle.

Maybe, just maybe, technology should serve the user by enabling people to socialize with whom they wish, rather than the opposite.

[pmarreck]

The problem is that someone always has to be in charge. If no one is in charge, usually nothing good happens.

So for example, we have Ecosystem A and Ecosystem B, each led by a company. Their users (note: NOT those companies) want an enhanced messaging standard between them. Who should be in charge of it? One of those two, or someone else? WHY would either company be incentivized to do so, since it hypothetically facilitates losing users to the other ecosystem? WHY would a third party come up with the best possible standard between these two (as well as maintaining it!) that they wouldn't then be compensated for?

So when you say "technology should serve the user", who or what "should" do this, and why "should" they do it? For free? You have to find or build the right incentives if you want something to be.

This is the same reason we are still grappling with a single medical records standard/exchange format. No one wants anyone else to be in charge of it, and yet someone must be, otherwise you have dilution of responsibility and perverse incentives.

[AnthonyMouse]

> WHY would a third party come up with the best possible standard between these two (as well as maintaining it!) that they wouldn't then be compensated for?

This is the easiest one to solve, because it's not that expensive to make a decent messaging standard (Open Whisper Systems was very small, for example; solitary individuals have done it in other cases). It's not a matter of getting someone to do the work.

It's that messaging systems have a network effect, so when one comes as the default on a device with a billion users, it has a big network regardless of whether or not a competing protocol might be just as good. And then they want to lock competitors out of that network effect, which is an antitrust issue, and so here we are.

[noiseinvacuum]

In this case, the simple solution is for Apple is to have an Android app. Which, as per the email revealed in court cases, they have had and haven't launched since 2013.

[pmarreck]

Wow. I was not aware.

[error9348]

This may be ignorant, but why does green/blue bubble matter for US folks? Almost all cell providers have free SMS/MMS. Would people even notice it if the color was always blue?

[lastofthemojito]

Green/MMS messages end up having much lower quality images and videos than iMessages. Send the video to another iPhone user and they see it in HD. Send it via MMS and someone gets a blurry postage stamp video.

[izzydata]

But from an Android phones perspective it is the iPhone users that have low quality images and compatibility. Whenever someone sends me an image or video from an iPhone it seems like their phone must be terrible.

These systems could work together if Apple wanted them to. Google / Android isn't the part that is preventing interoperability. So ultimately it really is an iPhone being bad problem. They've marketed the problem well to make it seem like it is the other way around in order to make iPhones more desirable.

[stjohnswarts]

because it doesn't allow nearly as large images/videos/etc to be sent. They either get dropped or reduced in size by various means. If you stick to text I've had no problems, if you don't you're on your own if your doing Android <-->iPhone . most of my friends use signal or whatsapp so it's not a big deal for me, but others have issues.

[error9348]

Thanks. That explains why I never notice the difference.

[lozenge]

The green bubble makes it hard to read the text. (It actually violates Apple's own guidelines for text contrast).

[Krasnol]

Come on. It's such a known problem in the US that even people from other continents know about it.

It is nice that it works for you, but do not play stupid here. You know it's huge.

[CharlesW]

It's really not, it's just the norm. Android has 40% market share in the U.S., so virtually all group chats are going to be standards-based SMS/MMS for interoperability with at least one Android-using member.

[Krasnol]

If toxicity based upon bubble shame becomes a norm. You should actually be ashamed of yourself as a company, but I guess these days shame came out of fashion.

[the_gastropod]

I'm a U.S. iPhone user, and I have approximately 0 confidence in MMS message delivery. They're extremely unreliable in my experience. I'll suggest going to Signal or something similar if I need a group chat that includes non-iPhone folks.