I mean this was the inevitable outcome. I hate that my messaging is tied to specific platforms like Apple or Facebook. Tech savvy people like me can find some niche workaround but it will take government regulation to make that available to the masses. #BigTechShouldNotExist #apple #iMessage #beeper
Beeper says it's done trying to bring iMessage to Android after month-long 'cat and mouse' game with Apple | TechCrunch
Beeper is giving up on its mission to bring iMessage to Android after implementing a series of fixes that Apple has knocked down one by one.Aisha Malik (TechCrunch)
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Michael Vogel
in reply to Hank G ☑️ • • •Hank G ☑️ likes this.
Brad Koehn ☑️
in reply to Hank G ☑️ • • •Beeper seems like a solution in search of a problem. Android and iOS users can interoperate flawlessly via SMS, and if that’s not good enough, there are a million cross-platform solutions that work. Apple isn’t preventing others from accessing third party solutions (OSS and proprietary), they just want to limit access to their own service to their own devices. There’s no monopolistic behavior there.
As a user, I can’t see my experience being better by forcing Apple to open iMessage up; only worse.
Hank G ☑️ likes this.
Hank G ☑️
in reply to Brad Koehn ☑️ • •Hank G ☑️
in reply to Brad Koehn ☑️ • •Hank G ☑️
Unknown parent • •Brad Koehn ☑️
in reply to Hank G ☑️ • • •WRT group messaging, I guess I don’t use it enough to notice; what’s in iMessage that’s lacking in other solutions? To me it seems like Matrix and Discord are much better.
No argument that there's a duopoly. Strangely in the US iOS is the dominant player; everywhere else it’s Android. I do wonder how long it will be before Google drops Android altogether. In some ways it’s their best option, as it would nearly guarantee anti-trust action against Apple.
Hank G ☑️ likes this.
Hank G ☑️
in reply to Brad Koehn ☑️ • •Will
in reply to Hank G ☑️ • • •Oh boy, that's a complicated issue. I think Brad's comments are correct.
Maybe the biggest dynamic that we're faced with is the fact that social apps over time develop a large user base, and then suddenly we want to have a say how the app is architected. Facebook has billions of members, yet it is a private network. Should the government step in and say facebook should be open to the public? I wish we could step in and make facebook do things in a more open way. But the complications of that would be more than strange. iMessage is architected to provide security and depends on Apple having control of the situation to maintain that value-added. Intervening in apple's method would likely reduce the security value.
So, in general, how do you deal with services who eventually establish a large user base and thereby become a valuable public service?
Long ago AT&T limited allowable network devices to be used by consumers on their network. Eventually AT&T had to give way and allow 3rd party devices. Can large scale social networking apps be held to those standards?
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Hank G ☑️
in reply to Will • •Will
in reply to Hank G ☑️ • • •Hank G ☑️ likes this.
Hank G ☑️
Unknown parent • •Brad Koehn ☑️
in reply to Hank G ☑️ • • •There are certainly things that the various FAANG companies each do that are anti-competitive, but again, in this case Apple leaves the door wide open to competitors. Can they install their services in Apple’s iMessage app? No, but that’s true of every messenger out there. Can they run side by side with iMessage and get access to the full suite of messaging tools? Yup. That’s why I don’t see this as comparable to AT&T: competitive apps are already allowed, and customers have a choice.
It’s also not similar to the Microsoft anti-trust cases, where they used the “embrace, extend, extinguish” model. Apple hasn’t extinguished anything in this case (although it certainly has in others).
What Hank is saying is that it’s anti-competitive for Apple to differentiate itself in this market at all, simply because it’s in a dominant position, even if it allows others to compete.
I do wonder if the US (or more likely the EU) will consider IM the way they treated web browsers with Microsoft, and require al
... show moreThere are certainly things that the various FAANG companies each do that are anti-competitive, but again, in this case Apple leaves the door wide open to competitors. Can they install their services in Apple’s iMessage app? No, but that’s true of every messenger out there. Can they run side by side with iMessage and get access to the full suite of messaging tools? Yup. That’s why I don’t see this as comparable to AT&T: competitive apps are already allowed, and customers have a choice.
It’s also not similar to the Microsoft anti-trust cases, where they used the “embrace, extend, extinguish” model. Apple hasn’t extinguished anything in this case (although it certainly has in others).
What Hank is saying is that it’s anti-competitive for Apple to differentiate itself in this market at all, simply because it’s in a dominant position, even if it allows others to compete.
I do wonder if the US (or more likely the EU) will consider IM the way they treated web browsers with Microsoft, and require allowing users to select the platform they want. This would be a mistake, IMHO, since IMs are an ecosystem each with a corresponding back-end and application-layer protocol where browsers are not.
Tek likes this.
Will
in reply to Hank G ☑️ • • •Brad, that seems like an excellent perspective.
I don't do much messaging. From what i read, Facebook messenger and whatsapp are far and away most used in the US. I don't understand why the imessage issue is special relative to those two Meta apps. But that may be my ignorance of things.
https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/difference-between-facebook-messenger-and-whatsapp-messenger/
Difference between Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp Messenger
GeeksforGeeksTek likes this.