The long fight to make Apple’s iMessage compatible with all devices has raged with little to show for it. But Google (de facto leader of the charge) and other mobile operators are now leveraging the European Union’s Digital Market Act (DMA), according to the Financial Times. The law, which goes into effect in 2024, requires that “gatekeepers” not favor their own systems or limit third parties from interoperating within them. Gatekeepers are any company that meets specific financial and usage qualifications, including Google’s parent company Alphabet, Apple, Samsung and others.
On the tech side, Android users also get lower-quality photos and videos when they’re sent through iMessage.
Android users don’t receive anything at all through iMessage; the whole conversation becomes SMS/MMS. I suppose getting major, relevant tech details is hard for an outlet like Engadget.
I think you’re just being pedantic here.
I’m pretty sure they meant when messages are sent using the iMessage app - from the point of view of iPhone user distinction between iMessage protocol and SMS/MMS doesn’t matter.
The app is called Messages. The entire point of the article is to discuss iMessages versus SMS so I absolutely do think it’s important to get the distinction right in this case.
when they’re sent through iMessage.
Android users don’t receive anything at all through iMessage
Your whole argument is based on failing to distinguish sending from receiving. You understand those are different things, right?
There is nothing to distinguish here. iMessage is the protocol and messaging platform. An iMessage sent remains as an iMessage when received. Android users are not sent and do not receive iMessages. They are sent SMS/MMS and they receive SMS/MMS. If all of the iMessage servers exploded right now, nothing at all would change in Apple to Android messaging because iMessage was never involved.
iMessage is the protocol and messaging platform.
You’re forgetting the most important thing it is to users: an app. An app that sends messages. Messages that can be received by Android devices because iMessage automatically sends over SMS.
An iMessage sent remains as an iMessage when received.
This might be true from a certain technical perspective, depending on what you mean by “an iMessage”, but it’s certainly not true from a user perspective. The user sends a message from the iMessage app and doesn’t care much whether it’s delivered by iMessage or SMS. Messages sent by iMessage are automatically degraded when sent over SMS if they contain media or use iMessage-specific features. Ergo a message is sent by iMessage and received by an Android device as an SMS message.
If all of the iMessage servers exploded right now, nothing at all would change in Apple to Android messaging because iMessage was never involved.
iMessage the app is always involved.
You’re forgetting the most important thing it is to users: an app.
iMessage is not an app. It has never been an app. It is one of the ways a message can be sent/received in the Messages app. And yes, users of the Messages app are extremely aware of the distinction between sending an iMessage versus an SMS or MMS.
Spot on. The iPhone’s Messages app sends messages as iMessages, SMS, or MMS depending on context. And it makes it obvious. Every iPhone user knows blue vs green. It’s not sneaky or anything.
There is no apple iMessage app.
This is the Apple Message app. Its description in the store makes its functionality very clear.
iMessage isn’t an app… you’re not paying attention to what they’re saying at all. iMessage has never been an app. It’s a protocol for Apple messages through their server hardware. Messages is the app, Messages can send emails, sms, mms, and iMessages.
Low quality SMS. There are lots of things Apple could do to improve the experience of texting people without iMessage, lots of things built into the SMS standard that they do t implement.
Edit: wow thought this was commonly known. Basically Apple hasn’t adopted industry standard SMS improvements. There’s a whole campaign to try to get them to. Here’s an article explaining https://www.android.com/get-the-message/
RCS is not SMS and has nothing to do with the SMS standard.
Basically Apple hasn’t adopted industry standard SMS improvements. There’s a whole campaign to try to get them to.
This is an advertising campaign to get Apple to adopt Google’s proprietary version of RCS, which is not the SMS standard. It is, functionally, Google’s own version of iMessage, running Google software on Google servers.
This is just false, it’s sent over carrier networks and the carriers decide whose infrastructure to use. Google is one of several options. RCS is an open standard and it is the industry standard for SMS. It’s literally why every other non iphone can send high quality pictures to each other. Apple not adopting it is anti competitive.
it’s sent over carrier networks and the carriers decide whose infrastructure to use.
The carriers never bothered to implement RCS; they just outsourced the whole thing to Google.
RCS is an open standard
That nobody uses.
it is the industry standard for SMS.
It’s meant as a replacement for SMS. It’s not just some new version of SMS that Apple hasn’t upgraded to, which is what you were basically saying earlier.
It’s literally why every other non iphone can send high quality pictures to each other.
It’s a messaging service used exclusively by Android phones. iPhones all support iMessage; Androids (mostly) all support RCS. All of those iMessages go over Apple’s servers; all of those RCS messages go over Google’s servers.
For what it’s worth, iPhones have supported sending full-quality pictures to everyone over a legitimately open protocol since launch day. It’s called email.
Apple not adopting it is anti competitive.
Google’s attempts to legally force Apple to adopt its proprietary platform is transparently anticompetitive.
Although, I get the argument and sure go ahead and do it.
I have to laugh at Google calling for the regulation of Apples monopoly but are happy to maintain their monopolies.
It’s be like Apple calling out Bowers & Wilkins for high prices.
Or Bezos calling for more piss breaks for Walmart staff.
Glass houses and stones.
That’s how corporations think. For them the law is just a set of weapons against their competitors.
Oh, now you want Europe’s strong arm? Google? Now? Fuck off, you yankee!
EDIT: Also, we European literally don’t care. Everyone is using Whatsapp or Telegram. There’s no “Blue vs green bubble” war here in Europe, only America can get angry on such idiocy.
Let’s be clear - only a subset of Americans care about the bubbles. And it’s annoying to the rest of us too.
The iMessage approach is the obvious solution, Google had a competitor over 10 years ago and killed it. Signal took the same approach and killed SMS just this year.
It’s frustrating, because US has the particular problem of SMS being ubiquitous because it became zero-additional-cost for most people by about 2005. The same mindset that keeps people on SMS also creates the blue-bubble nonsense: ease of use and not having to think about it. Signal was making inroads on this, makes me wonder why they stopped supporting SMS.
I have friends who say “I don’t want to have to think about where to message someone”. Oh, ffs, do you struggle with calling their home/work/cell, or choosing to email or send a letter?
So yea, it’s not America vs the rest of the world, it’s us vs the complacent/unaware.
Nobody in EU uses SMS, it stopped being a thing as soon as everyone had phones with internet and you could use better chat apps. So we don’t give a crap about iMessage being open or not.
I only just found out this year that text messages from IPhone or Android are a different colour in the US, and people would judge you on that.
Fuckin hell, that’s elementary-school-level behaviour 😂
I use SMS a lot, in the EU. So does, most of my family, and friends. So idk where you get this from? GF and her friends and family too.
My understanding is that while the US and some others quickly moved to unlimited texting plans, many European countries continued to charge per text so apps like WhatsApp become the defacto replacement
In France we got unlimited texts at about the same time as unlimited data.
I don’t think a plan with unlimited data and limited texts ever existed.
In Sweden I can’t remember the last time I saw a plan that didn’t include unlimited sms and calls. Only thing marketed is data. However if you really search for them I guess it’s still possible to buy something else somewhere.
Yes this was many years ago. Nobody pays per-text anymore but the past restrictions influenced people’s preferred messaging services in a way that stuck
Why?
Because he’s wrong, most people use text in Europe. Even if it’s addition to an app like WhatsApp.
Only if you count receiving verification codes as “Using SMS”. Even my elderly parents only use messaging apps.
I don’t have anyone I contact through SMS.
There are a ton of different page patterns so I don’t think “Everyone” or “No one” is using SMS.
But, in my experience, they are used very very little by most people.
You probably use SMS mostly for getting codes
If you’re all on Android, it’s very likely you’re using RCS not SMS
I’m in the EU, I still use a lot the sms
Interesting! Why?
What else is there to use? SMS is the only cross platform protocol that works. MMS is horrible and Apple refuses ro support RCS. Of course SMS apps auto upgrades to RCS if both parties supports it which is in practice only between Androids.
Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp, ICQ, FB messenger, Matrix, just to name a few!
None of those work without both people having the app and so provide a much worse experience over SMS, just why?
No, even if people didn’t use SMS, Apple market share is actually growing and it could lead to iMessage becoming dominant like it is in the US. Even if it won’t benefit us much, I’m sure Americans would appreciate the EU caring about it because the US government could never do it.
People with iPhones don’t use iMessage either. They use WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal etc.
WhatsApp is not a thing at all in Poland mate. It’s either SMS/RCS or fucking Messenger which has to be the worst one 😭
Poland has 15.8 million Whatsapp users.
Might be a western/southern Polish thing. I only know my uncles use it to talk to their children in Britain.
Oh man that sucks! I already hate that I have to use WhatsApp with people who don’t have Telegram, I’d be so angry if I had to use Messenger and even more angry if I had to SMS
But nobody in Europe uses iMessage.
I presume apple users do occasionally…
I guess this is a way for google to force apple to open the protocol since they can’t just open it in the EU, so it affects the US too. But the EU don’t have to listen to google… if imessage is such a minor player they may just leave it alone.
The EU won’t leave Apple alone, that’s the whole purpose of the Digital Markets Act (prevent “gatekeepers” from excluding other players).
The irony here is that Google is throwing stones when they have huge glass roofs. This law will certainly bite them back elsewhere, hopefully. We need strong laws to curb these modern day robber barons.
We use it when WhatsApp has server problems every once in a while or for a round of GamePigeon.
Ironically, in Europe you’d be “missing out” on most group conversations if you’d insist on using iMessage, as most of your buddies probably have an Android phone with WhatsApp installed.
Not really.
For example, in Sweden, probably half as high of a percentage of people have iPhones as the US and yet everyone uses Facebook messenger and whatsapp, at least when I studied there 5 years ago.
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Ted Lasso? That TV series created by check notes Apple?
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As much as I have been on the EU’s side on every case that they’ve had against Apple. This should be a giant red flag that Google is pushing this so hard.
All I want is to be able to message people using discord through Signal. Or from Messages to Whatsapp. And just be able to send and receive decent quality videos between iMessage and non-imessage users.
It’s so annoying having to juggle so many different messaging apps just to talk to people.
Why can’t it be like email?
Google and company can go fuck themselves on this one, and I’m usually the first one to bash on Apple for selling overpriced status symbols.
I’m frankly amazed at how much importance Google gives iMessage, when it’s not the number 1 messaging app anywhere in the world. Hell, even if you assume Apple halved its report of monthly active users in Europe, that’s 90 million people in Europe. Significant, but less than 25% of the total population of the EU
Outside USA and Canada, you’ll be hard pressed to find people who give a damn about iMessage, because most are using a different, cross compatible app anyway, like Whatsapp or Telegram, even across most European countries.
because iMessage is probably the number 1 reason for iphone purchase in USA
this will obviously help google gain market share in the us
Why would you be against standardizing messaging over the net? How is that a bad thing?
Because Google are trying to get regulators involved when it doesn’t really affect anyone?
Seems like a bad idea on principle
SMS would basically be dead if Apple adopted RCS, that’s why it’s important. SMS needs to die.
Wrapping an internet messaging service with a text messaging system was probably one of the worst things that Apple did.
When I had switched to Android, I was hoping I’d still be able to use iMessage from my iPad occasionally, But eventually I had to give up because whenever I sent an iMessage from my email, my family would just try responding from there as well, Even when I sent a SMS message afterwards.
I managed to convince my father to download WhatsApp (since he doesn’t want to use signal or telegram, and personally, I don’t really like signals lack of external features like no smartwatch app or assistant integration. And I don’t know why not Telegram), but the only other messaging platform my mom uses is Facebook Messenger so that kind of sucks that it’s my only option for communicating outside of SMS. Can’t really convince my sister to switch to something else (and she blocked me on discord for whatever reason, probably because she’s 16 and going through this huge phase right now and I tend to use my sona for almost all online accounts as opposed to my real name)
My family kept complaining that by using something else beyond SMS, requiring them to check yet another messaging app, I’d be complicating their lives too far. But I’m still continuing because there is absolutely no reason for me and my family to be using SMS anymore, and I personally would like to have things like typing indicators and higher quality media back
On a side note, why is Facebook Messenger so much worse than WhatsApp despite being owned by the same company?
They didn’t make WhatsApp, they bought it. And were smart enough to leave it mostly alone. They don’t even really need to outright spy on convos, just sucking in all the contacts, building shadow profiles and figuring out relations from who’s talking to whom is worth gold.
Google is so fucking pathetic these days. They can’t out program them so they cry to the EU instead
