Why are US users so focused on iMessage? I have seen rejected date memes because the message bubble had the wrong color. There are tons of alternatives out there. Is this a status thing?
this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2024
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This is a long story. But the short version is that we don't have per-message charges in the US, so most people continue on using SMS for daily conversations.
Unless you're an Apple user, because then you were only allowed to use 1 SMS app, and if you used with another Apple user, you were automatically upgraded to iMessage, which gave you a better messaging experience. And Apple users are an arrogant bunch so instead of switching to using literally any other chat app to chat with other users, they will just not message you if you don't have iMessage (green bubble).
I suppose Google is equally to blame because they had several very similar apps that they abandoned over and over again.
Apple also intentionally made the green bubble contrast worse so that iPhone users would have eyestrain when conversing with non-iPhone users.
Oh yay another thing I can add to my list of "ways in which Apple's marketing is extremely predatory"
I'm just surprised people aren't fed up with how shit SMS (well, MMS, but I never want to hear about that again) is for anything other than text. It was always a fucking pain and just plain shit even if it weren't.
It's still the most reliable method of ensuring your messages are sent. And images are "fine", so long as there aren't any iPhones.
Really? Sent but not received, I guess? It seems like near any other method has things to show that you've sent it, that the server has received it, that the other user(s) received it, that they read it...
And images are... Well, very limited indeed. And costly, if we're talking MMS!
To me, it's definitely not the best choice - but I'm not in the states.
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vast majority of people use the default app their phone choice comes with.
historically eise, the reason EU uses whatsapp was that there was a time period early on where sms costed money, so people used whatsapp to circumvent that. the U.S didnt have that problem as sms was free for the majority of people in that time period.
This seems a bit revisionist. Everyone had an amount of smses per month that were free in their contract.
People switched to whatsapp because it was better than sms.
Not everybody, and not infinitely far back. There was definitely a period where there were no free texts included (although I do think that by the iPhone introduction many did have it, but still not all!)
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And also because Whatsapp was available on every platform, from the dominant ones at the time (Nokia and Blackberry) to the newcomers (iOS, Android, even Windows Phone and more obscure ones like Samsung's whatever it was called).
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39 cents/SMS. I remember this time. This does not explain why it has to be that specific protocol, though.
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Also, at the time, WhatsApp was pretty much the only option. Nowadays, there are a lot of other options.
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Yes it's a status thing and I'm aware of people who have been rejected on dates for having an Android.
Sounds like they are better off that way. Anyone who thinks that is important is probably not worth it.
I’ll bet that most of them never happened. But they do make great memes!
The average American is not tech savvy.
(Which is surprising, given that the US has arguably the strongest software development industry in the world.)
Most Americans just use the default apps installed on their phones. Facebook Messenger is really the only non-default messaging app with mass market penetration, and that's because most Americans already have Facebook accounts.
Americans just don't want to sign up for new accounts or learn new apps. Therefore, iMessage won by default.
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Yep
This also extends to other products. Don't use your personal Gmail to do 'TOS violating' things. Better yet, separate it as much a possible with different devices, VPNs, etc.
Losing your primary email will SUCK
(Also make backups)
I don’t think it’s fair to lay blame on the consumers here, this is big tech acting as monopolies and should be prosecuted as such.
yet whenever the EU smacks down on Apple for being monopolistic assholes the fanbois come crawling out of their holes and start crying about how they liked their shitty walled garden and that now everything will go to hell because someone is forcing Apple to do reasonable things. (See USB C mandate, see DMA discussion about the AppStore)
I don't think anyone here is blaming the users, the comments are saying they shouldn't be surprised.
Users blatantly violate TOS > company bans account > shocked Pikachu face
I agree with the above commenter that they should have expected this. I remember watching SnazzyLabs video about Beeper when it was about to come out, and the video essentially said 'people have been doing this for awhile, I don't think Apple will care about Beeper' and I thought oh yes they will.
Do I think Apple is in the right here? No. Am I surprised they're taking this action? Also no.
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Violating the iMessage/iCloud user agreement can, yes, result in getting booted from the platform. It’s in the terms of service. It was a risk everyone took when using beeper. 
“How dare they access their own messages!”
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the users are holding their wallet the wrong way, probably
Welp, yep, get on the wrong side of a company and they can take everything you enjoyed from their "integrated" ecosystem away from you. That's why we need to remove these types of walled garden monopolies.
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I think the bigger news here is that Pebble Founder Eric Migicovsky has once again bitten off more than he can chew.
I personally was already skeptical of Beeper based on Migicovsky's terrible treatment of the Pebble devs on the way out (they were supposed to be sold with the company, that ended up not being the case and they were left jobless), and personal experiences when on the original Beeper waitlist (was not notified our onboarding session would be recorded until joining the session, follow up questions ignored), but this really seems to reveal that he never had a real solid plan to deal with this potential outcome (that most saw coming from a mile away).
Beeper was originally supposed to be a "universal chat app" in the vein of classic apps like Trillian, Adium or Pidgin, but they paid particular attention to trying to get iMessage into the game from early on. It's genuinely odd to think that they've been persuing iMessage compatability for this long to not have considered this as an outcome, especially after the release of Beeper Cloud, which was an actual reverse engineer of the iMessage protocol.
The classic Beeper app (I forget the name for it now) could have kept flying under the radar and being ignored by Apple, despite the fact that it required an intermediary iOS device to be able to work as it was. They originally were going to send out refurbished iPhone 4s to customers, but as iOS updates quickly made the iPhone 4 too far behind to still be functional in this way, they rolled out their own fleet of macOS servers as an intermediary.
It really seems like an ill-considered plan, and it really makes me glad I never dumped any money into the product, because this has kind of become a complete shitshow. We shouldn't be celebrating Apple's decision to do this, but Migicovsky never even had more than a few moves planned before he gave up on Beeper cloud, so it's not like we can count on him to be the one trying to mount a legal battle to change things and allow others access to iMessage through a legal framework.
Migicovsky bailed on Pebble pretty quickly when it became unprofitable. Will he do the same again? Seems likely to me, imho.
Anyway, TL;DR: I don't think this guy actually has a real business plan with any of this and I'm kind of surprised no devs involved had brought it up, considering it's been being developed for three years now.
While not related from a legal standpoint, the use of iPhones and intermediate devices reminds me of a supreme Court case that I wrote a brief about. The crux of it was a steaming service that operated large arrays of micro antenna to pick up over the air content and offer it as streaming services to customers. They uniquely associated individual customers with streams from individual antenna so they could argue that they were not copying the material but merely transmitting it.
I forget the details, but ultimately I believe they lost. It was an interesting case.
And SCOTUS did so by introducing a rule it never explained and which has no support in prior law (they're only supposed to rule on ambiguity in law, not to create new rules, that's up to congress instead)
Thanks for the article, it was a fun read. I'll have to go back and re-read the majority opinion because I do remember some interesting analysis on it even if I disagree with the outcome.
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Another episode of "trying to contact people behind some big company app because they haven't heard what an Internet is".
Can I just say that Beeper is the worst message app name I've ever heard? It fills me with inexplainable rage.
Beeper, Telegram, Signal, Pidgeon, Wire, Session... Every word related to sending a message.
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