Copied from reddit where this was posted as well: So that study probably shouldn't be trusted.
Exemplary
Copied from reddit where this was posted as well:
We divide our survey into two distinct income groups: upper-income with household incomesapproximating $100,000 and average-income with household incomes approximating $55,000
Piper Jaffray does and seeks to do business with companies covered in its research reports. As a result, investors should be aware that the firm may have a conflict of interest that could affect the objectivity of this report. Investors should consider this report as only a single factor in making their investment decisions.
thanks for clarifying. the numbers here immediately seemed insane. commuting on the train or bus everyday, 83% of poor/working class teenagers definitely don't have iphones.
thanks for clarifying. the numbers here immediately seemed insane. commuting on the train or bus everyday, 83% of poor/working class teenagers definitely don't have iphones.
It's really not trivial to underestimate just how important the network effect is here. It's how Google, a titan of the technology industry, failed to attain widespread adoption of its social...
Exemplary
It's really not trivial to underestimate just how important the network effect is here. It's how Google, a titan of the technology industry, failed to attain widespread adoption of its social network, Google+. Facebook & Twitter dominated, purely because, even if they're inferior, it doesn't matter what features you offer, unless it's extraordinarily compelling, migrating people to your platform is hard.
That's not to say the iPhone isn't an amazing phone, and the network effect is the sole cause of high iPhone adoption. It has a great (for a phone) camera, nice screen, simple & easy to understand UI, wide variety of apps, and is also—whether you like it or not—associated with a certain level of status or privilege by some.
This isn't where I believe Google has failed Android. Just like young adults utilise snapchat, so too do they also utilise iMessage. A product launched nearly 8 years ago, which remains unrivaled by anything Google produces today. Those blue bubbles have gone from meaning "message over data", to "I have an iPhone".
No one wants to be the green bubble guy. The person who can't receive animoji, or animate the other user's screen, or see if their message has been read. It sucks, but that's the way it is. There's no good cross-platform messaging standard that's as cohesive and clean as iMessage. Discord, WhatsApp, I've tried them all. In comparison, they suck. They're clunky, poorly designed, and don't flow with the rest of iOS.
Personally, I prefer IRC, but if I had to pick an alternative messaging network, iMessage would be it. If Google wants to encourage Android adoption, especially amongst teens in the U.S., it's going to need an nth attempt at a cohesive messaging platform.
I guess this is another thing that's making me show my age, but I have yet to find one person who gives a crap that my messages to them are the supposedly-dreaded green bubbles. Even when I had an...
I guess this is another thing that's making me show my age, but I have yet to find one person who gives a crap that my messages to them are the supposedly-dreaded green bubbles. Even when I had an iPhone for the six months that I did, I purposely disabled iMessage after about a week (and I was still a Mac owner at the time as well too).
The being forcibly locked in to Apple platforms, plus the lack of (at least the last time I used it) a web interface for it as a stopgap option kept me away. I've gotten spoiled by Telegram having apps on damn near everything, because that (and the custom sticker packs tbh) is what is a selling point for a messaging platform over SMS, universality and convenience. It's nice that, for example, I was able to pull up Telegram Web from a work computer (definitely not a Mac) and let my SO know that I had left my phone in a Lyft and coordinate getting that back. I know that the Apple exclusivity is part of iMessage, but at the same time, I know I'm not going to be in a world of just Apple devices, and need something that can cut across that.
I wish Google had not given up on Hangouts as it was originally setup in the Nexus 5 days, that was the closest to iMessage style integration that I've seen them come, and they had to pitch it in classic Google fashion.
Yeah, you're old. If you're American, people under 30 care about what color your bubbles are. People under 20 really care. It's weird, classist, and irrational—so in other words, quintessentially...
I guess this is another thing that's making me show my age, but I have yet to find one person who gives a crap that my messages to them are the supposedly-dreaded green bubbles.
Yeah, you're old. If you're American, people under 30 care about what color your bubbles are. People under 20 really care.
It's weird, classist, and irrational—so in other words, quintessentially American.
Anecdotal support to people caring, my SO was actually shut out of group chats and social events because adding an Android user would turn those bubbles green. Hell, the group even asked about a...
Anecdotal support to people caring, my SO was actually shut out of group chats and social events because adding an Android user would turn those bubbles green. Hell, the group even asked about a future event, "Do you think you'll have an iPhone by then?" as though anyone who owns an Android phone is just waiting until they can get an iPhone.
Yeah I mean I use all of those plus iMessage and Hangouts. It entirely depends on the group. Android nerds use Hangouts, a group of friends I met through reddit uses Telegram, the gamers use...
Yeah I mean I use all of those plus iMessage and Hangouts. It entirely depends on the group. Android nerds use Hangouts, a group of friends I met through reddit uses Telegram, the gamers use Discord (this group overlaps with the Android nerds quite a bit), and then I have this one group of friends that a combo of less technically inclined but, shall we say, doing well, and they use iMessage.
For obvious reasons (iPhones are expensive) it's a class thing more than anything else: a group of people is only going to do their group texting in iMessage if everyone in the group can afford an iPhone. At the risk of coming across as uncouth, rich people ain't using Telegram or WhatsApp. iMessage is the platform that wealthy people use to text, almost exclusively.
It's crazy to me that people still even use SMS for people they know. All of my friends use Signal. I would imagine if I was close enough friends with any other group of people, we would decide to...
It's crazy to me that people still even use SMS for people they know. All of my friends use Signal. I would imagine if I was close enough friends with any other group of people, we would decide to use a good cross platform messaging app like normal people instead of spending 1000 bucks to have our bubbles turn blue.
Wait, for real? I've never had this happen, despite being the odd one out in my group (with an android device) since we all got our first phones, I never even heard this was a thing until years...
Wait, for real? I've never had this happen, despite being the odd one out in my group (with an android device) since we all got our first phones, I never even heard this was a thing until years later, and I've never heard of anyone else make a big deal about this (though, granted, I don't really know anyone who'd be likely to). Is this really common in this US? I live in Canada, so maybe it's an American thing that didn't make it's way to up here?
Well, I'm in my late 20s and American, so I guess if anyone I know cares, they don't care enough to tell me. Granted, the only sub-20s people I message regularly are two people in my department at...
Well, I'm in my late 20s and American, so I guess if anyone I know cares, they don't care enough to tell me.
Granted, the only sub-20s people I message regularly are two people in my department at work (and I wouldn't have mentioned something like message bubbles to my boss when I was 17 tbh), and since I also have a retiree in it who only uses a flip phone, the department group messages are stuck on SMS regardless for the time being. My social circles, probably unusually for an American of my age, skew about 75/25 Android/iPhone too, so me being out of this loop makes more sense now that I think on it.
There are a couple big deals with iMessage that make it a million times better than SMS. I don't think it has anything to do with knowing that the other user can afford an iPhone. 1: End-to-end...
There are a couple big deals with iMessage that make it a million times better than SMS. I don't think it has anything to do with knowing that the other user can afford an iPhone.
1: End-to-end no-knowledge encryption. Apple can't read your messages, only you and the recipient.
2: Messaging from a range of devices. I don't have to use my phone to text my mom, I can also do so from my iPad or Mac Mini. Third party chat platforms can also do this, but then I have to convince my mother to create an account and install them on her devices. iMessage is automatic and completely transparent.
3: Much better group texting. This is largely facilitated by the reaction buttons you get when long-pressing a message. It lets you react to a message without cluttering the chat feed with "lol" or "😊", where it's not exactly clear what message that is a response to. When a non-iPhone user joins an iMessage group chat, it downgrades the user-experience for everyone.
SMS is honestly so crappy that I try to get people on my contacts list who don't have iPhones to use Signal instead.
I care. I try to avoid sending SMS simply because of how poor quality its service is. If someone’s on SMS, I try to send through some other IM client when I need to reach them. Why? SMS has no...
I care. I try to avoid sending SMS simply because of how poor quality its service is. If someone’s on SMS, I try to send through some other IM client when I need to reach them.
Why? SMS has no guarantee of receipt of messages. This is grossly evident on group chats, especially for those with older phones. It’s all too frequent that a friend of mine will get an SMS 30+ minutes after it’s sent. IM clients offer a ‘delivered’ status, letting me know the other device (theoretically) received the message. Additionally, images and videos are so poor quality, people have to upload to google drive, imgur, or a comparable system to include an image in a chat.
Finally, it’s all too frequent that my friends or myself will be without service— a lot of buildings we spend our time in only have wifi. You can’t send SMS to them, and also don’t know they haven’t received them yet. I also have my phone off/airplane mode more frequent than the average user, and know for a fact that ATT is not pushing a lot of texts I’m sent while my phone is off after I turn it back on.
Sure, I couldn’t give two shits if I get the message on iMessage, Hangouts, Discord, Slack, or GroupMe (it’s a shame no one in my circles is really passionate about switching to something more privacy focused like matrix or signal), but I try to avoid SMS whenever possible. It’s not a class thing, it’s a reliability thing.
like you say, isn't this issue entirely avoidable using something like whatsapp or signal? my friends and I use signal across android/ios and it's encrypted/doesn't use SMS/MMS when talking to...
like you say, isn't this issue entirely avoidable using something like whatsapp or signal? my friends and I use signal across android/ios and it's encrypted/doesn't use SMS/MMS when talking to other people using signal. it's also opensource, so you can be completely sure it's actually doing what it claims to. why would someone spend 2x as much on a phone just to avoid SMS when it's entirely possible to do it on android? it seems like defaulting to iMessage is definitely an upper-class attitude when it's entirely unnecessary.
I may associate with more tech-knowledgeable people online, and people who are willing to go out of their way for more cohesion and privacy, but allow me to be frank: many of my acquaintances...
I may associate with more tech-knowledgeable people online, and people who are willing to go out of their way for more cohesion and privacy, but allow me to be frank: many of my acquaintances couldn't give two shits about the cohesion and security of their messages. I know people who will only group chat in Snapchat. SNAPCHAT! I like SMS better than Snapchat!
Why use a third party app when you can use the first party messages app? Everyone (with an iPhone) has it, so it's actually the most cohesive app I have (and e2e encrypted to boot). As for whatsapp, I put my foot down and said a hard no to that app.
I don't buy iPhones for iMessage. It's a nifty perk, but I most certainly would not switch to Android if Apple suddenly removed iMessage.
People use iMessage because they have iMessage. Next to nobody uses signal because they don't have signal. Unless it's offering a concrete benefit to the average, non-tech-savvy user, there's no reason for my groups to switch over to signal. Unfortunately, signal doesn't really offer anything in that category for non-tech-savvy people.
If everyone in a group has an iPhone, why not use iMessage? I don't see how that's an upper-class attitude. I'm not going to force 6 people to download signal, which honestly seems more like an upper class attitude.
Nobody cares. Whatsapp is so ingrained that storefronts put the symbol with the number on it. Everything is done via Whatsapp. Clothes, food delivery...
Nobody cares. Whatsapp is so ingrained that storefronts put the symbol with the number on it. Everything is done via Whatsapp. Clothes, food delivery...
A Zuckerberg entity having so much control over my life, or the society around my life is terrifying to think about, and sounds like a micro-nightmare, at least for me.
A Zuckerberg entity having so much control over my life, or the society around my life is terrifying to think about, and sounds like a micro-nightmare, at least for me.
That's... dramatic to say the least. Maybe it's just a cultural difference but everywhere I've ever been to everyone always just whatsapped as the default, hell I can even whatsapp my health...
That's... dramatic to say the least. Maybe it's just a cultural difference but everywhere I've ever been to everyone always just whatsapped as the default, hell I can even whatsapp my health insurance provider or my airline if I have any questions. I think outside the US not many people associate whatsapp with Facebook because it never had that connotation before it was bought out.
Which is to say they need to kill all their other messaging platforms and aggressively migrate everyone to Cohesive Google Messages, which from the perspective of an Android user, is the same app...
If Google wants to encourage Android adoption, especially amongst teens in the U.S., it's going to need an nth attempt at a cohesive messaging platform.
Which is to say they need to kill all their other messaging platforms and aggressively migrate everyone to Cohesive Google Messages, which from the perspective of an Android user, is the same app as SMS and RCS.
They won't, because Google is institutionally incapable of making a choice on behalf of their users unless they're doing it to protect their bottom line. They just throw shit at the wall and see what sticks. The most successful messaging platform they have is Hangouts, even calling Hangouts successful is a stretch when compared to iMessage or WhatsApp, and they're killing Hangouts anyways.
Google's forays into social media have almost universally been terrible. Any time they stumble into doing something good they deliberately kill it to push something dumb. Google Reader was the...
Google's forays into social media have almost universally been terrible. Any time they stumble into doing something good they deliberately kill it to push something dumb.
Google Reader was the gold standard news feed aggregator. It was also so much better than Twitter for sharing stories. But they killed it, replaced the social aspects with "Buzz" and just let RSS die.
GChat was basically how people communicated in the 2000s. It replaced AIM, but was also cross-compatible with AIM. But then they wanted to muscle in on integrated social media, so they killed it in favor of some messaging suite built into Google+, which included Hangouts and also was shit.
Hangouts eventually evolved into something usable, but now they're killing it to. . . honestly I don't even care. I am so over their shit.
I hadn't internalised what an important business move it was for Apple to integrate the messaging client into the OS. When you said "network effects", I didn't initially get how a phone OS could...
I hadn't internalised what an important business move it was for Apple to integrate the messaging client into the OS. When you said "network effects", I didn't initially get how a phone OS could even have a network effect because I'm in a WhatsApp dominated market, so your friends' OS choices don't matter.
Smart of them to integrate it (because now Apple, Snap and Facebook are competing on the messaging field where Google have been left out), and smart of them to provide only SMS as a fallback because it works enough not to leave people out but still kind of sucks enough to push them towards the client all their contacts are using.
My brother married a girl who has an Android phone and now our family chat is stuck in "green bubble" SMS mode. It's absolutely the worst. iMessage is a huge part of the appeal of iOS, and I'm...
My brother married a girl who has an Android phone and now our family chat is stuck in "green bubble" SMS mode. It's absolutely the worst.
iMessage is a huge part of the appeal of iOS, and I'm completely dumbfounded that Google seems wholly uninterested in competing with it.
I doubt they see value in competing when they've already lost. I wouldn't want to go back to SMS/MMS either, but with the notable exceptions of the US and China, pretty much everyone else (on both...
I'm completely dumbfounded that Google seems wholly uninterested in competing with it
I doubt they see value in competing when they've already lost. I wouldn't want to go back to SMS/MMS either, but with the notable exceptions of the US and China, pretty much everyone else (on both platforms) uses WhatsApp already.
Every single one of Google's attempted "alternatives" was something you had to sign up for separately. They completely missed the one feature iMessage has that made it so successful: Automatic...
Every single one of Google's attempted "alternatives" was something you had to sign up for separately. They completely missed the one feature iMessage has that made it so successful: Automatic setup and integration within the stock SMS app.
That's true, and I agree with you that it was a missed opportunity for them, but for whatever reason it doesn't seem to have hindered WeChat, WhatsApp, or Snapchat.
That's true, and I agree with you that it was a missed opportunity for them, but for whatever reason it doesn't seem to have hindered WeChat, WhatsApp, or Snapchat.
Google can't wait compete in the message market anymore, I don't expect them to try. Inside the US, Apple rule with iMessage. Outside, you have WhatsApp and in China WeChat, etc.
Google can't wait compete in the message market anymore, I don't expect them to try. Inside the US, Apple rule with iMessage. Outside, you have WhatsApp and in China WeChat, etc.
You'd be stuck in green bubble SMS mode even if Google did decide to compete with it. Apple doesn't allow iMessage anywhere except for on iOS and OSX. How would Android having a similar service...
You'd be stuck in green bubble SMS mode even if Google did decide to compete with it. Apple doesn't allow iMessage anywhere except for on iOS and OSX. How would Android having a similar service solve your issue?
It wouldn't solve my issue, but it highlights something iOS does way better than Android. If Google made something that worked as well and seamlessly on Android as iMessage, then released an iOS...
It wouldn't solve my issue, but it highlights something iOS does way better than Android.
If Google made something that worked as well and seamlessly on Android as iMessage, then released an iOS app, I imagine they could capture a lot of market share.
I'm so tired of hearing about this "iMessage lock-in". Get off SMS already, America. There's one and it's called Telegram. Clients are insanely good on both desktop and mobile. There are also...
I'm so tired of hearing about this "iMessage lock-in". Get off SMS already, America.
There's no good cross-platform messaging standard that's as cohesive and clean as iMessage. Discord, WhatsApp, I've tried them all. In comparison, they suck. They're clunky, poorly designed, and don't flow with the rest of iOS.
There's one and it's called Telegram. Clients are insanely good on both desktop and mobile.
There are also bots, channels, groups, audio calls, 3rd-party clients - it's a proper ecosystem too.
The fact that they've rolled their own crypto is a different story though..
From a European perspective, it's absolutely crazy, most people here own Androids, even the younger generations. iPhone's are largely just too expensive and don't integrate with the existing...
From a European perspective, it's absolutely crazy, most people here own Androids, even the younger generations. iPhone's are largely just too expensive and don't integrate with the existing ecosystem.
Since I didn't know if this was true or not, I decided to look it up. Europe = 72.77% Android, 26.21% iOS http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/europe vs. USA = 54.74% iOS, 44.89%...
most people here own Androids
Since I didn't know if this was true or not, I decided to look it up.
As someone else linked (thanks cfabbro), Android makes up 77% of the EU market. Even an almost 50/50 split in some regions in the market is much more sane than the 83/9 split in the US.
As someone else linked (thanks cfabbro), Android makes up 77% of the EU market. Even an almost 50/50 split in some regions in the market is much more sane than the 83/9 split in the US.
Wow, that's crazy. Is this like a generational thing for college students as well? I'm 20, and in my friend circle, the split seems about 50/50. Granted, we use Discord which is pretty platform...
Wow, that's crazy. Is this like a generational thing for college students as well? I'm 20, and in my friend circle, the split seems about 50/50. Granted, we use Discord which is pretty platform agnostic, but still.
Can confirm, there is at least someone in every study group I've been in that gets shit for not having an iPhone. People like having the full functionality of iMessage, and some would prefer using...
Can confirm, there is at least someone in every study group I've been in that gets shit for not having an iPhone. People like having the full functionality of iMessage, and some would prefer using Snapchat over including someone with an Android in an iMessage group chat.
Does it affect the whole group, or just the member on Android? I'd been assuming the latter, but if it drops everyone in the group to MMS that'd be more than enough reason for me to use a...
Does it affect the whole group, or just the member on Android? I'd been assuming the latter, but if it drops everyone in the group to MMS that'd be more than enough reason for me to use a different client to talk to them!
In that case all this green bubble dread makes a bit more sense to me! Still seems optimal to just sidestep it with one of the many cross platform apps, but I guess it doesn't feel that easy when...
In that case all this green bubble dread makes a bit more sense to me! Still seems optimal to just sidestep it with one of the many cross platform apps, but I guess it doesn't feel that easy when you've got to tell everyone else in the group to do so too.
[Edit] Thinking further, I wonder if Apple originally had this affect the whole group just as the easiest and most consistent technical solution, or whether it was deliberately made to gently peer pressure non-iOS users. I'd guess probably the former, but it could go either way.
I use to be the android guy in the group for a long time (I'm still not married to my iPhone, I just got it for cheap) and it was so exhausting trying to get people to use other apps. And it's...
I use to be the android guy in the group for a long time (I'm still not married to my iPhone, I just got it for cheap) and it was so exhausting trying to get people to use other apps. And it's because most of my friends and iPhones. I had to come up with reasons to use a different app that they would only use when I was involved. Its an uphill battle that will have most people just say "fuck it" and be pissy with me. And here's the thing. I GET IT NOW. I really underestimated how nice iMessage was until I used it. I'm still always ready to pitch signal to people and try to get friends on that, but since everyone is into either whatsapp or iMessage, and I don't trust facebook at all, I just stick with iMessage.
When I graduated high school in 17 nobody I knew used facebook. So the only way that we organized parties, football game tailgates, or any other event that we decided to do was in a super iMessage...
When I graduated high school in 17 nobody I knew used facebook. So the only way that we organized parties, football game tailgates, or any other event that we decided to do was in a super iMessage GM where we hit the limit of participants allow. Which I think is important to note that it's less about the bubble color and more about the ability to be included in group messages.
So if you didn't have an iPhone you were just SOL on group events if no one told you individually? Sounds shitty to me. I'm surprised Discord, if nothing else, hasn't filled that role given its...
So if you didn't have an iPhone you were just SOL on group events if no one told you individually? Sounds shitty to me. I'm surprised Discord, if nothing else, hasn't filled that role given its universality and popularity in gaming circles.
basically, yes. You could be invited by someone who was in the group, but the only way to guarantee to be in the know was to be in the group. It was pretty shitty.
basically, yes. You could be invited by someone who was in the group, but the only way to guarantee to be in the know was to be in the group. It was pretty shitty.
Copied from reddit where this was posted as well:
So that study probably shouldn't be trusted.
thanks for clarifying. the numbers here immediately seemed insane. commuting on the train or bus everyday, 83% of poor/working class teenagers definitely don't have iphones.
It's really not trivial to underestimate just how important the network effect is here. It's how Google, a titan of the technology industry, failed to attain widespread adoption of its social network, Google+. Facebook & Twitter dominated, purely because, even if they're inferior, it doesn't matter what features you offer, unless it's extraordinarily compelling, migrating people to your platform is hard.
That's not to say the iPhone isn't an amazing phone, and the network effect is the sole cause of high iPhone adoption. It has a great (for a phone) camera, nice screen, simple & easy to understand UI, wide variety of apps, and is also—whether you like it or not—associated with a certain level of status or privilege by some.
This isn't where I believe Google has failed Android. Just like young adults utilise snapchat, so too do they also utilise iMessage. A product launched nearly 8 years ago, which remains unrivaled by anything Google produces today. Those blue bubbles have gone from meaning "message over data", to "I have an iPhone".
No one wants to be the green bubble guy. The person who can't receive animoji, or animate the other user's screen, or see if their message has been read. It sucks, but that's the way it is. There's no good cross-platform messaging standard that's as cohesive and clean as iMessage. Discord, WhatsApp, I've tried them all. In comparison, they suck. They're clunky, poorly designed, and don't flow with the rest of iOS.
Personally, I prefer IRC, but if I had to pick an alternative messaging network, iMessage would be it. If Google wants to encourage Android adoption, especially amongst teens in the U.S., it's going to need an nth attempt at a cohesive messaging platform.
I guess this is another thing that's making me show my age, but I have yet to find one person who gives a crap that my messages to them are the supposedly-dreaded green bubbles. Even when I had an iPhone for the six months that I did, I purposely disabled iMessage after about a week (and I was still a Mac owner at the time as well too).
The being forcibly locked in to Apple platforms, plus the lack of (at least the last time I used it) a web interface for it as a stopgap option kept me away. I've gotten spoiled by Telegram having apps on damn near everything, because that (and the custom sticker packs tbh) is what is a selling point for a messaging platform over SMS, universality and convenience. It's nice that, for example, I was able to pull up Telegram Web from a work computer (definitely not a Mac) and let my SO know that I had left my phone in a Lyft and coordinate getting that back. I know that the Apple exclusivity is part of iMessage, but at the same time, I know I'm not going to be in a world of just Apple devices, and need something that can cut across that.
I wish Google had not given up on Hangouts as it was originally setup in the Nexus 5 days, that was the closest to iMessage style integration that I've seen them come, and they had to pitch it in classic Google fashion.
Yeah, you're old. If you're American, people under 30 care about what color your bubbles are. People under 20 really care.
It's weird, classist, and irrational—so in other words, quintessentially American.
I'm still a teenager and nobody I know cares at all. I've never even heard someone talk about it, and lots of them have iPhones.
Anecdotal support to people caring, my SO was actually shut out of group chats and social events because adding an Android user would turn those bubbles green. Hell, the group even asked about a future event, "Do you think you'll have an iPhone by then?" as though anyone who owns an Android phone is just waiting until they can get an iPhone.
Sounds like the kind of group I wouldnt mind being excluded from...
Yeah I mean I use all of those plus iMessage and Hangouts. It entirely depends on the group. Android nerds use Hangouts, a group of friends I met through reddit uses Telegram, the gamers use Discord (this group overlaps with the Android nerds quite a bit), and then I have this one group of friends that a combo of less technically inclined but, shall we say, doing well, and they use iMessage.
For obvious reasons (iPhones are expensive) it's a class thing more than anything else: a group of people is only going to do their group texting in iMessage if everyone in the group can afford an iPhone. At the risk of coming across as uncouth, rich people ain't using Telegram or WhatsApp. iMessage is the platform that wealthy people use to text, almost exclusively.
It has nothing to do with age and more with not being an idiot. Even as a teenager, I was never into Facebook back in '07-'12.
It's crazy to me that people still even use SMS for people they know. All of my friends use Signal. I would imagine if I was close enough friends with any other group of people, we would decide to use a good cross platform messaging app like normal people instead of spending 1000 bucks to have our bubbles turn blue.
You are lucky your friends moved to Signal, encourage people moving away of WhatsApp or FM is not an easy task.
Wait, for real? I've never had this happen, despite being the odd one out in my group (with an android device) since we all got our first phones, I never even heard this was a thing until years later, and I've never heard of anyone else make a big deal about this (though, granted, I don't really know anyone who'd be likely to). Is this really common in this US? I live in Canada, so maybe it's an American thing that didn't make it's way to up here?
College student in the American midwest here. Haven't heard anyone mention bubble colors in the last few years. Just my input.
Well, I'm in my late 20s and American, so I guess if anyone I know cares, they don't care enough to tell me.
Granted, the only sub-20s people I message regularly are two people in my department at work (and I wouldn't have mentioned something like message bubbles to my boss when I was 17 tbh), and since I also have a retiree in it who only uses a flip phone, the department group messages are stuck on SMS regardless for the time being. My social circles, probably unusually for an American of my age, skew about 75/25 Android/iPhone too, so me being out of this loop makes more sense now that I think on it.
There are a couple big deals with iMessage that make it a million times better than SMS. I don't think it has anything to do with knowing that the other user can afford an iPhone.
1: End-to-end no-knowledge encryption. Apple can't read your messages, only you and the recipient.
2: Messaging from a range of devices. I don't have to use my phone to text my mom, I can also do so from my iPad or Mac Mini. Third party chat platforms can also do this, but then I have to convince my mother to create an account and install them on her devices. iMessage is automatic and completely transparent.
3: Much better group texting. This is largely facilitated by the reaction buttons you get when long-pressing a message. It lets you react to a message without cluttering the chat feed with "lol" or "😊", where it's not exactly clear what message that is a response to. When a non-iPhone user joins an iMessage group chat, it downgrades the user-experience for everyone.
SMS is honestly so crappy that I try to get people on my contacts list who don't have iPhones to use Signal instead.
I care. I try to avoid sending SMS simply because of how poor quality its service is. If someone’s on SMS, I try to send through some other IM client when I need to reach them.
Why? SMS has no guarantee of receipt of messages. This is grossly evident on group chats, especially for those with older phones. It’s all too frequent that a friend of mine will get an SMS 30+ minutes after it’s sent. IM clients offer a ‘delivered’ status, letting me know the other device (theoretically) received the message. Additionally, images and videos are so poor quality, people have to upload to google drive, imgur, or a comparable system to include an image in a chat.
Finally, it’s all too frequent that my friends or myself will be without service— a lot of buildings we spend our time in only have wifi. You can’t send SMS to them, and also don’t know they haven’t received them yet. I also have my phone off/airplane mode more frequent than the average user, and know for a fact that ATT is not pushing a lot of texts I’m sent while my phone is off after I turn it back on.
Sure, I couldn’t give two shits if I get the message on iMessage, Hangouts, Discord, Slack, or GroupMe (it’s a shame no one in my circles is really passionate about switching to something more privacy focused like matrix or signal), but I try to avoid SMS whenever possible. It’s not a class thing, it’s a reliability thing.
like you say, isn't this issue entirely avoidable using something like whatsapp or signal? my friends and I use signal across android/ios and it's encrypted/doesn't use SMS/MMS when talking to other people using signal. it's also opensource, so you can be completely sure it's actually doing what it claims to. why would someone spend 2x as much on a phone just to avoid SMS when it's entirely possible to do it on android? it seems like defaulting to iMessage is definitely an upper-class attitude when it's entirely unnecessary.
I may associate with more tech-knowledgeable people online, and people who are willing to go out of their way for more cohesion and privacy, but allow me to be frank: many of my acquaintances couldn't give two shits about the cohesion and security of their messages. I know people who will only group chat in Snapchat. SNAPCHAT! I like SMS better than Snapchat!
Why use a third party app when you can use the first party messages app? Everyone (with an iPhone) has it, so it's actually the most cohesive app I have (and e2e encrypted to boot). As for whatsapp, I put my foot down and said a hard no to that app.
I don't buy iPhones for iMessage. It's a nifty perk, but I most certainly would not switch to Android if Apple suddenly removed iMessage.
People use iMessage because they have iMessage. Next to nobody uses signal because they don't have signal. Unless it's offering a concrete benefit to the average, non-tech-savvy user, there's no reason for my groups to switch over to signal. Unfortunately, signal doesn't really offer anything in that category for non-tech-savvy people.
If everyone in a group has an iPhone, why not use iMessage? I don't see how that's an upper-class attitude. I'm not going to force 6 people to download signal, which honestly seems more like an upper class attitude.
Same in Brazil. Whatsapp is king. I (we) don't even know what a green/blue bubble is.
Do people in Brazil have any concerns about the use of WhatsApp because it's a property of Zuckerberg's empire? Or does it not enter discourse?
Nobody cares. Whatsapp is so ingrained that storefronts put the symbol with the number on it. Everything is done via Whatsapp. Clothes, food delivery...
A Zuckerberg entity having so much control over my life, or the society around my life is terrifying to think about, and sounds like a micro-nightmare, at least for me.
That's... dramatic to say the least. Maybe it's just a cultural difference but everywhere I've ever been to everyone always just whatsapped as the default, hell I can even whatsapp my health insurance provider or my airline if I have any questions. I think outside the US not many people associate whatsapp with Facebook because it never had that connotation before it was bought out.
Which is to say they need to kill all their other messaging platforms and aggressively migrate everyone to Cohesive Google Messages, which from the perspective of an Android user, is the same app as SMS and RCS.
They won't, because Google is institutionally incapable of making a choice on behalf of their users unless they're doing it to protect their bottom line. They just throw shit at the wall and see what sticks. The most successful messaging platform they have is Hangouts, even calling Hangouts successful is a stretch when compared to iMessage or WhatsApp, and they're killing Hangouts anyways.
Google's forays into social media have almost universally been terrible. Any time they stumble into doing something good they deliberately kill it to push something dumb.
Google Reader was the gold standard news feed aggregator. It was also so much better than Twitter for sharing stories. But they killed it, replaced the social aspects with "Buzz" and just let RSS die.
GChat was basically how people communicated in the 2000s. It replaced AIM, but was also cross-compatible with AIM. But then they wanted to muscle in on integrated social media, so they killed it in favor of some messaging suite built into Google+, which included Hangouts and also was shit.
Hangouts eventually evolved into something usable, but now they're killing it to. . . honestly I don't even care. I am so over their shit.
I hadn't internalised what an important business move it was for Apple to integrate the messaging client into the OS. When you said "network effects", I didn't initially get how a phone OS could even have a network effect because I'm in a WhatsApp dominated market, so your friends' OS choices don't matter.
Smart of them to integrate it (because now Apple, Snap and Facebook are competing on the messaging field where Google have been left out), and smart of them to provide only SMS as a fallback because it works enough not to leave people out but still kind of sucks enough to push them towards the client all their contacts are using.
My brother married a girl who has an Android phone and now our family chat is stuck in "green bubble" SMS mode. It's absolutely the worst.
iMessage is a huge part of the appeal of iOS, and I'm completely dumbfounded that Google seems wholly uninterested in competing with it.
I doubt they see value in competing when they've already lost. I wouldn't want to go back to SMS/MMS either, but with the notable exceptions of the US and China, pretty much everyone else (on both platforms) uses WhatsApp already.
Every single one of Google's attempted "alternatives" was something you had to sign up for separately. They completely missed the one feature iMessage has that made it so successful: Automatic setup and integration within the stock SMS app.
That's true, and I agree with you that it was a missed opportunity for them, but for whatever reason it doesn't seem to have hindered WeChat, WhatsApp, or Snapchat.
Google can't wait compete in the message market anymore, I don't expect them to try. Inside the US, Apple rule with iMessage. Outside, you have WhatsApp and in China WeChat, etc.
You'd be stuck in green bubble SMS mode even if Google did decide to compete with it. Apple doesn't allow iMessage anywhere except for on iOS and OSX. How would Android having a similar service solve your issue?
It wouldn't solve my issue, but it highlights something iOS does way better than Android.
If Google made something that worked as well and seamlessly on Android as iMessage, then released an iOS app, I imagine they could capture a lot of market share.
I'm so tired of hearing about this "iMessage lock-in". Get off SMS already, America.
There's one and it's called Telegram. Clients are insanely good on both desktop and mobile.
There are also bots, channels, groups, audio calls, 3rd-party clients - it's a proper ecosystem too.
The fact that they've rolled their own crypto is a different story though..
From a European perspective, it's absolutely crazy, most people here own Androids, even the younger generations. iPhone's are largely just too expensive and don't integrate with the existing ecosystem.
Since I didn't know if this was true or not, I decided to look it up.
Europe = 72.77% Android, 26.21% iOS
http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/europe
vs.
USA = 54.74% iOS, 44.89% Android
http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/united-states-of-america
Interesting... I didn't realize Android based phones were so popular in Europe.
Brazil
It's expensive and doesn't have anything to justify the price.
As someone else linked (thanks cfabbro), Android makes up 77% of the EU market. Even an almost 50/50 split in some regions in the market is much more sane than the 83/9 split in the US.
Well, I didn't claim to have "the european perspective", only "a european perspective"...
Are you from Italy, Austria, Norway or Liechtenstein? It makes kind of a big difference.
As someone else linked (thanks cfabbro), Android makes up 77% of the EU market. There will be regional differences.
Wow, that's crazy. Is this like a generational thing for college students as well? I'm 20, and in my friend circle, the split seems about 50/50. Granted, we use Discord which is pretty platform agnostic, but still.
Can confirm, there is at least someone in every study group I've been in that gets shit for not having an iPhone. People like having the full functionality of iMessage, and some would prefer using Snapchat over including someone with an Android in an iMessage group chat.
Does adding an android user downgrade the group features?
Yes. It goes back to MMS (compressed images, no read/delivered indicator).
Does it affect the whole group, or just the member on Android? I'd been assuming the latter, but if it drops everyone in the group to MMS that'd be more than enough reason for me to use a different client to talk to them!
It drops the whole chat back down. It is why when there is only one android user people get so frustrated.
In that case all this green bubble dread makes a bit more sense to me! Still seems optimal to just sidestep it with one of the many cross platform apps, but I guess it doesn't feel that easy when you've got to tell everyone else in the group to do so too.
[Edit] Thinking further, I wonder if Apple originally had this affect the whole group just as the easiest and most consistent technical solution, or whether it was deliberately made to gently peer pressure non-iOS users. I'd guess probably the former, but it could go either way.
I use to be the android guy in the group for a long time (I'm still not married to my iPhone, I just got it for cheap) and it was so exhausting trying to get people to use other apps. And it's because most of my friends and iPhones. I had to come up with reasons to use a different app that they would only use when I was involved. Its an uphill battle that will have most people just say "fuck it" and be pissy with me. And here's the thing. I GET IT NOW. I really underestimated how nice iMessage was until I used it. I'm still always ready to pitch signal to people and try to get friends on that, but since everyone is into either whatsapp or iMessage, and I don't trust facebook at all, I just stick with iMessage.
Yes. Can't name groupchats for example. I believe other features are limited as well.
When I graduated high school in 17 nobody I knew used facebook. So the only way that we organized parties, football game tailgates, or any other event that we decided to do was in a super iMessage GM where we hit the limit of participants allow. Which I think is important to note that it's less about the bubble color and more about the ability to be included in group messages.
So if you didn't have an iPhone you were just SOL on group events if no one told you individually? Sounds shitty to me. I'm surprised Discord, if nothing else, hasn't filled that role given its universality and popularity in gaming circles.
Teenagers are not typically well known for their empathy and reasonability.
basically, yes. You could be invited by someone who was in the group, but the only way to guarantee to be in the know was to be in the group. It was pretty shitty.