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Beeper vs Apple battle intensifies: Lawmakers demand DOJ investigation - Android Authority
(www.androidauthority.com)
this post was submitted on 18 Dec 2023
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At the root of this issue is that Google never built a messaging service that could survive Google's management shuffle. I understand people want Apple to bend the knee, but this is not their problem. It's perfectly fine for them to intercede Beeper's reverse engineering.
If you're an Android user and you need a messaging app, Signal is 100% open source, secure, and it works on iOS too, so tell your friends!
And you assume your apple-using friends will listen to you? They are really a part of the problem at least. Google would need to create an app they would want to install by themselves, and this is not exactly easy, if possible at all. Google users are mostly fine with having many apps for communication, apple users are mostly not.
I am fully in the Apple ecosystem, including my phone, work laptop, personal laptop, and an Apple watch. I pretty much exclusively use telegram, and sometimes Discord, not iMessage— and that’s not a niche or unpopular opinion in my experience either. This is absolutely because Google can’t stick with one app or product long enough to gain any market share. Each time they have tried, it’s lasted barely a year or so before they killed it.
You being on Lemmy pretty much means you are outside the majority group I'm talking about.
Regardless, my point still stands. The reason folks on Andriod are hopping around between different chat apps every few years is because Google refuses to create a robust chat app, and commit to it. Apple has power in this space because Google has refused to seriously, honestly try. If Google had a GOOD chat app, and a track record to prove it’s going to stick around, Apple would be much more open to integrating with another ecosystem, because it would be beneficial for them to do so.
I disagree. Apple with its iMessage is not a great example of how things should work. If someone thinks Google could theoretically have success in something like that then I say they don't understand the environment non-apple users are living in. The market is too big and the amount of devs who could provide service with benefits Google would never care about is also big. For example, do you think Google is able to create a great PC application? I think not, and a good PC companion for a chat app is a necessity for many users.
Not seeing the connection or logic here. Does Apple even have a track record of integrating with other ecosystems?
No chat app needs a desktop App, they need a WEB app. Generally I’m against them, but in this case it makes sense. It makes cross platform trivial, and you would never really need to use a messaging app offline anyway, browser APIs have come a LONG way. It’s also Google’s core competency. So yes, I believe they 100% have the tools if they wanted to try.
As for integration, my point is: why would Apple bother integrating with Google’s suggestions? Google has a track record of abandoning standards and ideas at the drop of a hat. Why on earth would Apple spend time, money, and engineering talent on something that’s likely to become abandonware in 2-4 years time? That’s also assuming it’s a GOOD standard, most of the previous attempts had fatal flaws that made the product dead on arrival. If Google had something compelling, and gave us a reason to believe it would be around for more than a few years, I’m sure adoption would go through the roof, and Apple would want to integrate— Because it would now benefit them, they would be getting something out of the deal; More features, an established user base, etc.
For the web apps, I disagree, as I personally would never consider a desktop electron app a good case. That is one of main reasons I prefer telegram. Good to see Whatsapp also moved this way recently, somewhat. Can't expect google to do the same.
By questioning why would apple do that you are missing that it never really did anything like that, and therefore it's unlikely to be the case anyway. This time, apple didn't really need to spend any resources to allow some integration and it spent them anyway, to try and block so called unauthorized albeit fully capable clients.
It's foolish to assume apple would adopt anything like that instead of coming up with a product of its own. You ask "why apple would adopt some bad protocol" but not "why would apple not let a good protocol used by others". "Why would google not create something that others would adopt" but not "why would apple not create something that others would adopt". This is kind of apple centric, a bias I'd say.
I think this is highly dependent on whether you’re still in high school or not. I recently switched to iPhone within the last couple years and everyone I know has an iPhone but almost none of them use iMessage. Facebook messenger, Telegram, Snapchat, hell even IG DMs. It’s all over the place. This sample of people is like 16-60 year olds too, I can’t even find a pattern.
If there is a pattern, I think it might have something to do with elitism, technology knowledge/ignorance, curiosity etc.
Apples bundling of iMessage is a barrier to entry. See also the findings of fact for Microsoft vs DoJ during the "browser wars"