iMessage is a stealth chat app. Its nothing special or amazing in that regard, but in the US early in the smart phone revolution there were still lots of not tech savvy people who would stick to SMS/MMS as their primary mode of “texting”.
Let me tell you on flip phone or on android MMS SUCKED. For group chats. Low quality pictures, messages come at an inconsistent sometimes slow and then sometimes all at once pace, and you dont get even simple features like “soandso is typing”.
What apple did was force the hand of these people who prefer text by just making the text message feature a proprietary chat app thats able to chat with other apple users. If a person is not an apple user then they are just sent a text message. This gives the impression that iPhones have better text messaging when of course it’s just text message.
It sounds harmless. Convenient even. Now you dont have to try to get grandma and grandpa to install a messenger app like whatsapp or telegram or signal(or in those early days google messenger, or aim/yim/msn, or facebook messenger, or still whatsapp). Its not hard they are just stuck in their ways and they will make a mountain out of going to app store, hitting download, and then opening this other icon before effortlessly doing some complex task outside the digital realm.
The thing is the fallback mode means that you dont get any of the good stuff with non apple users. If you invite an android user to your group chat it converts into a terrible MMS text message back and forth in order to work.
Now this is objectively a shortcoming of apple’s product. They (until this news) didnt have iMessenger on other non apple products. Objectively that makes it a bad chat app since it excludes large portions of the population and is not open enough to allow 3rd party alternatives to fill the gap. That said if you live in the US where iPhones are popular, and 3rd party chat apps didnt become a default due to free sms, well then all your friends are doing just fine and its that guy with the android thats making everything worse.
Now why the “there’s an app for that” userbase has so much trouble installing and using chat app alternatives I will never quite understand, but it’s there and it’s an issue.
in the US early in the smart phone revolution there were still lots of not tech savvy people who would stick to SMS/MMS as their primary mode of “texting”.
I still do. I just dont care that much. I use Linux on a daily basis and as my main platform, use Azure and AWS, have an MSDN, run my own email, host my own websites. I am certainly not “non tech savy”.
Let me tell you on flip phone or on android MMS SUCKED.
Its fine. I have an iPhone and Android (and a pinephone for good measure) and Apple has 3 things going for it: 1. more security and privacy - which is a big deal. 2. group chat management (add and remove) which is a nice feature, particularly if you are using it for business. 3. spam reduction.
Other wise, I do not like read receipts. I also do not care if you are typing. Chat is chat, I pay attention to it when I feel like it, and most people acknowledge if it is important. Read receipts do not indicate acknowledgement. All the other features, like stickers for example, are just distractions.
The images are clear and large enough on a small screen, links work, gifs work, I am not sure what else I would want. If you care about sending a large detailed photo, just link it to your sharing platform (my website, dropbox, etc).
If you invite an android user to your group chat it converts into a terrible MMS text message back and forth in order to work.
Funny that you describe it as terrible and awful. An article I read did the same thing. Oh no! I am going to get… words. Huh, nothing different.
And getting grandma and grandpa to use a different messaging app? Why?
So aside from the 3 features I mentioned, this all seems like added crap to something that works well enough.
Still if we can all be on RCS or whatever standard, it would be nice. I just could do without all that additional nonsense that people feel they need to use for some reason when all I want is some words.
Edit: what DID suck was when the cell companies started offering SMS, using the empty headers to push the texts around, AND charged people for the privilege. What a scam that was.
iMessage is a stealth chat app. Its nothing special or amazing in that regard, but in the US early in the smart phone revolution there were still lots of not tech savvy people who would stick to SMS/MMS as their primary mode of “texting”.
Let me tell you on flip phone or on android MMS SUCKED. For group chats. Low quality pictures, messages come at an inconsistent sometimes slow and then sometimes all at once pace, and you dont get even simple features like “soandso is typing”.
What apple did was force the hand of these people who prefer text by just making the text message feature a proprietary chat app thats able to chat with other apple users. If a person is not an apple user then they are just sent a text message. This gives the impression that iPhones have better text messaging when of course it’s just text message.
It sounds harmless. Convenient even. Now you dont have to try to get grandma and grandpa to install a messenger app like whatsapp or telegram or signal(or in those early days google messenger, or aim/yim/msn, or facebook messenger, or still whatsapp). Its not hard they are just stuck in their ways and they will make a mountain out of going to app store, hitting download, and then opening this other icon before effortlessly doing some complex task outside the digital realm.
The thing is the fallback mode means that you dont get any of the good stuff with non apple users. If you invite an android user to your group chat it converts into a terrible MMS text message back and forth in order to work.
Now this is objectively a shortcoming of apple’s product. They (until this news) didnt have iMessenger on other non apple products. Objectively that makes it a bad chat app since it excludes large portions of the population and is not open enough to allow 3rd party alternatives to fill the gap. That said if you live in the US where iPhones are popular, and 3rd party chat apps didnt become a default due to free sms, well then all your friends are doing just fine and its that guy with the android thats making everything worse.
Now why the “there’s an app for that” userbase has so much trouble installing and using chat app alternatives I will never quite understand, but it’s there and it’s an issue.
I still do. I just dont care that much. I use Linux on a daily basis and as my main platform, use Azure and AWS, have an MSDN, run my own email, host my own websites. I am certainly not “non tech savy”.
Its fine. I have an iPhone and Android (and a pinephone for good measure) and Apple has 3 things going for it: 1. more security and privacy - which is a big deal. 2. group chat management (add and remove) which is a nice feature, particularly if you are using it for business. 3. spam reduction.
Other wise, I do not like read receipts. I also do not care if you are typing. Chat is chat, I pay attention to it when I feel like it, and most people acknowledge if it is important. Read receipts do not indicate acknowledgement. All the other features, like stickers for example, are just distractions.
The images are clear and large enough on a small screen, links work, gifs work, I am not sure what else I would want. If you care about sending a large detailed photo, just link it to your sharing platform (my website, dropbox, etc).
Funny that you describe it as terrible and awful. An article I read did the same thing. Oh no! I am going to get… words. Huh, nothing different.
And getting grandma and grandpa to use a different messaging app? Why?
So aside from the 3 features I mentioned, this all seems like added crap to something that works well enough.
Still if we can all be on RCS or whatever standard, it would be nice. I just could do without all that additional nonsense that people feel they need to use for some reason when all I want is some words.
Edit: what DID suck was when the cell companies started offering SMS, using the empty headers to push the texts around, AND charged people for the privilege. What a scam that was.