Comment by philistine
6 years ago
You know, for a tech site, people sure do love to forget that iMessage is preferred because it brings features instead of mere social status.
6 years ago
You know, for a tech site, people sure do love to forget that iMessage is preferred because it brings features instead of mere social status.
Whatsapp brings the same features, if not more. iMessage craze is a purely American phenomenon, the rest of the world has moved on to other IMs
Every part of the world has its own messaging apps. Depending on where you live, it might be WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, WeChat, LINE, or I’m sure others. In Europe I know for a fact that the popular app varies from country to country. So you could just as easily dismiss LINE as a “purely Japanese phenomenon” but the fact is each app is popular in a certain part of the world.
Because network effects are more important than UX or features.
Sure it does, but cross platform IMs are not so socially discriminating. You can easily download LINE and move on with your life in Japan. But getting iMessage is an economic barrier for many, for which they end up being socially ostraostracized
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I think the best reason is explained in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23412067 - ie. how most social circles will exclude Android users. I imagine this is only be the case when only one or two people of the group are using Android though, so if even a few people in the friend group are in that situation you might see more WhatsApp/FB Messenger.
My mid-30s colleague went back to Tinder in recent years and he mentioned he got questioned by his target market about not having a blue bubble. They were all Asian (but mostly Chinese) women in their late 20s who moved to Australia.
With reference to a recent HN thread, I wonder if saying "I'm a developer/security expert/working on a classified government project and HAVE to use a special phone" would garner sympathy or admiration and stop the questions.
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Well the most annoying thing about whatsapp (other than its owned by Facebook) is that it can't automatically fallback to sms for contacts not using it.
But not all of the world have moved to whatsapp. I am from Scandinavian and I only have a very limited number of contacts available on whatsapp, most are on iMessage.
On iOS, that's not by any fault of WhatsApp.
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No, WhatsApp does not bring the same features. WhatsApp is very different. You can react to messages in iMessage, which is just one among other features WhatsApp doesn’t have.
Yeah I mean there will little tiny things different on each app, but it's not a big deal breaker for many. Whatsapp is the biggest IM on the planet for a reason. People could easily ditch iMessage in favour of Whatsapp if they wanted to, but for some reason Americans don't do that.
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I use both iMessage and WhatsApp heavily, the annoying thing about iMessage is the lack of ability to quote messages and @people.
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You're saying some people exclude others from their friends group because of fucking smiley faces on a message? God that would be stupid if true.
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> Message craze is a purely American phenomenon
This is mistaken. I'm in the EU and do not know a single person using SMS, nor Whatsapp, they use iMessage, however, bigtime.
Whatsapp used to be a thing, but that has been over for some time. Now, most are using Messenger, Snap, and Telegram.
And iMessage is not a craze or a phenomenon, it is a simple convenience; it's on your phone already. For most people using it, it is not even a deliberate choice. The younger generation grew up with it, they do not even really know the difference between SMS and iMessage, except that if the bubble is green, the other user does not have an iPhone.
The older generation remembers SMS, so they still tend to call it SMS, even though they are using iMessage.
Android users are in the minority around here, well, at least between family, friends, and at work.
Well, I'm in the EU (France/UK) and do not know a single person that doesn't use Whatsapp. I'm also not even completely sure what iMessage is, nobody ever mentioned it.
All I mean is: anecdotal evidence and social bubbles
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