Comment by danaris

...Yes, and that's my point. It's not about the color, but lots of people are talking about it as if the color is the primary or sole cause of the ostracization—as if Apple marking iMessages differently than SMS messages is the root of the problem, rather than the disparity in features.

I'm not going to try to deny that there are some people who a) would shun (ex?)friends for using an Android phone, and b) continue to shun them even once the actual reason for that goes away, because Lord there are some petty, shallow people in the world.

I am going to say that I don't think it's Apple's or the government's business to try to fix that problem. If the government wants to force Apple to open up iMessage in some fashion, I think that's potentially reasonable, but holding Apple responsible for the cruelty and cliquishness of what must be a tiny subset of its users is just absurd.