Comment by mike_d
2 hours ago
Apple developed iMessage to work around the problems with SMS and MMS, as well as decrease load on carrier networks. There is no closed ecosystem, you can still receive messages and videos from iPhone users, just at the quality your hardware and software can support.
Google later decided to come up with a completely different implementation called RCS to deal with the same problems. Rather than work with Apple on bringing an iMessage app to Android or licensing it, they instead tried to pressure Apple with a public advertising campaign to adopt what is frankly an inferior solution that doesn't even have reliable end-to-end encryption.
Your complaint is basically that you bought a Toyota and it does not have BMW's laser headlights that adjust brightness and angle automatically. You still have headlights, you just didn't spend the money to get the good ones.
Apple's strategy to use iMessage for lock in is public record.[1]
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/9/22375128/apple-imessage-an...
Yes because Google offered nothing of value in return. Like in my example, nothing stops Toyota from offering enough money to license BMW's laser headlights.
It's a poor example because laser headlights don't have network effects.
Google tried the same thing Apple did long before RCS when it made Hangouts the default SMS app for Android. Conversations could be upgraded from SMS to Google's internet-based chat protocol if the other person had an account; it was even available for iPhones, but it couldn't be an SMS client.
Carriers didn't like it and Google caved.
Lets be honest, Hangouts (which of the three versions) was a crappy chat app that they wanted to boost the usage of. It wasn't intended to be a functional SMS replacement.
As a former regular user, I don't remember it being notably worse than any of the other options. It was definitely preferable to SMS.
Maybe there was some glaring flaw I'm not remembering, but Google certainly had the resources to make it more competitive if they'd wanted to.
Does Apple allow non-Apple devices to send and receive messages from the iMessage network? Under any conditions?
> Rather than work with Apple on bringing an iMessage app to Android or licensing it
This seems like an unfair take - Apple is on record using iMessage specifically to deteriorate the experience between Android and iOS users. I don't see them working with Google to bring iMessage to Android.