[HN Gopher] Apple's iMessage avoids EU's Digital Markets Act reg...
___________________________________________________________________
Apple's iMessage avoids EU's Digital Markets Act regulation
Author : danaris
Score : 92 points
Date : 2024-02-13 14:34 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.macrumors.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.macrumors.com)
| no_wizard wrote:
| I wonder if this will lead to a reversal on supporting RCS, as I
| feel it was motivated to keep regulators at bay and now that
| iMessage is found to be exempt I don't know if Apple has any
| incentive to follow through
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| Apple doesn't care about deliverability as a moat. RCS won't
| moot the blue bubbles so they have no reason not to implement
| it.
| tsunamifury wrote:
| As someone who is intimately familiar with this, iMessage in
| America has been considered the strongest sales moat of the
| iPhone of all for years.
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| I don't dispute any of that. Read what I wrote again.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| RCS is there to head off further antitrust laws (e.g. in the
| US) that might force them to open up their messaging platform.
| Announcing RCS and then canning it the moment they head off one
| jurisdiction's first attempt at a law would be
| counterproductive.
| lxgr wrote:
| I think they'll still implement it.
|
| RCS is a bad enough protocol to not present a real alternative
| to iMessage while allowing Apple to truthfully claim that
| they're supporting the thing that Google has been pointing to
| for message interoperability all these years.
| sircastor wrote:
| They're still trying to hold off regulation in the rest of the
| world, and the DMA only applies to European Union markets.
| zinekeller wrote:
| I'm not surprised by the iMessage decision*, but on the Bing case
| I'm personally still on the bench. I guess that API-only use is
| exempt from DMA?
|
| * Americans, virtually no one uses iMessage outside your country,
| or at least to the point that it'll force you to get an iPhone.
| Even Japan, with their love with iPhones, uses a homegrown
| service for their messaging needs.
| sakex wrote:
| Most Swedes I know use iMessage actually. That's very anecdotal
| tho
| soco wrote:
| Swiss datapoint: my whole extended family/friends circle has
| iPhones and they only use WhatsApp (and FaceTime for video).
| I'm not even sure I ever heard the name "iMessage" before.
| kube-system wrote:
| > I'm not even sure I ever heard the name "iMessage" before
|
| Nobody I know colloquially calls it that in the US either.
| The app is called "messages", and people just call it
| "texting"... "on an iPhone". I don't think most people even
| realize it is not SMS/MMS.
| lalaithion wrote:
| > I don't think most people even realize it is not
| SMS/MMS
|
| Nobody knows what SMS or MMS are either.
| 10729287 wrote:
| French here. I still use iMessage for family and friends one
| to one discussions but group chats are exclusively on
| WhatsApp here... and I've got tons. Too much. For every
| circle and sometimes more than one per circle depending on
| the subject. Are US people using iMessage for this ?
| hwbehrens wrote:
| > _Are US people using iMessage for this?_
|
| Often, yes.
| SiempreViernes wrote:
| I think this mostly tells us you are an American with an
| Iphone, in Sweden other apps are popular to the point that
| the Mac media _celebrates_ the release of an WhatsApp _beta_
| : https://www.macworld.se/article/2077773/whatsapp-kommer-
| antl...
| monsieurgaufre wrote:
| Most canadians use iMessage as well. Or FB Messenger. Still
| anecdotal.
| stephen_g wrote:
| Plenty of people use it in Australia...
| thejohnconway wrote:
| Pretty common in the UK. I think iMessage is common in English
| speaking countries with high iPhone usage.
| gmac wrote:
| I use SMS/iMessage for most one-to-one messaging, but never
| for group chats. For groups, I use only WhatsApp and a little
| Signal. I'm in the UK.
| Aloha wrote:
| I got into Telegram for group chat, I was surprised at the
| saturation of WhatsApp when I went overseas.
| tremarley wrote:
| It's common in the UK, but it isn't the most used messaging
| app.
|
| WhatsApp is more common in the UK
| piltdownman wrote:
| WhatsApp is almost the de-facto standard for messaging in
| Europe, with cash transfers usually seconded to Revolut.
|
| iMessage in the US is, to put it bluntly, a self-selecting
| cult. The amount of articles, podcasts and dating vlogs that
| detail how common it is to straight up discount a member of the
| opposite sex from dating based on not having an iPhone is
| testament to this.
|
| In an OKCupid Poll (which is about as transparent as dating
| bigdata ever got) 27% of respondents felt that green bubbles
| were less desirable than _mansplaining_ in terms of
| dealbreakers in a potential partner...
|
| https://www.androidauthority.com/green-bubble-phenomenon-102...
| https://www.cnet.com/culture/iphone-or-android-your-phone-ch...
| https://nypost.com/2019/08/14/sorry-android-users-these-ipho...
| pb7 wrote:
| >Even Japan, with their love with iPhones, uses a homegrown
| service for their messaging needs.
|
| Meanwhile Europe uses another US tech giant's service. The
| simple answer is that most of Europe is not wealthy enough to
| afford iPhones and not adept enough at developing competing
| services without first kneecapping competition with regulation.
| nixass wrote:
| So if people had more money (which in western Europe they
| already do) they'd be buying more iPhones? Get out of here..
| pb7 wrote:
| European countries that have high disposable income like
| the US have higher market share of iPhones. In general,
| iPhones owners are wealthier across the board than Android
| phone owners.
| Vt71fcAqt7 wrote:
| LINE isn't actually owned by Japanese anyway.
| jbm wrote:
| LINE is as homegrown as Tiktok with a front-end built by an
| American dev. It was initially owned by a Korean company
| (Naver), and a lot of the wikipedia article reads like a
| hagiography.
|
| Calling LINE a win over iMessage is a huge stretch. The privacy
| policies on LINE were not good at all when I last looked at it
| several years ago; transferring your account from one phone to
| another was (is?) really annoying, and getting a username isn't
| necessarily that easy.
|
| Say what you want, but Apple didn't punish me as much for
| having moved from Japan to Canada.
| jamesrr39 wrote:
| No real surprise about iMessage and Bing. They are not dominant
| communication methods/search engines at all, at least within my
| social circles (in Sweden).
|
| Some useful info about who the gatekeepers are/which parts of
| their platforms have been designated at gatekeeping:
| https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/gatekeepers_en .
| Includes a nice diagram!
| cgearhart wrote:
| The diagram was helpful. Have you seen anything similar that
| summarizes what it means for services to be designated this
| way?
|
| As an aside, it strikes me as vaguely protectionist to see that
| it's only 6 companies and none of them are European... (maybe
| that's a hot take?)
| yorwba wrote:
| It's the opposite of protectionism. European competitors for
| these services existed at some point, but because they lacked
| the advantage of a sufficiently large home market and didn't
| get any extra protection to make up for it, they didn't do as
| well.
|
| Depending on the strength of network effects, they either
| quickly lost users to the biggest platform, saw the writing
| on the wall and took an acquisition offer instead, or
| continue to hold their ground within a particular niche where
| expanding quickly is difficult (for both foreign and local
| companies).
|
| Any new European internet companies wishing to make it big at
| home will probably need to concentrate mainly on the US
| market first in order to have those same network effects work
| in their favor instead of against them.
| jamesrr39 wrote:
| Not a diagram, but here is the summary of obligations:
| https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/about-
| dma_en#what-d...
|
| > Examples of the "do's": gatekeepers will for example have
| to:
|
| > - allow third parties to inter-operate with the
| gatekeeper's own services in certain specific situations;
|
| > - allow their business users to access the data that they
| generate in their use of the gatekeeper's platform;
|
| > - provide companies advertising on their platform with the
| tools and information necessary for advertisers and
| publishers to carry out their own independent verification of
| their advertisements hosted by the gatekeeper;
|
| > - allow their business users to promote their offer and
| conclude contracts with their customers outside the
| gatekeeper's platform.
|
| >
|
| > Example of the "don'ts": gatekeepers will for example no
| longer:
|
| >
|
| > - treat services and products offered by the gatekeeper
| itself more favourably in ranking than similar services or
| products offered by third parties on the gatekeeper's
| platform;
|
| > - prevent consumers from linking up to businesses outside
| their platforms;
|
| > - prevent users from un-installing any pre-installed
| software or app if they wish so;
|
| > - track end users outside of the gatekeepers' core platform
| service for the purpose of targeted advertising, without
| effective consent having been granted.
|
| ---
|
| > As an aside, it strikes me as vaguely protectionist to see
| that it's only 6 companies and none of them are European...
| (maybe that's a hot take?)
|
| Simply put, there are no European companies on this level. If
| you want a phone, you are going to have to choose Android or
| iOS. To chat with people on your new phone, you will use what
| your friends & family are on - most often WhatsApp. When you
| want to search something on the internet, for most people
| it's going to be the default search engine, so Google Search.
| And when you want to go on a Social Network, it's going to
| be... etc, etc. The EU is of course part of the western world
| and so has not had the same requirements to develop their own
| companies, or lock American companies out, like China/Russia.
|
| Perhaps the closest that could come to mind could be some
| messaging apps, e.g. Threema, or perhaps Mastodon as a social
| network (sure, it's federated, but anyway...). But these
| don't qualify as they are nowhere near big enough.
|
| Finally, I'm quite optimistic about the DMA; not just for
| consumers in the EU but also in the US and worldwide. I feel
| there has been significant consolidation of market power and
| stagnation/coming stagnation, and competition is often
| considered the way to break out of this. Perhaps we will see
| a new generation of companies and ideas and more options for
| both consumers and small/medium businesses in the future.
| junaru wrote:
| > EU probe found that iMessage falls outside the legislation
| because it is not widely used by businesses.
|
| Proving once more EU loyalties lie not with the people.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| To be fair to the EU, it's not widely used by people in the EU
| either.
|
| Part of the issue is that here in the US we think Apple is
| bigger than it is. Maybe it's an important messaging network
| here in the US, but everywhere else, it's just a phone. A nice
| one. But still just a phone.
| crazygringo wrote:
| To be fair, it's not "just a phone". iPhone integrates with
| the whole Apple ecosystem, so I can copy text on my phone and
| paste it on my Mac without thinking about it, or AirDrop a
| large file, or use it as a remote control for my Apple TV,
| and so forth.
|
| It's just as much part of the Apple ecosystem everywhere in
| the world, even if you don't use iMessage. You're not getting
| anything like that if you're using Android and a PC. Which
| may be fine depending on your needs. But iMessage isn't the
| only differentiator here.
| pelorat wrote:
| Not a lot of people here uses a Mac either. Why spend 1500
| euros on a Mac when you can buy a windows laptop for
| 500-700 that does everything the Mac does.
| kube-system wrote:
| Because it offers a premium experience and NA buyers have
| a 50% higher disposable income than EU buyers.
| pb7 wrote:
| Why buy an Audi when a Volkswagen does the same thing for
| 50% of the cost?
| crazygringo wrote:
| Because it tends to last for 2-3 times as long and still
| holds resale value when you finally choose to upgrade.
|
| Because of this, entry-level Macs are often actually
| cheaper in the long run -- and with the M chips they're
| faster too. And of course generally provide a much
| higher-quality experience, like trackpad quality, screen
| quality, etc.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| Not really. If I'm a business and need to contact my customers
| and can just call them or text them on SMS or third party
| messenger platforms. Apple does not gatekeep me from reaching
| out to them. But if I'm a business and want to sell my
| customers an app, then Apple is the gatekeeper for the iOS
| platform, as I can't distribute my app to my customers with
| Apple devices any other way.
|
| Similar with people. In EU nobody I know defaults to iMessages
| so it's not a big issue here.
| lxgr wrote:
| If the European Commission were to regulate something that
| almost nobody in the EU actually uses, Apple probably would
| have an easy time convincing courts that the EC overstepped
| their mandate.
| bni wrote:
| Chat protocols being standardized would be way more useful for me
| as a user than having "alternate app stores".
|
| Many app stores is actually a negative for me, going by my
| experience from Windows gaming.
| kj99 wrote:
| This - they should just mandate RCS, or maybe actually invest
| in developing a modern European standard and then mandate that.
| It's not like they don't have research universities with CS
| departments who could be part of a standards body.
|
| I don't mean they should limit alternatives - just that they
| should require a modern, E2EE standard on all phones, and then
| we can all just shut up about this.
| troupo wrote:
| > they should just mandate RCS
|
| RCS doesn't have e2ee in the standard.
| kj99 wrote:
| Agreed. Which is why I think they should come up with an
| official standard that does.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Or matrix. It's really great and it can interface with most
| other networks already.
| bni wrote:
| No please don't mandate a specific protocol (that probably
| suck!) instead require the successful/important protocol tho
| become interoperable.
| kj99 wrote:
| If you mandate that the winning protocol be interoperable
| you end forward progress on that protocol.
|
| If you mandate an official protocol be available alongside
| others, that protocol can be kept up to date by committee.
| dbbk wrote:
| It won't be mandated but iOS is getting RCS so we can all
| move on
| kube-system wrote:
| We already had messaging standards, but people migrated to
| other options because they liked the features/price/etc of
| other options.
|
| https://xkcd.com/927/
| offices wrote:
| >going by my experience from Windows gaming.
|
| Could you elaborate? Steam is a negative and Microsoft Store is
| a positive experience?
| pbmonster wrote:
| They probably mean it's annoying to be forced to get the EPIC
| store or battle.net just for the 1-2 interesting games that
| are not on Steam.
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| Correct. But at the same time GP is right that without the
| freedom to have alternative "app stores" on Windows, Steam
| couldn't exist.
| amelius wrote:
| Funny thing is that in the telecommunications act it was
| actually enforced that telecom operators had to interoperate.
| What's old is new again.
| pbmonster wrote:
| > way more useful for me as a user than having "alternate app
| stores"
|
| It's not only alternative app stores. It's browsers with ad-
| blockers, youtube clients that auto-skip sponsor messages in
| the middle of videos and apps for $0, that cost money on the
| main app store - although their code is open source.
| freedomben wrote:
| > _apps for $0, that cost money on the main app store -
| although their code is open source_
|
| Interesting, I'm generally very opposed to Apple's way, but
| this sounds like a real unexpected benefit (silver lining on
| the cloud maybe?). It enables what I've long asked for from
| devs, mainly that they make the source available to paying
| customers.
| pbmonster wrote:
| Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but I think I mean something
| else. I'm talking about this phenomenon:
|
| A software project is using an open source licence. And app
| gets made for Android, and because of culture or GPL, the
| app is open source, too. But on Google Play, the app costs
| money, contains ads, or there is sub-features, that you
| only get if you pay a (one time/monthly) fee.
|
| But because it's trivial to sideload on Android, I can just
| get the app from github (or from the open source app store
| FDroid) and install it myself, for free. No ads, no locked
| content.
| dktp wrote:
| The fact that the software I have on my Mac is not tied to what
| I can download from Apple Store is basically the sole reason
| it's useful to me
| lxgr wrote:
| Fortunately the EU is mandating both!
|
| > Many app stores is actually a negative for me
|
| Just don't use them, then! They're not mandatory for consumers.
| bni wrote:
| Until the app I really want require me to install their own
| crapware store/launcher.
|
| Or even worse, that utility apps that are needed in daily
| life require their own "store"
| sircastor wrote:
| While I don't think we'll see Meta do this for their apps,
| I do expect (if they can stomach the cost) Epic and Valve
| to build their own stores.
|
| Epic didn't have much success getting Android users to
| sideload Fortnite, so I don't know how well it will go for
| either, but I know that gamers are a dedicated bunch and
| both Valve and Epic want to have the user-level connection.
| danaris wrote:
| From what I've seen, one of the requirements of a
| competing App Marketplace on iOS is that they allow any
| developer to submit apps to them--I'm unclear on whether
| they can restrict by category (eg, only allow games), but
| AIUI they can't just restrict their own marketplace to
| selling the apps they themselves publish.
|
| This is a very interesting requirement, and will
| definitely at least make companies like Epic, Valve, and
| Facebook pause and think before deciding whether they
| actually want to be running an App Marketplace.
| kevingadd wrote:
| Then don't install them. The iOS app store is full of
| competition, plus shameless rip-off apps that got past
| review.
| jerojero wrote:
| The usage of iMessage in Europe is vastly inferior to the usage
| of it in America.
|
| I think that was a reasonable argument from Apple and the
| European Commission agreed.
|
| But the thing is, apple obviously wants for people to use iPhones
| in Europe and to use their services just like in America. But
| they are now very much aware that this sort of market dominance
| won't come for free like it does in the USA.
| marcellus23 wrote:
| I'm curious, in what sense did it come "for free" in the USA?
| zamadatix wrote:
| In that the EU does not sit idle once you become a
| significantly popular player in a given market, not in the
| sense that they were given free userbase. E.g. in this case
| if iPhones became more popular then they'd have to open up
| iMessage where as in the US having market dominance comes
| with significantly fewer strings attached.
| ghusto wrote:
| In the U.S.A., people use iMessage by default, because they
| use text messaging. People don't use texts in Europe (we use
| WhatsApp and similar, but WhatsApp by a long margin).
|
| The reason people still use texts in the U.S.A. is up for
| debate, and it's something I've thought about for a long
| time.
| hwbehrens wrote:
| I think it's a historical artifact -- by the time that
| iMessage launched, the US was well into the phase of free,
| unlimited texting, so there was no barrier to "just
| texting". Since there was _also_ no barrier (in terms of
| costs, subscriptions, or installation friction) to using
| iMessage, it was a drop-in upgrade of the user experience
| for SMS.
|
| In contrast, I _still_ have to pay a fee to send SMS
| messages to my European relatives, so there 's a financial
| incentive to overcome that initial friction to switch
| messaging provider.
| eitally wrote:
| Agreed, and additionally, at that time there were no
| significant SMS alternatives in the US, most people had
| dumb phones, and no messaging apps came with the sort of
| supplementary features we have grown accustomed to in the
| past ten years.
| freedomben wrote:
| > In contrast, I still have to pay a fee to send SMS
| messages to my European relatives
|
| Oh wow, yeah that's definitely a big reason people would
| use what's app instead. That's wild to think about and
| makes no sense. Any idea why that is? Is it regulatory
| reasons maybe?
| lxgr wrote:
| The reason is simply that phone calls across Europe were
| and are usually not free/included in flat rate plans.
| Telcos just never found a way to agree on something that
| makes sense: It's quite common to get unlimited domestic
| calls, but pay 10-30 cents per minute to a neighboring
| country.
|
| Nobody (other than businesses) actually pays that; people
| just ended up using WhatsApp for both calls and texts
| instead.
|
| So in a way it's the absence of regulation: Data roaming
| is free within the EU, thanks to a corresponding EU
| regulation; before that, it wasn't unusual to pay more
| than EUR 10 per Megabyte (yes, Megabyte, not Gigabyte).
| kj99 wrote:
| You'd think the EU might want to harmonize regulations
| around billing calls between countries!
| Denvercoder9 wrote:
| Regulation 2018/1971 limits the price for outgoing calls
| within the EEA to 0.19 ct/minute (excl. VAT).
| Interestingly enough, there doesn't seem to be a limit on
| incoming calls, though most providers don't charge for
| incoming calls.
| lxgr wrote:
| There's no charge for incoming calls from abroad while at
| home: All EU countries use "caller pays" billing (unlike
| the US, which historically has used shared cost for
| mobile phones).
|
| That's why there are prepaid SIMs without a monthly fee
| and unlimited incoming calls: The caller's operator pays
| the called operator a termination charge by the minute.
|
| There is an incoming call charge while roaming, the
| rationale being that the caller doesn't know where you
| are and needs predictability in pricing (so the called
| party pays for the leg from their home country to where
| they are), but the EU has capped that to zero within the
| EEA.
| drexlspivey wrote:
| Because you don't get free SMS for other countries, do
| you have free SMS with Canada in the US?
| gst wrote:
| Yes. Most of the plans of the provider that I use in the
| US (T-Mobile) include free SMS and MMS to any country
| (also free data roaming in almost any country). I think
| it's similar for other providers (Verizon and AT&T), but
| I'm not sure as I'm not familiar with their plans.
| dopa42365 wrote:
| How much does the cheapest mobile plan that offers "free
| and unlimited" texting cost in the US? Quick look at
| t-mobile shows $15/month for unlimited texts.
|
| So much for "free" :)
| nemomarx wrote:
| I think they mean free at the point of text, ie not
| paying per message, not that the plan is free.
|
| Wouldn't 15 be pretty cheap for a phone plan anyway?
| That's less than Netflix costs now?
| GeekyBear wrote:
| > by the time that iMessage launched, the US was well
| into the phase of free, unlimited texting
|
| The iPhone itself launched with unlimited data, but
| limited text messages.
|
| > keep in mind that AT&T's default rate plans for the
| iPhone don't include unlimited SMS messages: they include
| 200 messages per month unless you add an extra-SMS plan.
| Chatting this way can easily rack up your SMS charges if
| you're not careful.
|
| https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2007/07/iphone-review/8/
|
| When iMessage launched as part of iOS 5, free unlimited
| SMS was still not a normal thing.
|
| > iMessage is Apple's answer to SMS and MMS--a way to
| send text and multimedia messages to other iOS device
| users without relying on a cell carrier. Any kind of
| text-type message between iOS users can be sent for free
| in unlimited amounts without chipping away at those
| overpriced text messages that you pay for through your
| carrier.
|
| https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2011/10/ios-5-reviewed-
| notif...
| filmgirlcw wrote:
| > When iMessage launched as part of iOS 5, free unlimited
| SMS was still not a normal thing.
|
| It wasn't universal on all wireless plans, for sure, but
| by 2011, in the U.S., it was definitely more common that
| at least for smartphone plans, which were starting to
| shift into charging for amounts of data usage rather than
| blanket "unlimited" buckets and were also starting to
| charge extra fees for tethering (this is also the time
| that LTE became real and usable in the U.S.), you'd get
| unlimited or seemingly nearly unlimited messaging plans
| as part of the fee.
|
| Carriers had been offering large or unlimited text plans
| for years at this point -- my SideKick in high school had
| unlimited texting as part of the $20 a month fee that
| T-Mobile charged on top of the minutes plan to operate
| the software. BlackBerry took advantage of this too with
| its BIS plans on carriers and the "free texting" lure of
| BlackBerry via BBM and SMS was a big selling point of
| those devices for sure.
|
| But the key here is "for smartphone plans." You still had
| a lot of non-smartphone users in 2011 and so part of the
| pitch to get them to spend $500 on a phone that would
| require a $50 a month plan was unlimited texts. iMessage
| was a nice carrot here
|
| What I think iMessage did was not only spur carriers to
| cut the SMS fees even further (again, for smartphone
| plans), but it was a great additional reason to get
| people to adopt smartphones. Because the sort of unspoken
| rule was that if you had a smartphone in the U.S., you
| had unlimited texting. Most people in the U.S. don't text
| people outside the U.S. so unless you have family or
| friends in other countries or you do a lot of
| international business, I think SMS was just sort of an
| accepted default for a lot of people.
|
| So the timing for iMessage in the U.S. _was_ perfect
| because it used the same default app everyone used, could
| work on your Mac or iPad or iPod touch too AND it worked
| internationally with other iPhones. Plus blue bubbles and
| the many significant technical and security improvements
| over the old way. But mostly blue bubbles.
|
| But as the other poster said, the lure of BBM and later
| WhatsApp in the rest of the world was largely that you
| could use it internationally for free. And the iPhone
| didn't get its strong international adoption until after
| things like WhatsApp had already landed.
|
| The iPhone's initial carrier restrictions didn't start to
| lift until 2011-ish and 2012 so you had Android growing
| extremely quickly in Europe and Latin America and Asia,
| where a thing like WhatsApp (which debuted first on
| iPhone in 2009, it then came to BlackBerry and then in
| 2010 Android and Symbian) could grow like a weed and have
| hundreds of millions of users before most people in the
| U.S. had even heard of it. (I was on CNN and Fox Business
| in 2014 explaining what WhatsApp was and why Facebook had
| just spent $20b on it).
|
| So I think timing on iMessage was perfect for U.S.
| domination (where iPhone marketshare is over 50% but
| depending on your demographic/age, is probably even
| higher) but it might have just missed being the defacto
| tool in the rest of the world.
| bombcar wrote:
| More importantly, most Americas _do not text_ anyone
| outside of the country, and haven 't really ever.
|
| So people had no real reason to move off of texting,
| because it just worked, and Apple's iMessage just looks
| like texting seamlessly.
| ghaff wrote:
| Yeah, as an American who actually knows a fair number of
| people overseas, there are probably a literal handful of
| people who I communicate with on a regular basis there
| and I use a variety of channels but SMS/iMessage works
| fine one a day-to-day basis for most folks.
| Arrath wrote:
| As an American with European and Australian friends,
| they're the ones who got me into using WhatsApp.
| happyopossum wrote:
| > More importantly, most Americas do not text anyone
| outside of the country, and haven't really ever
|
| As a dual-citizen of Canada and the US, I'd have to say
| that's massively overgeneralized. Pretty much every
| Canadian I know regularly texts with Americans (iMessage
| or not), which means those Americans are texting with
| people outside of the Country.
| ninjakttty wrote:
| You're not refuting his statement. There are massively
| way more Americans than Canadians.
| mistersquid wrote:
| > In contrast, I still have to pay a fee to send SMS
| messages to my European relatives, so there's a financial
| incentive to overcome that initial friction to switch
| messaging provider.
|
| In addition to the financial disincentive for SMS in the
| EU, communications iMessage to iMessage are E2EE whereas
| SMS messages are not, even in the context of iMessage to
| SMS and vice versa.
|
| Also also, Whatsapp's E2EE is not as reassuring given
| Meta/Facebook owns Whatsapp.
| amatecha wrote:
| Yeah, actually until I finally haggled for a better plan
| maybe ~5 years ago, it used to cost me $0.25 to send an
| SMS to anyone, even in my own country (Canada)...
| ghaff wrote:
| Aside from status-conscious teenagers (eww, green vs. blue)
| pretty much no one in the US cares whether you're on
| standard SMS vs. iMessage. But I pretty much only use
| WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger with friends overseas.
| mrweasel wrote:
| One really weird way that you can see that is looking at
| Denmark, which has historically been used as a test market
| for telcos. SMS was practically free when iMessage was
| announced, not entirely, but enough people had unlimited
| SMS plans at that time. Denmark was the testing ground for
| different phones and pricing plans, better to screw up in a
| market with 5 million people, compared to one with 80
| million.
|
| I believe that the "free" SMSs at the time is a pretty big
| reason why iMessage is huge in Denmark, but not in the
| countries surrounding us. It's not the biggest messaging
| platform, that would be Facebook and Facebook messenger,
| not WhatsApp, Telegram or Signal. It seems like people want
| Europe to be all in on "alternative" platforms, but it's
| frequently all Facebook properties.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| US was a first-mover and had early telcom penetration, so
| SMS became culturally ubiquitous since it was the tech of
| the era. Late-movers could skip that and go straight to
| data-based telcoms and never had to deal with the critical
| culture mass of SMS while the US was stuck bolting on to
| and bridging SMS.
|
| It's like being able to skip over copper and go straight to
| fiber optics.
| inkyoto wrote:
| > US was a first-mover and had early telcom penetration,
| so SMS became culturally ubiquitous since it was the tech
| of the era.
|
| Telco penetration - yes, the US had a upper hand. SMS
| (and messaging) - no, the US lagged behind for many
| years.
|
| DAMPS (the 2nd generation mobile standard in the US) and
| early CDMA US networks did not support SMS/text messaging
| at all whereas European telco users had already been
| happily texting each other since the introduction of GSM
| (2G, early 90s). Americans used the phone answering
| machines and the voicemail instead, which has been widely
| depicted in Hollywood movies and was a source of
| amusement for non-US watchers.
|
| GSM was later introduced in the US with very limited
| coverage on east and west coasts to support roaming for
| European users (roaming was non-existand in DAMPS and in
| CDMA networks, either) and operated on a frequency band
| (1900 MHz) that was incompatible with GSM 2G 900/1800 MHz
| bands and required a tri-band handset but it introduced
| SMS to the US mobile networks users for the first time.
|
| There was also a pricing barrier that hampered adoption
| of SMS in the US - European and Asian users had to pay
| for SMS's they have sent, but not receive one (the cost
| was zero), whereas the US users had to pay to send AND to
| receive text messages. Gradually, 3G came to the US,
| brought SMS out of the box, gradually replaced DAMPS and
| CDMA networks in the US and the US users got SMS out of
| the box.
|
| The US did not lead the cultural revolution that SMS had
| brought about in Europe/Asia.
| Kipters wrote:
| In Italy, in 2005-2007 text messages were WIDELY used by
| teenagers in (like me at the time) too - they weren't free
| but really cheap (4000 for 2EUR/month) so pretty much
| everyone used them.
|
| Then a couple years later... gone, replaced by WhatsApp.
| pmontra wrote:
| I remember that. Zero Euro is much better than two Euro
| so SMSes where dropped. We were paying for data anyway.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| What is the functional difference between imessage and
| whatsapp? I only see a different provider.
| artimaeis wrote:
| Even in the US it's very rarely used by business, which is what
| the article cited as the main reason.
|
| > the EU probe found that iMessage falls outside the
| legislation because it is not widely used by businesses
|
| Apple does offer a specific service for businesses, Apple
| Messages for Business, but their documentation claims it's
| actually different from iMessage:
|
| https://register.apple.com/resources/messages/messaging-docu...
|
| > Apple Messages for Business differs from the widely known
| iMessage by being a business to end-user service. Additionally,
| the encryption mechanism slightly differs from a traditional
| iMessage.
|
| Given that businesses can interface with AMfB using APIs rather
| than the Messages app on an Apple device, it seems that would
| fall pretty far outside the iMessage gatekeeping definition.
| currymj wrote:
| it's too bad, i was hoping the USA could free ride off European
| regulation. i would like to see an iMessage app for Android.
|
| for me, it's the opposite of the teenager status issues.
|
| rather, a lot of older people seem not capable of understanding
| the difference between iMessage amd SMS - not colorblind, but
| they seem to not perceive green vs blue bubbles even after it
| is pointed out. and this has caused me big practical problems
| communicating with family due to failed message delivery (both
| SMS and iMessage).
| zer0zzz wrote:
| Even with eu regulations I can't see a path to iMessage for
| android.
| retskrad wrote:
| I believe the assertion suggesting that iMessage plays a pivotal
| role in the success of the iPhone and contributes significantly
| to Apple's business is inaccurate. The iMessage platform, in
| itself, does not possess an inherent quality that renders the
| iPhone more appealing to consumers. On the contrary, it is the
| iPhone's inherent appeal that enhances the attractiveness of
| iMessage. The prestige of the iPhone imparts a certain allure to
| iMessage, establishing a relationship where the iPhone acts as
| the catalyst for iMessage's appeal, rather than the reverse. This
| is why the the iPhone is still a status symbol among the middle
| class and richest people in the EU, Asia and India - even though
| they couldn't care less about iMessage over there.
| troupo wrote:
| > This is why the the iPhone is still a status symbol among the
| middle class and richest people in the EU
|
| wat?
|
| iPhone costs as much as an equivalent Android (and has for some
| time), and since you can get it with your phone subscription
| for a rather low monthly payment, it hasn't been a status
| symbol for a decade or more.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> iPhone costs as much as an equivalent Android _
|
| Only flagships, But decent Androids can be had for much less
| than an iPhone. Like the Samsung A54 for example. Apple
| doesn't have ~300 Euro phones with OLED screens in its offer.
| troupo wrote:
| Yes, but that doesn't make them "status phones for middle
| class people". The latest iPhone 15 can be had for 30
| EUR/month even in Sweden (Sweden is very expensive) [1].
| That's a single lunch for two.
|
| [1]
| https://www.tre.se/handla/mobiltelefoner/apple/iphone-15
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| Sweden also has some of the highest salaries in
| Europe/the world, that's why they're not a status symbol,
| because even a pizza delivery boy can afford an iPhone 15
| Pro Max.
|
| But they very much are a status symbol in less developed
| countries with lower wages: Eastern Europe, Latin
| America, etc. Lower and middle class people there will
| save for over a year just to get the latest iPhone, which
| is why there's a huge market there for clones.
| troupo wrote:
| The original claim was about "the EU" as a whole. Now
| it's "less developed countries with lowest wages".
|
| Even in Eastern Europe it's much less of a status symbol
| than let's say 10 years ago: installment plans are much
| more affordable to a larger part of the population.
| Source: am from Eastern Europe (though I live in Sweden
| now).
|
| > Lower and middle class people there will save for over
| a year just to get the latest iPhone
|
| Yup, because the poor unwashed masses don't have
| discounts, instalment plans or phones included with
| subscriptions. Oh wait, they do.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| Affordable doesn't mean financially sound. Going in debt
| to buy a phone you can't afford outright in cash, means
| you're too poor to afford it, that's why is a status
| symbol.
| acdha wrote:
| > Apple doesn't have ~300 Euro phones with OLED screens in
| its offer.
|
| Sure they do, the iPhone 12 is still widely available and
| it's at least twice as fast as an A54.
|
| The prestige argument just hold up when you look at the
| data unless you scope it to say flagships. Google and
| Samsung charge just as much, and they have the same
| decreasingly small prestige that conveys. We're 15 years
| into the touchscreen era so you're just not impressing
| anyone.
| dns_snek wrote:
| iPhone 12 costs almost twice as much as Samsung A54.
| threeseed wrote:
| At least here in Australia for RRP, iPhone 12 is 20% more
| expensive.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> Sure they do, the iPhone 12 is still widely available
| and it's at least twice as fast as an A54._
|
| The iPhone 12 doesn't cost 300 Euros, it's 500 Euros and
| only comes with a dinky 64GB RAM base vs 128GB on the
| cheaper Samsung.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| > decent Androids can be had for much less than an iPhone
|
| The Android ecosystem didn't have a $399 Android device in
| 2016 that is still getting first party security updates
| today.
|
| The 2016 iPhone SE has worked out to ~$50 per supported
| year.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| Non techie people who buy phones in the real world don't
| care about stuf they can't see or feel or don't
| understand, like long SW updates, since it's not like
| Androids stop working once you stop getting updates.
|
| They do care about stuff the can actually see, like
| having big bright high resolution OLLED display, not that
| dim low-res display on the SE pulled straight out of a
| 2008 parts bin.
|
| Especially that phones are now the main computing and
| content consumption platforms for most people. and if you
| put a 6.2 inch 1000 nits 1080p OLED vs 4.7 inch 720p 400
| nits IPS, the difference will be as big as the grand
| canion and sway purchasing decisions way more than years
| of SW updates.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| > Non techie people who buy phones in the real world
| don't care about stuf they can't see or feel or don't
| understand
|
| Non techie folks care when their insecure phone allows
| something as important as their bank account to be
| hacked.
|
| The original Google Pixel also came out in 2016, and was
| completely dropped from support at the end of 2019.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> Non techie folks care when their insecure phone allows
| something as important as their bank account to be
| hacked. _
|
| How many times are we gonna play this boogieman card? As
| if everyone gets their bank account instantly emptied by
| hackers the moment their Android is a day out of it's
| support window.
|
| How many times has that actually happened to users of
| older un-updated Androids in the real world, documented?
| I know about over half a dozen people with out of date
| Androids and they seem to still be solvent with their
| banks accounts intact. One of them is me.
|
| Hackers in the real world wanting to steal your savings
| are more likely to use phishing to get you to hand over
| your banking credentials voluntarily, rather than to
| build some elaborate malware targeting some unpatched
| flaw in your phone's OS to steal your banking
| credentials. Not that the latter isn't a risk, but it's
| being blown way out of proportion.
|
| _> The original Google Pixel also came out in 2016, and
| was completely dropped from support at the end of 2019._
|
| We're talking here about buying modern phones today, not
| buying phones from the past. Google and Samsung did a 180
| recently where they promise 7 years of updates to their
| lates phones. What argument are you gonna use 6 years
| from when those phones will still get updates?
| lxgr wrote:
| > since you can get it with your phone subscription for a
| rather low monthly payment
|
| This is not (anymore) how people buy their phones in many
| countries. Even on relatively expensive post-paid plans in
| some European countries, you don't get a discounted phone
| anymore: All they offer is an interest-free installment plan.
|
| > iPhone costs as much as an equivalent Android
|
| What's an equivalent iPhone to e.g. a Galaxy A54 (~1 year
| old, EUR ~300-350)?
|
| The iPhone SE (2022) is twice as old and starts at EUR 500.
| danaris wrote:
| I think you may have misunderstood the GP.
|
| Apple offers the ability to buy the iPhone with $0 down
| over (IIRC) 24 months--making that iPhone SE cost
| ~$21/month.
|
| It has nothing to do with the contract discounts that phone
| providers used to offer.
| lxgr wrote:
| > It has nothing to do with the contract discounts that
| phone providers used to offer.
|
| It has a lot to do with that. Many US providers offer
| significant discounts on iPhones when buying them on a
| (new or renewed) contract. This was a very commonplace
| thing in Europe as well, but I believe it's become less
| common.
|
| Installment payments change nothing about the base price.
| danaris wrote:
| No, that's true; they don't.
|
| But they still make it much more accessible to buy an
| iPhone for someone who doesn't have EUR500 or $1000 or
| whatever _at one time_ to comfortably spend on one.
|
| The idea that iPhones could be a meaningful "status
| symbol" by this point in their lifetime, given all the
| ways one can obtain one cheaply _if that is what one
| wants_ , and the percentage of people who own them, just
| doesn't hold up under scrutiny. It's a meme repeated by
| people who need some reason to believe that people don't
| buy Apple's products on their own merits--much like the
| idea that it's a "cult".
| lxgr wrote:
| You can finance expensive cars too - does that make them
| any less of a status symbol?
|
| Financing doesn't make anything cheaper relative to its
| alternatives (given that they can also be financed).
| danaris wrote:
| If you can't see the huge difference between "you can pay
| $1500+/month to own an expensive car" and "you can pay
| $30/month to own an iPhone" in terms of accessibility,
| then I'm not sure what to say.
| troupo wrote:
| > All they offer is an interest-free installment plan.
|
| Which even in Sweden (one of the most expensive countries
| in Europe) is often as low as a lunch for two:
| https://www.tre.se/handla/mobiltelefoner/apple/iphone-15
|
| > What's an equivalent iPhone to e.g. a Galaxy A54 (~1 year
| old, EUR ~300-350)?
|
| There might not be, which doesn't make iPhone a "status
| symbol among the middle class and richest people in the
| EU". It's literally just a phone.
| lxgr wrote:
| Lunch being expensive too in Sweden does not make the
| iPhone more affordable across Europe. In some European
| countries an iPhone SE costs a third of the average
| monthly net salary.
| tremarley wrote:
| 'iMessage plays a pivotal role in the success of the iPhone and
| contributes significantly to Apple's business is inaccurate.'
|
| If you ask many iPhone users why they use an iPhone rather than
| an Android. They would tell you iMessage first.
|
| Many iPhone users won't even consider an Android, only because
| of iMessage and no other reason.
| SSLy wrote:
| Re-read parent's last sentence.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Not in Europe. Almost nobody uses iMessage here. It's because
| the marketshare of Apple is much lower in most EU countries.
|
| I'm glad because I use android also.
| threeseed wrote:
| > If you ask many iPhone users why they use an iPhone rather
| than an Android. They would tell you iMessage first.
|
| Likewise if you ask many iPhone users they _won 't_ tell you
| iMessage first.
|
| That's the magic and wonder of meaningless anecdotes.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| iMessage popularity has little to do with status and everything
| to do with iPhone users refusing to use other messaging apps.
| If you want to text an iPhone and you don't have iMessage
| chances are you will be forced to use sms which is utterly
| trash. I've been unable to convince my friends to use a
| messaging app so if I want to text them I pretty much need an
| iPhone.
| troupo wrote:
| Strange then that iMessage didn't even qualify for DMA in EU
| by the number of users? ;)
| lxgr wrote:
| The fact that it's impossible to convince any of your friends
| to use something that works with all phones and not just
| iPhones arguably does have something to do with status.
|
| In Europe, where less than half of all people (across social
| strata) use iPhones/iOS, this simply doesn't fly, so there is
| no "green bubble problem".
| breather wrote:
| I'd say imessage (and facetime) is about half of why I use an
| iphone in the end. It's just very good at communicating with my
| social network, which predominately uses iphones.
| ghaff wrote:
| As someone in the US, it's totally irrelevant. I never use
| Facetime and Imessage vs. SMS is a just don't care. If I
| occasionally communicate internationally, it's via Whatsapp
| or Facebook Messenger.
| breather wrote:
| > I never use Facetime
|
| Do you ever video chat with friends or family? In my
| experience this is almost entirely over FaceTime, though
| zoom had its moment there during the lockdown.
| cozzyd wrote:
| I use a combination of Google Meet and Whatsapp for video
| calls...
| ghaff wrote:
| No. My friends groups will setup free Zoom calls now and
| then.
| eeghyrdcg wrote:
| It kind of sounds like you're saying "as a representative
| sample of people in the US". If this is the case you are
| wrong -- plenty of people use these services.
|
| If you're just saying "you" then sure whatever, I put salsa
| on my toast.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| I also use WhatsApp and Signal as a daily driver. iMessage is
| legitimately superior to all other messaging platforms I've
| used, and it isn't close.
|
| iMessage isn't just a text messaging app, it also serves as a
| shared application fabric. The many iOS objects and apps are
| integrated into iMessage as first-class things that can be
| securely shared and seamlessly collaborated on between groups
| of people over the iMessage backbone. It isn't just group chats
| but also group content. If you have non-iMessage users in the
| group then all of this is disabled and it reverts to being a
| text message app. I know many average people that live in those
| collaboration features without even really thinking about it
| because they work so much more seamlessly than the
| alternatives.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-02-13 23:01 UTC)