Tim Cook's fix for those pesky green text bubbles? 'Buy your mom an iPhone'
text.npr.orgWhen you see this topic discussed, invariably iPhone users chime in to say the exact same thing. They like the status symbol and have come to identify with it, even though it results in a worse experience for them. The internet is built on open standards, but Apple has convinced its users that closed services are elite.
I remember when Instagram released their Android client. Some Instagram users with iPhones where upset they were letting "the poors" in their exclusive club.
How does it result in a worse experience for them?
The green bubble means iPhones have downgraded the conversation to SMS, or MMS for group chats. It results in lower quality attachments being sent, and fails to implement some nice features that would be available with RCS - like typing indicators, read receipts, and emoji reacts.
iPhone users expect these features through iMessage, but don't realize that the features are missing from green message chats due to Apple's stubbornness to avoid implementing open standards, not due to anything in particular the Android device is doing wrong. I'm not saying RCS is the end-all be-all, but any kind of shared protocol that Apple had worked to develop in good faith would have resulted in a better experience for iPhone users. So it's really disappointing that the only the option they give their users is old school SMS.
My mom had an Android and my Dad has an iPhone. I spent 10x more time helping my Mom and all she did was text and play one game.
Pardon me, but I thought we were talking about the green/blue messages on iPhone, not the overall usability of iPhone vs Android. Let's stay on-topic here.
What if mom has an opinion of her own on that, actually likes her Android phone and doesn't want to be patronized by their kid, tech CEOs or whomever?
I couldn't really figure out why US cellular users stayed on SMS and MMS while the rest of the world moved to WhatsApp or Telegram.
As a US cellular user, me neither. The only reason I can think of is that iPhone users are such a large portion of all US users, and this would effectively require convincing them to use something other than iMessages just to include Android users.
Why is this even an issue? The green bubble signifies an SMS/MMS message (or a non Apple Messages, message). I don’t think any non-Apple users are upset that their chat is in a green bubble as opposed to blue.
It would have been nice if an open replacement standard for SMS/MMS had been introduced as network bandwidth improved over the last two decades, but it didn’t and instead we have a bunch of competing messaging services sending through our phone data plans. I’ve got Telegram, WhatsApp, Messages, and Google Chat to handle all the simple text/image/video messages I get from various people, and none of them standout as particularly better, I just have friends or colleagues on one of them.
Spoken like a true cult leader. They want the color of a chat bubble to become associated with status. How long before they advocate for a caste system in America based on whether you own Apple devices.
There already is one here. Many low income people don’t own iPhones. iPhone isn’t a popular or accessible choice or typically associated with prepaid cell phone providers, and if it’s available, it’s ridiculously overpriced at cell phone stores in disadvantaged communities.
That’s not on accident. Apple could, at this point, offer budget-friendly devices but they choose not to. Whenever they release a new device, it always comes in a few flavors —- all expensive.
What’s sad to me is not that most of the poor don’t own an iPhone, but the lengths I’ve seen some people go to buy one who can’t afford it, just in an effort to keep up.
It’s even worse at schools. I have a nephew who came home in tears because he was bullied for owning an Android, and begging his parents (who couldn’t afford it) to buy him an iPhone so he could fit in. When that happened, everything Apple instantly became unattractive to me; I never go into Apple stores anymore (no matter how cool the tech), and I stopped buying their products.
Of course, I think the sad part is there simply aren’t enough people like me to even move the needle enough to make Apple care, and that’s the real travesty.
I agree with everything you’re saying. Isn’t the SE supposed to be a “budget” option though? I’m not someone who keeps up with this stuff though. Hopefully it can be a learning experience for your nephew about not worrying what others thing - just looking on the bright side, then when they’re older maybe they can have the perspective of “not being cool is cool in a way”.
That's literally their policy with iMessage.