Senator Warren calls out Apple for shutting down Beeper's 'iMessage to Android' solution | TechCrunch
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U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is throwing her weight behind Beeper, the app that allowed Android users to message iPhone users via iMessage,

Senator Warren calls out Apple for shutting down Beeper’s ‘iMessage to Android’ solution::U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is throwing her weight behind Beeper, the app that allowed Android users to message iPhone users via iMessage,

  • Kalash@feddit.chEnglish
    1240·
    11 months ago

    Who the hell uses iMessage? Do some people really only have friends with apple phones?

    • TurboDiesel@lemmy.worldEnglish
      302·
      11 months ago

      iPhones have the largest share of the US smartphone market. iMessage is the default messaging app on every iPhone, and cannot be changed. Ergo, iMessage is one of the top 5 largest messaging apps in the US. I believe it’s number 3 or 4 behind FB Messenger, WhatsApp, and FaceTime (also an Apple product).

    • snowe@programming.devEnglish
      164·
      11 months ago

      Anyone who doesn’t want to touch a Facebook product with a thousand foot pole.

      • Gigan@lemmy.worldEnglish
        162·
        11 months ago

        And then there’s me, who doesn’t want to touch a Facebook, Apple, or Google product with a thousand foot-pole.

              • Gigan@lemmy.worldEnglish
                2·
                11 months ago

                Yes.

                As appealing as going completely off-grid is in an idealistic kind of way, I still have to function in modern sOcIeTy, which requires me to make some compromises. If you know of any quality phones that aren’t controlled by any big tech companies, let me know.

                I’ve heard of the Fairphone, unfortunately it’s not sold in the US.

                • snowe@programming.devEnglish
                  1·
                  11 months ago

                  Order one from Canada? Not sure. And of the big tech companies that control phones, Apple is by far the best (at privacy at least, repairability is on the other end of the scale), I wouldn’t touch anything made by Google or Samsung with a ten foot pole. Maybe an old windows phone? Nokia?

                  On that note though, I have a friend who literally doesn’t own a smart phone. He has a flip phone (a new one too, no clue where he bought it) and he seems to get along in society just fine. Idk. Definitely not for everyone.

    • Mereo@lemmy.caEnglish
      122·
      11 months ago

      This is largely a North American problem. More than 50% of phones are iPhone, and the de facto texting for iPhone users is iMessage. While WhatsApp is the default IM for most of the rest of the world, it’s iMessage in North America.

      • TrickDacy@lemmy.worldEnglish
        61·
        11 months ago

        I’m so annoyed by people dismissing a standard protocol for sending messages builtin to phones and the networks they run on as unnecessary. We should have choice, but why in the fuck should we not have the most basic fucking infrastructure already in place that works with every device and without needing a new account/ app and needing to wrangle people we know into using the that app? I truly don’t get why people seem against a fucking standard just because they found a workaround for not having one

        • brbposting@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          41·
          11 months ago

          So much incredible UX design work has been undertaken by the experts in charge of it… then we’re forced to reassess solutions (Signal or Telegram?), remarket them (everybody download this app!), support them (no grandma when you don’t have your glasses Siri can’t send Signal messages).

          Great job with your stock Apple and for driving the blind to tears with such excellent accessibility features and epic hardware… but you suck for stigmatizing kids’ digital lives and causing so much duplicative effort and confusion in the messaging space.

      • Kalash@feddit.chEnglish
        93·
        11 months ago

        Yes, apprently. I didn’t know that. I think less then 10% of the people I know have iPhones. It’s all Android.

          • brbposting@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            11·
            11 months ago

            And wildly different economic realities. The difference between three months and five days of salary to buy an iPhone 15 (roughly comparing India & USA).

            • Ghostalmedia@lemmy.worldEnglish
              3·
              11 months ago

              Lots of rich countries have Android dominant mobile markets. Europe is full of them. Example, Germany.

    • lhx@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      11 months ago

      Yes. Most of my family / peers have iPhones. So iMessage is the standard for them. We use signal for the rest.

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
      33·
      11 months ago

      I’d assume some people use it when it’s available and just use regular texts or something like Signal for non apple contacts.

      I’d be really surprised if anyone only uses it and just never talks to anyone with an android…

      • Ghostalmedia@lemmy.worldEnglish
        21·
        11 months ago

        Like RCS, iMessage falls back to SMS / MMS (aka “green bubbles”) if iMessage isn’t available.

        People still talk cross-platform, but people dislike the drop in media quality / functionality when they get kicked to the old protocol.