It’s odd watching this from Europe, where cross platform third party messaging platforms are ubiquitous. Nobody seems to care about blue or green bubbles because they are all using WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook Messenger or one of the many others.
Reminds of the days of old instant messaging, where different regions, or social groups even, would favour MSN Messenger, Yahoo, ICQ, AOL Messenger etc.
I can only speak for myself: In my circle, 99% of people are on WhatsApp with a handful on Signal. I have never come across the issue where I didn’t know how to contact someone. There’s badges and notifications, using multiple apps has been a solved problem on smartphones for 10 years.
It would be slightly nicer to have everything in one app, but it’s a non-issue for me at least.
Im using 4 different messenger apps and i dont really need to track it. If people sent you a message, i just open and respond. I have an iphone and i dont use iMessage at all. I think Europe is different to USA.
Europe has had the benefit of not having Apple building walls through the smartphone market as much as they have here. Americans flocked to them and elected them the trend setters, and Apple’s design philosophy is as aggressively closed as it can possibly be. So we have an entire generation now raised with Apple devices in hand that balk at the idea of using anything else, meanwhile Apple keeps competitors locked out of the ecosystem.
Apple has trained far too many Americans to never, ever think beyond the defaults; downloading another app to talk to people is verboten.
Europe has had a properly competitive smartphone market where all the major players are using the same open system, so none of them are setting trends that the others can’t follow.
That’s a ridiculous take. Before I entered the Apple walled garden, ok, long before, my favorite texting app was Pidgin. Open source, cross platform, yadda yadda … tried to integrate with all then common texting protocols. Can you really not understand the convenience of that integration?
If Apple supports RCS in a separate app, I won’t use it even if it is installed by default.
If Apple integrates it into iMessage like they did with SMS, ill use t all the time _as a better user experience _
Apple is doing the same thing in Europe as it is the US. The difference is that people in Europe switched to WhatsApp, where people in the US stayed on SMS and got used to iMessage. It’s a group dynamic problem, not a problem that Apple is forcing upon anyone or not allowing (although it could do something against it, but why should they).
Also: not every major smartphone company in Europe is using the “same open system”, Apple is very much here as well.
It’s odd watching this from Europe, where cross platform third party messaging platforms are ubiquitous. Nobody seems to care about blue or green bubbles because they are all using WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook Messenger or one of the many others.
Reminds of the days of old instant messaging, where different regions, or social groups even, would favour MSN Messenger, Yahoo, ICQ, AOL Messenger etc.
Is it not really annoying to have four or five different messaging apps to contact different people? How do you keep track of who is on what?
At least with SMS/RCS, I know everybody that I want to contact can receive it.
I can only speak for myself: In my circle, 99% of people are on WhatsApp with a handful on Signal. I have never come across the issue where I didn’t know how to contact someone. There’s badges and notifications, using multiple apps has been a solved problem on smartphones for 10 years.
It would be slightly nicer to have everything in one app, but it’s a non-issue for me at least.
WhatsApp and telegram are currently the best options for most people. I prefer signal but people just won’t use it because they haven’t heard of it
Signal will definitely be the app I’ll migrate to if WhatsApp annoys enough people to make them want to switch.
Im using 4 different messenger apps and i dont really need to track it. If people sent you a message, i just open and respond. I have an iphone and i dont use iMessage at all. I think Europe is different to USA.
WhatsApp, telegram really covers 99% of my contacts, private or work. My parents use sms (60)
Signal is not very wide spread, mostly used for texts you want to protect for whatever reason.
I would consider it very odd if somebody writes on iMessage , iMessage was shit for groups when WhatsApp did it better.
Europe has had the benefit of not having Apple building walls through the smartphone market as much as they have here. Americans flocked to them and elected them the trend setters, and Apple’s design philosophy is as aggressively closed as it can possibly be. So we have an entire generation now raised with Apple devices in hand that balk at the idea of using anything else, meanwhile Apple keeps competitors locked out of the ecosystem.
Apple has trained far too many Americans to never, ever think beyond the defaults; downloading another app to talk to people is verboten.
Europe has had a properly competitive smartphone market where all the major players are using the same open system, so none of them are setting trends that the others can’t follow.
That’s a ridiculous take. Before I entered the Apple walled garden, ok, long before, my favorite texting app was Pidgin. Open source, cross platform, yadda yadda … tried to integrate with all then common texting protocols. Can you really not understand the convenience of that integration?
If Apple supports RCS in a separate app, I won’t use it even if it is installed by default.
If Apple integrates it into iMessage like they did with SMS, ill use t all the time _as a better user experience _
Apple is doing the same thing in Europe as it is the US. The difference is that people in Europe switched to WhatsApp, where people in the US stayed on SMS and got used to iMessage. It’s a group dynamic problem, not a problem that Apple is forcing upon anyone or not allowing (although it could do something against it, but why should they).
Also: not every major smartphone company in Europe is using the “same open system”, Apple is very much here as well.